Orla initially studied German and French at UCD in the Faculty of Arts. In 1993 she met Dolf Patijn, a native of Groningen, the Netherlands, and between 1994 and 2000 lived in Groningen. After returning to Ireland, in 2001 she went to Limerick School of Art and Design and studied Fine Art Painting, graduating in 2004.

 Orla grew up in a household full of songs and stories – her late father Paddy Clancy (1922-1998) was a singer, storyteller and occasional actor, best known as the eldest of the Clancy Brothers, the folk singers who brought Ireland to a global audience through songs and stories. In private Paddy was a great man for the books, he and his wife Mary were both avid readers and instilled a love of literature and poetry in all their children. For many Paddy was a figure on a stage with a peaked cap, an Aran sweater and a wonderful baritone singing voice; at home he was a dairy and beef farmer who recited poetry and quoted Shakespeare, loved opera and theatre, would marvel at innovations in computer and Internet technology, taught his family to mind books and would drive them mad asking how to spell words for crossword puzzles.

Orla’s mother Mary Flannery Clancy (1938-2023) was a creative person in her own right - an early practitioner of yoga, Mary taught yoga at various adult education centres in the south-east of Ireland for many years, in addition to running the dairy and beef farm. She was also adept at sewing and created one-off items of clothing for herself and her daughters, and took up painting in her sixties. Also an avid reader, she would sometimes give her husband Paddy the ‘wrong’ spelling for his crossword puzzles, just for fun.

Orla Clancy and Dolf Patijn live in County Limerick. Dolf Patijn works in health care and is an accomplished photographer and musician.