A Tribute To Nicky Ryan, 1946-2025

It started with a phone call. A familiar voice on the other end. “Hi, it’s Daniel here."

I didn’t need to be told. The name had come up on the screen of my phone: Daniel Aigle. Which isn’t a name at all, but a kind of shorthand. My first response was to smile. It’s always been a pleasure talking to Daniel.

His real name is Daniel Polley. He’s a driver – a racing driver – who played maybe a decade and a half ago (or was it two?), for the mighty men of Hot Press Munchegladbach. A striker, he was extremely quick, as if he was always a man in a hurry. That made sense for a guy who, even then, was already testing his mettle on the international motor racing circuit. He really was in a hurry.

Our connection with Daniel came about through Nicky and Roma Ryan, who since the early 1980s – alongside a certain Eithne Ní Bhraonáin –  made up the creative trio that operates under the Enya crest.

Daniel is son in law to Nicky and Roma, who built a small studio in the back garden of their three-bedroomed house in Artane almost 45 years ago. They called it Aigle Studios. The name – the French for eagle – was also used for their production company, ensuring its longevity when they moved their base from Artane to Killiney. The first time I was given Daniel’s number, I wasn’t sure what his proper name was, and so I entered something it’d be easy to remember.

Daniel Aigle.

He’s lucky it wasn’t ‘Football’. There’s a lot of guys in my contact list whose second name is Football: Abraham, Adam, Amin, Antonio, Arthur – and that’s just the As. There’s 26 letters in the alphabet. A lot of footballs.

“Roma asked me to call you,” Daniel said. “We’ve got some very bad news. She wanted me to let you know that Nicholas died yesterday.”

It was like a punch to the solar plexus. I felt winded. Whatever inconsequential rubbish had been bothering me a few minutes previously was gone completely. This was something that mattered, that really mattered.

Nicky Ryan and Roma Ryan

The immediate emotions are impossible to describe, a hundred thoughts racing through the synapses in a matter of seconds, images from the past, handshakes and hugs, lunches and parties, black and white pictures from the early days of Clannad – and then the fateful news that Enya had joined the group.

The split. The years spent in the wilderness. The beginning of the resurgence with The Celts album and film. ‘Orinoco Flow’. Watermark. Instant acclaim that had been years in the making. And then successfully riding the waves – “Sail away / Sail away / Sail away” – on a marvellous voyage into the unknown that just kept on getting better. A Day Without Rain hitting No.2 in the US. Sales rising, and rising, till Enya had sold 60million albums, then 70, then 80.

And now this. I said what I could. Asked Daniel to pass on our love to Roma and to Enya. In my mind’s eye I could see Nicky smiling. But the only word I could think of as I put down the phone was: “Fuck.”

The world doesn’t stop. No matter what’s going on in your own life, these days the news spits in your face. That same 24-hours, 11 September 2025, 72 Palestinians were killed and 350 others injured in Israeli attacks on Gaza. An ongoing horror show in which 65,000 people have been butchered has led, this week, to the repulsive sight of Donald Trump and Benjamin Netanyahu cosying up to one another like inflatable boy scouts with particularly evil smirks.

Trump has what he calls a “peace plan” for Gaza. It wasn’t discussed with a single Palestinian, even though it is supposed – in part at least – to be about saving Palestinian lives. It steals more land – a “buffer zone” – for Israel. It offers no proper commitment to a Two-State Solution, nor does it address the land theft by so cazlled ‘settlers’ in the West Bank. It instals Donald Trump himself as Chairman of the Governing Body, making him the de facto potentate – the sultan – of the strip.

The ‘plan’ is accompanied by an ultimatum. Hamas are kindly informed that they have “three or four” days to accept it. “We have one signature we need,” Donald Trump threatened, ever the mafioso. “And that signature will pay in hell if they don’t sign.” His use of the English language may be inept, but the threat of massive violence is real. Innocent civilians do not merit a mention – they’re there to be massacred at the whim of the US President or even more systematically by the Israeli army.

