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Her career began at the age of four when she took piano lessons, taking up violin at the age of eight. Upon finishing school she attended Trinity College in Dublin where she studied music by day and worked in pit orchestras and music clubs by night.

Eleanor graduated from Trinity and was accepted into the National Symphony Orchestra of Ireland where she worked four years before finally taking the plunge to concentrate on her passion for songwriting.

After a long hard slog, the girl who spent the year of 1988 busking in Union Square, New York had come a long way, a route that took her through the disciplines of classical music, Irish traditional music and contemporary music to a point where she finally found success in 1992.

It happened when one of her songs "Only a Woman's Heart" inspired the title for, and appeared on, the "A Woman's Heart" anthology album. It has since gone on to become the best selling album in Irish history, staying in the Irish Top 10 for over a year.

Since then Eleanor has gone on to become an artist and performer known throughout the world. Her critically acclaimed canon of work spans seven albums, several singles and appearances on numerous compilation albums and is today recognised as Ireland’s most successful female singer songwriter having enjoyed personal chart success and numerous cover versions of her songs. (Emmylou Harris, Mary Black, Phil Coulter, amongst others). Her song 'All I Have' features in the lastest series of the HBO cult series “Six Feet Under”

Her co-writing song credits have seen her published with fellow writers and performers such as Rodney Crowell, Lloyd Cole, Johnny Rivers, Brad Parker, Henry Priestman and Dave Rotheray.

Eleanor released her seventh album "Love Must Be Tough" in mid-2008. The album takes an entirely new twist for Eleanor - in a direction first hinted at on her fifth album "Early Hours." With a supporting cast of Ireland’s finest musicians in the form of the South King Street Band, Eleanor takes a retro ride back to the late fifties / early sixties birth of rock and roll replete with ragtime jazz trumpets, trombones and saxes. Originally conceived as a covers album based on the theme of hitting 40 and mid-life crises, "Love Must Tough" has emerged as a hybrid - mainly covers/interpretations, but mixed with an original and a clutch of co-written numbers. Even the cover artwork has a typically 60’s layout. The album opens with a quirky almost boss nova version of the 1965 Jagger/Richards penned 'Mother’s Little Helper', the line ‘what a drag it is getting old’ setting the scene for the whole album. It is followed by the title track - co-written with Johnny Rivers, a track as good as anything Eleanor’s delivered. It’s got a chorus to die for and is an album highlight. As is 'Old New Borrowed And Blue', one of two tracks co-written with The Beautiful South’s Dave Rotheray. Every track has something special to offer, and the reviews have been glowing:

Truck & Driver “Album of the Month” 5 out of 5 stars. If you’ve yet to come across Eleanor McEvoy, this superb blend of covers and originals is the perfect place to start. Like a female Van Morrison, she swings from the Stones to Dave Edmunds and from country to jazz and the most booze-sodden balladry since the Pogues. Tough-skinned and soft-hearted, or maybe the other way round, McEvoy sounds like the sort of woman who might greet you with a bottle of red one night and a rolling pin the next.

Word Magazine Irish singer-songwriter Eleanor McEvoy pulls off a bit of a first by covering songs originally sung and written by men. The songs range from Jagger and Richard’s “Mother’s Little Helper” through Sly Stone’s “If You Want Me To Stay” to the gem “Shame On The Moon” from the pen of country songwriter Rodney Crowell.

BBC Radio 4 Loose Ends Clive Anderson declares Eleanor McEvoy’s live performance of ‘Old New Borrowed and Blue’ “Excellent”

BBC Radio 2 Terry Wogan Terry comments after playing ‘Old New Borrowed and Blue.’ “Yeah we love that, that’s a good one huh? We”ll hear more of that again.”

Irish Times Launching her latest collection with a surprisingly jazz-tinged cover of the Jagger/Richards Mother's Little Helper, Eleanor McEvoy goes against the grain yet again. That unmistakeable voice, that determinedly undiluted accent trip-hop across the rooftops of self-penned, pitch-perfect pop (Love Must Be Tough) and then lollop across a songbook that's littered with gemstones borrowed from Butch Hancock, Rodney Crowell, Nick Lowe and Terry Allen. McEvoy's facility with everything from Tex-Mex country (He Never Spoke Spanish to Me) to the straight up three-chord trickery of I Knew the Bride (When She Used to Rock 'n Roll) is a timely reminder of what sets a musician apart: a hunger for exploration and a deep-seated talent for exploring the darker corners of both music and life.