Susan McKeown is an Irish folk singer. She was born on February 6, 1967 in Terenure, Dublin, Ireland.Susan briefly attended the Municipal College of Music in Dublin as a teenager before abandoning a promising opera career in order to sing folk and rock.

Together with John Doyle, McKeown formed The Chanting House in 1989. They released a cassette-only album called "The Chanting House" in 1990.Upon graduating from University College Dublin McKeown was awarded a scholarship to attend The American Musical and Dramatic Academy in Manhattan.

So in 1990, with a bursary from The Arts Council of Ireland she relocated to New York City.It was the release of "Bones" in 1995, an album of searing original songs with her take on a centuries-old keen (caoineadh) and a classic arrangement of Robert Burns' "Westlin' Winds" (later recorded by Fairport Convention) which secured her reputation as an inventive, emotion-centered singer-songwriter, and launched her solo touring and recording career.