Netanyahu’s clipped, sycophantic rejoinder was almost harder to take. “If Hamas rejects your plan, Mr. President,” he said, fawning furiously, “or if they supposedly accept it and then basically do everything to counter it, then Israel will finish the job by itself.”

The ‘job’ of genocide.

The phone silent, there was a news story to be written.

You have to start somewhere.

Hot Press is very sad to have learned this morning of the death of the great Irish producer, Nicky Ryan.

The great Irish producer. The cogs turning. I hope that doesn’t sound like faint praise. We could say more as we went along.

Nicky was the brilliant mastermind who crafted the sound of Enya, guiding the Donegal singer to global superstardom alongside his partner and song lyricist, Roma Ryan.

“We are absolutely devastated,” a family member told Hot Press this morning.

Hot Press understands that Nicky had gone into hospital for tests, but there were sudden complications.

I had to choose my own words carefully. You always have to in the immediate aftermath of someone’s death, but this was a different challenge. Nicky Ryan was no ordinary man.

“This is a completely shocking loss of one of Ireland’s all-time greats,” I opened, hammering away at the keyboard.

What do I say next? Mostly, doing something urgent and emotional like this, I try to let it flow. You can always go back and tweak the language later, but the first version is often the best.

“I loved Nicky and the great maverick strain that he had in his approach to life and to music. I met him first back when he was the live sound engineer with Planxty – and you could tell from those gigs that he had something special. His attention to detail was amazing.”

I thought again of the brilliantly ramshackle pics that accompanied a piece that my brother Dermot did on the road with Clannad in 1978. Nicky smiling. Good times!

“He and Roma had a great rapport with the Hot Press gang, through the Clannad years,” I typed, “and then when he began the Enya project with Enya herself and Roma. For me, it was one of the truly special moments in Irish music when the vision that they shared came good so spectacularly with the release of the Watermark album – which of course contained the world-beating No.1 single ‘Orinoco Flow’. I was thrilled for Nicky, Roma and Enya because they were so strongly motivated by the desire to make great music, unconstrained by any kind of commercial considerations.”

That thought was fresh in my mind. I was trawling through some old Hot Presses recently, working on a memoir, when I came across the quote from Enya. The interview took place before Watermark was released and so it wasn’t by way of exculpation. It was the truth. The music always came first for Enya, for Nicky and for Roma.

Time racing: we needed to push on. When there’s an urgent news story, it is a matter of professional pride for everyone involved in Hot Press to get it live as quickly as possible. But, at that moment, it seemed even more important to remind people of the unique chemistry that has always bound the Enya collective, as well as praising Nicky.

“It took three people to achieve the unprecedented success that Enya has enjoyed – but throughout her extraordinary career, Nicky’s guiding hand behind the control desk was of absolutely central importance. I remember comparing his work to the famous Phil Spector Wall of Sound – and that still makes sense to me. Nicky knew how to build something epic while still retaining the delicacy, and the spirituality, that define Enya’s body of work.”

No point in trying to say too much either. Someone was buzzing me. There were three WhatsApp messages to look at. About 20 new emails. A couple of texts.

We have to get this story live. Fingers over keyboard.

“To say that Nicky is a huge loss to Irish music is a massive understatement. But he will also be missed enormously by those who knew him personally. He was great company and had a wicked sense of humour. Ultimately, I think we can say that he was a great man, who liked for the most part to stay in the background. But I will regret forever that there will be no more calls and no more conversations with a man I loved – and respected enormously.”

It never feels adequate. There is so much more that you could say. But there is a risk also that you can stray off the point, and start to sound self-indulgent.

I looked back over the story, and how it flowed with the quotes included. You could never do the complexity of the man justice in a few sentences, but it felt okay. We could run with it.

My mind was racing now. Get someone on the team to press the button to publish. Line up the social media. Breathe in. Breathe out. Breathe in. Breathe out.

