She competed in the national song contest in 1968 singing Ballad to a Boy,[3] and became a resident singer in the RTÉ Light Orchestra.
Bushnell represented Ireland at a number of international contests and festivals as a solo artist, releasing a few singles and an unsuccessful album with CBS Records, Are you ready (1977).
She was a regular in stage musicals from the mid to later 1970s, in productions such as the tribute shows to Jacques Brel (1974) and Bing Crosby (1978), sometimes performing alongside her brother John Kavanagh.
[1] In 1984 Bushnell starred in a musical based on the life of Édith Piaf, No regrets, written specially for her by Leland Bardwell.
Her cabaret act in the late 1980s was highly successful, featuring big numbers by Brel, Garland, and Piaf.
[1][2] Bushnell struggled with depression brought on initially by an underactive thyroid, and later exacerbated by her father's death and her husband's unemployment in the late 1980s.
Disheartened by the lack of recognition in Ireland and her family's financial difficulties, she considered emigrating or returning to her career as a typist.