Her second album garnered her a 2007 Choice Music Prize nomination and the 2008 Meteor Award for Best Irish Female and spawned a number of successful singles, including "Reuben", "Moving", and "Sing for Your Supper".
She has also performed at other large exhibitions and festivals in Ireland, including Electric Picnic, Indie-pendence and The Music Show.
Davey has worked with Autamata, Elbow and The Duckworth Lewis Method as well as providing support for Graham Coxon, R.E.M.
[15] She initially intended to be an artist and to develop her interest in music in her leisure time but the offer of a record deal changed that.
[10] His colleague John Meagher opined, "you won't see Björk heft a guitar half so diligently".
It tends to lift as soon as I stop fixating on it—I remember thinking my house was the problem, and I'd need to go to France in order to write, and I would have been scared without Rex [her dog].
[2]Cathy Davey first came to be known as a backing vocalist alongside Carol Keogh for Ken McHugh's project Autamata.
[21] McHugh and Davey subsequently collaborated on what Hot Press described as "a mixture of otherworldly indie and soft space age melodica".
[22] Her four-track debut EP, "Come Over", released in 2004, and in which she "swoops and yelps her way through proceedings with her distinctive voice", was described by the magazine as "inviting comparisons with others before deciding that she'd rather be completely unique if it's all the same with you".
[23] Davey's debut album, Something Ilk, was recorded at a studio in Wales,[13] produced by Ben Hillier whose previous credits included Blur and Elbow,[24] and released in 2004.
[4] Despite this, the Irish Independent described her as "very talented—far more so than [Gemma] Hayes" but regretted that she had "failed to find an audience for her fine debut Something Ilk".
[26] Davey performed a nationwide tour in late May 2007, debuting songs from her follow-up album which she initially referred to as Silversleeve.
[13] The album, released under the title Tales of Silversleeve and produced by Liam Howe of Sneaker Pimps,[28] was preceded by "Reuben", its first single, on 21 September 2007.
[4] This proved to be a successful move as it led to a Choice Music Prize nomination for 2007 Irish Album of the Year.
[33] Jim Carroll, The Irish Times rock critic, called it "The most charming pop album you'll hear in Zero Seven".
[10] Another song, "Sing for Your Supper", was described by the Irish Independent's Ed Power as "her biggest smash to date".
[10] The same reviewer described Davey's song "Reuben", a number one single,[20] as "a skewed romantic tirade glazed in sugar-candy vocals".
[10] Davey's third album, The Nameless, was released on 7 May 2010 (Ireland), with contributions from Conor J. O'Brien and Neil Hannon.
[54] On 16 July 2010, to promote the second single from The Nameless album, Davey released a download only EP for "Army of Tears".
[62] She lent her vocals to the 2008 charity album Even Better Than the Disco Thing, on which she performed a cover of Donna Summer's "I Feel Love".
[63] Tony Clayton-Lea recommended the song be downloaded alongside Lisa Hannigan's cover version of "Upside Down".
[72] Working on her busy farm has meant music has taken a backseat, but she continues to write, and play live in Ireland in the meantime.
[88] Upon being embraced by and photographed alongside Sinéad O'Connor at the launch, Davey remarked on how odd it was "to put your arms around someone you don't know".