From Claran, Co. Galway, on the shores of Lough Corrib, Breda grew up in a house full of music. She took whistle lessons with Mary Bergin from the age of seven, then took up the fiddle some years later.

Her musical influences include many greats from the canon of traditional Irish music and song, including Bobby Casey, Sarah and Rita Keane, Paddy Fahey, Paddy Canny, Joe Ryan, Patrick Kelly, Willie Clancy and Felix Doran. She gives fiddle workshops regularly at home and abroad, and teaches one- to-one lessons in Galway. Her first solo recording, The Hop Down, was released in July 2006. Reviewing it in the Journal of Music in Ireland, Dermot McLaughlin wrote: ‘A recording like this is a cause for optimism at a time when so many accents and points of difference are being smoothed out of traditional music in studio recordings and elsewhere. This hop down is really a big step up!’