LIFE AFTER AN IRISH GIRLBAND Three women who lived to tell the tale

Siobhan Fahey

Quietly, and without half the fanfare or lore of our best-known legends, Dublin-born Fahey is musical royalty. She was a founding member of Bananarama, a British girl group with worldwide hits like Cruel Summer, Venus (a US number one) and Love In The First Degree. She went on to form Shakespears Sister with American singer/songwriter Marcella Detroit and scored the massive hit Stay, the bestselling song of 1992 here and in Britain. Somewhere in the middle of all this she married Dave Stewart of Eurythmics and had two sons with him. They divorced in 1996 and Fahey focused on raising her sons for a few years. Earlier this year she reformed Shakespears Sister, and the duo performed on The Graham Norton Show.

Keavy Lynch

Lynch is part of the firmament of Irish music not only by family — she is the sister of Boyzone star Shane — but also by dint of her girlband success. Keavy was one quarter of B*Witched, who had four number one hits and sold three million albums worldwide. After the band broke up Lynch launched Barbarella — another girl group that enjoyed less success than B*Witched; it was described by the Telegraph as “the most illadvised pop comeback ever”. Lynch had some mental health problems — she admitted she had suffered from depression — and eventually she decided to become a counsellor; she has a practice in London. Last year she gave birth to her first child, a daughter named Freya.

Coleen Nolan

These days Nolan might be better known for her role in the long-running ITV chat show Loose Women, but she is also part of The Nolans, a group of sisters who were big in the 1980s.

They were the children of Tommy and Maureen Nolan, who met in Clery’s ballroom and raised their family in Raheny. In search of work, the couple moved their young family to Blackpool in 1962, and the following year the group was formed.

The group achieved a top-three hit in England and had a number one in Japan. In 2009 they reformed for a tour called I’m In the Mood For

Dancing before Coleen’s beloved sister died from breast cancer.