When her family moved to Dublin, she attended Chatham Street Music College where she played to violin.
Several members of her family pursued careers in the arts, her brother Ciarán (stage name Kieron Moore) was a film and television actor, while her brother, Fachtna, was director of music at RTÉ Radio, and her sister, Bláithín, played the harp with the National Symphony Orchestra.
For a long period she read poetry on Mo Cheol Thú, an activity she continued for many years after formally retiring from the REP in 1988.
[1] In 1948 she married Cork civil servant Seán Ó Briain, and they had three children, Doireann, Nuala and Éanna.
[5] After her husband died in 1991, she sold her Howth cottage in Dublin and returned to her native Skibbereen.