Enya Lives In A Literal Castle With Just Her Cats And It'll Honestly Give You New Life Goals

If you needed to accentuate an emotional moment in a 90s movie, then you needed to call Enya.

Her new age tunes make you feel all kinds of emotions, and while you may not be able to fully understand what she's saying, you felt at ease while the song is on.

The Irish singer has managed to become one of the richest singers in the UK even though she rarely performs live, and she lives such a reclusive life that there is a lot of mystery surrounding her.

Here's what the singer's life is actually like, now that she's made all that money.

Enya lives in a castle

That's right. A literal castle.

After selling over 75 million albums in the 90s, the star made enough money to buy a castle. It's called Manderley Castle and it's near Dublin, right near Bono's house.

When she moved in she did a lot of renovations to add security gates, cameras, and lights, but she has always kept to herself.

Even when she was at her peak popularity, Enya tended to keep to herself.

“My private lifestyle bothers a lot of people. I don’t like anybody else’s opinion. It’s not a hanging offence not wanting to go to nightclubs. What happened to choice?” She said.

She likes to stay in her six bedroom home a lot of the time, and really can you blame her?

“I open those shutters, and the sea, it’s different ev-er-y day,” she says. “It’s very inspiring to me. I just look at the view, and if it’s overcast and raining, no matter: I never tire of it.”

The story of the castle is pretty impressive. Enya explained how she came to be the owner.

“The exterior of the castle was built in 1840, in honor of the young queen, and called Victoria Castle.

"It was placed on the hill, and he was hoping to entice Queen Victoria to come to visit. It was her second year on the throne. But she never came.

“There was a fire in the 1900s, and it sat for several years. Someone sent me an old clipping of it just sitting, with no roof, just the walls, and it was so very sad.

"Then, it was bought, by a whiskey heir, and he called it Ayesha. But then it passed through some hands, and when I bought it, it didn’t know what it was.

"Victorian, but also trying to be a tourist castle?

"The inside was all dark, gloomy, but I wanted to make it very much a home. I brought in pretty chandeliers, redid everything.

"I made it very romantic again. And because of doing all that, I thought, I should change the name."

She named the castle after the book "Rebecca" by Daphne du Maurier which was turned into a movie by Alfred Hitchcock.

Enya lives with a whole bunch of cats as well as a few staff members who take care of her estate.

Enya doesn't tour or do many interviews

While most singers help improve their album sales by touring or doing a ton of press, Enya feels like that just isn't her brand.

Even all the way back in 1997 she was sure that she wasn't someone who could handle the touring life.

"I'm known more for my music than for who I am. The mystery has revolved around the fact that I don't tour and that I don't do a lot of promotional work either. Other artists, they'll do a lot more chat shows, more press.

"I don't know - maybe some people enjoy being talked about or being in the papers. I find I love talking about the music - and then that's it. I like that it's not dependent on what I do or say to introduce or sell the music to people. The music does it by itself."

There's another reason why she doesn't like doing a lot of public appearances, and it's because she's worried it will affect her process.

“I’d do the promotion and I’d enjoy talking about the music – but then it was back to work on another album.

"And it was important to me to retain privacy, because I was kind of worried that fame might interfere with my writing, with my music; that it might have changed what I was working on.

"I was guarding everything really carefully and closely.”

Enya's music is in many languages

You may be able to pick up a few words in an Enya song, but the songs are written in a way that it makes it hard to actually understand everything.

That's because each song has multiple languages woven together, including one that she made up.

Apparently her songs mix the English, Gaelic and Latin languages with JRR Tolkien's languages Sidara and Quexian, but she also throws in a fifth language that she developed with her recording partner, Roma Ryan, called Loxian.

Ryan calls the language "purely artistic" and that it wasn't originally intended to be used more than once.

"Loxian began its life as a series of sounds. It was originally meant for only one song, and was to have no meaning, to be a 'soundscape'...

"I had difficulty with the idea of having purely sounds in the song, and so began to create a meaning and a history behind them purely for myself. Then, as Enya wanted to use the ‘sounds’ or ‘words’ in two other tracks, Loxian was born...

"I was not trying to create a new language, per se. Yet ironically, even now, the Loxian language continues to grow.”

Enya's music is her true love

Enya's passion for her music is what keeps her going. She doesn't feel as though she needs to spend all of her time trying to find a relationship, she just lives in her castle and then makes a record ever 5-7 years.

She has spoken about what she thinks of love, marriage, and how it would affect her, and it's a lot different from what most people say they want.

“Falling madly in love and getting married would be the most horrific thing that could happen. My affairs are with melody and words and beautiful sounds.

"I had partners. But I find long relationships, well, how can I say it without appearing strange?

"I’m too much devoted to my music. Some people think it sounds sad but believe me, I’m happy. I am my music.”

While the star remains an enigma to most of the world, it's nice to know that she's happy with her life, and living the dream in a literal castle.

Enya isn't the only 90s star to have vanished from the spotlight. Macy Gray had a huge hit in the 90s and then seemed to fall out of the spotlight. But she has opened up about her drug use and what the sudden fame really cost her.

And even though he wasn't a singer, Macaulay Culkin was HUGE in the 90s. Recently he has started making his way back into the public eye, and he appeared on Ellen to open up about his 90s hits and what it was like to be a child star.

Sources - Irish Times / Mirror / Buzzfeed / Independent / Book of Days / Wikipedia