[3][4] McEvoy graduated from Trinity with an Honors Degree in music in 1988, and spent four months busking in New York City.

McEvoy built up a following in clubs in Dublin with her three-piece band, Jim Tate on bass, Noel Eccles on drums, and latterly Bill Shanley on guitar.

Mary Black, of whose band McEvoy was a member, was in the audience and invited her to add the track to an album of Irish female artists.

[citation needed] The album was subsequently titled A Woman's Heart and the track was released as the lead single.

[2] Eleanor McEvoy, her first album, recorded in Windmill Lane Studios, was released in February 1993, and tours in the United States, Asia, and Europe followed.

The single "Precious Little" became a top-10 radio hit in the United States, giving McEvoy the exposure she needed for a headline tour of the US.

"... her sophisticated voice and compassionate seasoned lyrics ... make Eleanor McEvoy's album a gem...." declared The Boston Globe,[5] while The Sunday Times described it as "her strongest album to date, with well-appointed social comment topics...McEvoy's take on matters emotional also hits pay dirt with the likes of the excellent 'Did You Tell Him?

Participating artists included Al Stewart, Roy Harper, Bernard Butler, Donovan, and Ralph McTell.

International press lauded it as "a back to basics triumph", "beautifully restrained", "a classic", and "McEvoy's best release to date".

It was self-penned, self-produced and featured McEvoy performing all of the instruments with the exception of a guitar part on "Quote I Love You Unquote" played by Dave Rotheray (formerly of Beautiful South) and the drumming of Liam Bradley (Van Morrison, Ronan Keating) on three tracks.

The lead single, "Old, New, Borrowed and Blue", written by McEvoy and long-time friend Dave Rotheray (Beautiful South/Homespun), is a twist on the jaundiced over-optimism of the standard wedding song.

[9] In 2008, McEvoy toured from January to November in the UK, Australia, Spain, Germany, Poland and Ireland, with additional one-off dates in the Far East and elsewhere in Europe, including an appearance at Glastonbury in June 2008.

In 2019, the two-year collaboration with Chris Gollon featured in the three-month major museum retrospective at Huddersfield Art Gallery, showing Gollon's music-related works and including the canvas 'Gimme Some Wine – Final Version', for which Eleanor McEvoy made a special recording of the song 'Gimme Some Wine'.

Eleanor McEvoy, Mary Coughlan, Sharon Shannon, Dolores Keane, Wallis Bird, and Hermione Hennessy were on the bill.

The Secret of Living, a song written by McEvoy, was released in July 2012 to celebrate the 20th Anniversary of the iconic A Woman's Heart.

The song is performed by McEvoy, Mary Coughlan, Sharon Shannon, Gemma Hayes, and Hermione Hennessey.

In a review from Hot Press, The Secret of Living was described as a classy new single from the A Woman's Heart group.

[15] McEvoy's fourth album Yola drew favourable attention from the Hi-Fi press and market as one of the first original titles recorded specifically for SACD.

With the collaboration of sound designer, the world's first-ever SACD single "Did I Hurt You" (Market Square MSMSACD114) was released from the same album.

To this day Yola is regarded as a Hi-Fi industry standard and is used by high-end audio companies to test speakers.

Early Hours was the first to use TiMax (unique audio imaging) technology, mixed in 5.1 surround sound onto multi-channel SACD.