“Who can say where the road goes? / Where the day flows? Only time…”

Sadness isn’t in it.

Around the same moment, the line-up for the race to the Áras was finalising itself. There had been a theory that Bob Geldof might have a run at it. In the end, with a slew of Boomtown Rats gigs locked in over the campaign period, he decided it wasn’t practical.

Bah! It would have been fun for one thing. Geldof has ten times the charisma of the three official candidates combined. He would have lifted the debates to another level. I’d also like to have seen the idealistic young businessman Gareth Sheridan get a nomination. Instead, we are left with a choice between an ex-Army man and Dublin football manager, Jim Gavin, representing Fianna Fáil; the former Minister for this, that and the other, Heather Humphries, on the Fine Gael ticket; and Catherine Connolly, a candidate supported by the parties of the left, including Sinn Féin.

I know: there’s a problem here. We have enjoyed fourteen years with the greatest President of Ireland of them all in Michael D. Higgins. One suspects that whoever follows can only be a pale shadow, trailing in his wake. Catherine Connolly has made some bizarre decisions in the past, supporting the Presidential candidacy of Dana – against Michael D. in 2011 – and more bizarrely still, that of Gemma O’Doherty in 2018. But my inclination to lean to the left means that I’ll give my No.1 to Connolly – though, as we know, the final week of a Presidential campaign can change everything.

“May I join with all those who have expressed their sadness on learning of the death of Nicky Ryan,” our current President Michael D. Higgins said in a statement.

“Nicky Ryan, an accomplished music producer, recording engineer and manager, will be best remembered for his decades-long partnership with Enya.

“Nicky Ryan’s contribution to Enya’s music was immense. Together with the lyrical skill of his partner, Roma Ryan, Nicky’s production played a major role in Enya’s enormous global success, underpinning her work with a distinctive sound, which has made so much of Enya’s work unique.

“May I express my deepest condolences to Roma, to their daughters Persia and Ebony, to Enya and to all those with whom Nicky collaborated, and to his many friends and colleagues.”

President Michael D Higgins with Enya

A humanist ceremony to celebrate Nicky Ryan’s life took place in the National Maritime Museum of Ireland, Dun Laoghaire. It was simple, beautiful and moving and freighted with meaning for those in attendance. It opened with a choir singing ‘All You Need Is Love’, by The Beatles. Nicky was a huge fan.

“Loving husband, father, grandfather, father-in-law, brother, uncle, friend, colleague,” the celebrant Judith Cuffe said,  “Nicky was many things to many people, and we gather here to honour and pay tribute to his life. Together, we demonstrate support for his nearest and dearest as we shed a tear, share a laugh, listen to beautiful music and send him off as he deserves, with enormous gratitude for his contributions to music, art, and our lives.”

Roma Ryan’s sister Michelle read poems written by Roma for Nicholas, beginning with the beautiful ‘I Stitch Your Wounds’. Nicky’s nephew James O’Keefe and his great friend Owen Roe spoke with wit, wisdom and enormous affection of the man they knew and loved.

We heard Enya’s ‘Only Time’ and ‘May It Be’ sung by the choir; recordings of ‘Nicky’s Song’ by Midnight Well,  Bryan Ferry’s ‘Avalon’ and a triptych of Enya tracks, featuring ‘The Humming’, ‘Stars and Midnight Blue’ and ‘Watermark’, the subtlety and distinctiveness of Nicky’s production hand hovering beautifully in the Museum air as people made their way to the exit.

Outside, we talked and hugged. The day was bright, but there was no mistaking the sombre note that defined the moment. A song filtered through from some inner archive. “Remember when you were young/ You shone like the sun/ Shine on you crazy diamond…”

He will shine on through his extraordinary music – and through his lovely family. Nicky Ryan is survived by his partner Roma Ryan, and by their daughters Persia and Ebony. And, of course, by Enya. Ní fheichimíd a leithéad arís.