Aine Cahill

From the moment Áine Cahill made her TV debut to millions in 2016, she was set for fame. Plucked from a pub stage at Glastonbury to perform live on the BBC’s festival coverage, before Coldplay’s set on the Sunday night, she mesmerised viewers who could scarcely believe that she wasn’t already a star. In fact, the then 21 year old was a naïve newcomer from a village in County Cavan, being managed by her postman. Oh, and she’d just spent a week sleeping in a van.Overnight, Áine’s social media stats exploded. On Spotify alone, 150,000 signed up to hear more of her passionate, powerhouse vocals and selfwritten, storytelling songs. She was inundated with offers from excited industry insiders. In Ireland, radio stations added Áine to their playlists.Within weeks, she had a manager, who has represented everyone from David Bowie and Depeche Mode to the Rolling Stones and the Spice Girls.She signed to a major international booking agency renowned for representing global superstars. “It was like finding myself in a fairy tale,” says Áine. “Since the age of 19, all I’d wanted to do was make music, but I couldn’t see how that would happen.Suddenly, I could spend my days writing songs and my nights singing them. For a while, I worried that I would wake up and discover it had been a dream.”In truth, Áine’s fairy tale began two years earlier, when she stumbled acrossher astonishing voice. The sports-mad, middle child of five - she playedGaelic football for her country - had grown up with little interest in music. Shehad always assumed that she couldn’t sing - she was told to mime in thechoir at primary school and had been turned down for the choir insecondary.“No one in my family was much in to music,” recalls Áine. “We had a Britneycassette in the car and my sisters and I sometimes pretended to be the SpiceGirls, although there were only three of us. I was a tomboy who played sportsfive days a week. That was my life until I hit 16 and heard Lady Gaga doingan acoustic performanc