Nóirín Ní Riain
Irish singer and theologian
Nóirín Ní Riain (born Nora Mary Antoinette Ryan, 12 June 1951) is an Irish singer, writer, teacher, theologian, and authority on Gregorian Chant (plainchant, plainsong). She is primarily known for spiritual songs, but also sings Celtic music, sean-nós and Indian songs. Nóirín plays an Indian harmonium (surpeti), shruti box and feadóg (whistle). She was Artist-in-Residence for Wexford and Laois. She performs with her sons Eoin and Mícheál Ó Súilleabháin under the name A.M.E.N. and gives workshops about "Sound as a Spiritual Experience".
Biography
Born in Caherconlish, County Limerick, Ní Riain studied music at University College Cork (UCC), specialising in religious music for post-graduate work. She developed as a performer, focusing particularly on religious, Irish traditional, and international religious music.
She has performed worldwide. Notable events include: the International Peace Gathering at Costa Rica to introduce the XIV Dalai Lama in 1989, the United Nations summit at Rio de Janeiro 1992, the European Cultural Month at Kraków, Poland 1992, the UN Earth Summit in Copenhagen 1995, The 40th Eurovision Song Contest 1995, and the World Women Summit in Beijing 1995. She has performed in the Royal Festival Hall with Sinéad O'Connor, with the American composer John Cage, with the sons of Karlheinz Stockhausen (Markus and Simon), with Paul Winter at summer and winter solstice concerts in the Cathedral of St John the Divine in New York, and with the Scola Gregoriana of Notre Dame University, Indiana, where she performed the leading role in Anima, by Hildegard von Bingen.
Begin with the source’s own compact description: “Nóirín Ní Riain” is irish singer and theologian. The dossier treats that line as a proposition to test through Nóirín, Riain and Irish, not as a finished interpretation.
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Biographical claims are most persuasive when dates, appointments and relationships can be traced to records created close to the events described. The source revision retrieved here is dated Jun 14, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q2279564. VIAF identifies the subject as 5125404. The Library of Congress control number is n91081037. 4 of 4 selected statements include explicit references; 0 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1951, 1989, 1992 and 1995.
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This entry incorporates text from “Nóirín Ní Riain” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.