Corr has just released a solo album, Ten Feet High. The only thing it has in common with The Corrs' records is that Andrea's voice is on it.

It's ambient and beatsy with piano-driven fantasies and it's produced by Nellee Hooper who has worked on Bjork and Massive Attack albums. The two best songs on the record . . .

'Stupidest Girl In The World' and 'Ten Feet High' . . . are the most personal ones. They contain no possessed storyline, which is how the rest of the album rolls with tales of Corr inhabiting the minds of brothel owners, war commentators, wags and desperate housewives, occasionally to great effect.

She's a little late to the interview in the fancy Four Seasons, even though she lives nearby. Her skin, glistening with moisturiser, is flawless and wrinkle-free. The only touches of make-up are smudges of pink on her eyes and naturally pouting lips. Her black hair is slightly disheveled and tied up. The interview is pre-empted by an email from her record label directing that no personal questions be asked. Corr, as every interviewer finds out, values her privacy. As well she might, given the glee with which the Irish media has linked her to every man going over the passed decade and beyond. Despite the instruction, you always think you'll ask the question anyway, although sitting one-to-one in a quiet hotel room alone with a subject as coy and slightly ill-at-ease as Andrea Corr, it seems inappropriate to bring up such matters. She might smack you one, or worse, withdraw completely, so it's probably not worth the inevitable awkwardness and glares. She tucks herself into an armchair. If she folded herself any more she'd be the world's cutest Transformer, about the size of those mini raincoats you bring to festivals.

She must be very busy at the moment.

"Mm-hmm, yeah." Hectic busy or good busy?

"It's kind of both really." Pause. "It's good." Em, riiiight. Each answer is met with a giant full stop that all but prances around the room and sucks conversation with a silent 'next question please' and crossed legs. And it's not that she's an unpleasant interviewee but the impression is that this press promotion is an obligation put upon her. There will be no revelations or even anecdotes. But she is nice and friendly and there's a little spark to suggest even fun. But it's a behind-closed-doors fun, not for the delectation of this journalist in the 20 minutes allocated to Corr's company, as she awaits the questions she wants in a pretty floral dress and simple black cardigan.

"I like your shoes, " is as wild as her comments get. Topshop, I reply. Blank. Oops, maybe that was a bit too much interaction.

Clearly more than smart, well read and articulate, she speaks slowly and deliberately.

Nothing is really off the cuff. Every word is measured and sentences are often riddled with pauses as she tilts her head, looks at the ceiling and thinks of the right thing to say "To be honest, I don't really make much plans in my life. I kinda go by destiny and a lot of things kind of aligned and kind of, kinda told me I was supposed to do this to be honest. Not in the woooo creepy twilight zone way, but the rest of the family were all either pregnant or with small babies so they needed time out."

Corr had been offered a record deal previously and it was a sort of now or never time. "I thought ok, I'm supposed to do this. So I did, yeah, I did. Definitely I pushed myself out of my comfort zone. I could've just chilled out but I suppose I'm em, I love music, I'm used to working and I'm kind of, it doesn't just stop, " she's explaining . . . almost justifying . . . why this record exists.

So Corr is a workaholic then? "No, not really. Not really, but, em, because the thing is, I think this is the way it is: if you're lucky enough to do something and work at something in your life that you really love doing, then that's kind of a blessed existence, so you're going to be happier that way if your doing it than if you're not doing it. So. You know. I kinda. I kinda. Just.

Went for it."

Corr wanted to make a record that reminded her of the records she liked, like saving money to buy a Prince record and then going to the shop to buy it and savouring every element of it. She listens to Depeche Mode, Simon and Garfunkel, Randy Newman, Leonard Cohen.

These days, arm-in-arm with Brett Desmond, son of Dermott, Corr spends a lot of her time cleaning and walking. "I actually love domestic thingsf If I'm in anyway upset, I find myself with a bottle of Pledge in my hand cleaning something. You'll know my state of mind by how clean my house is." She walks first thing in the morning when people are like "newborn babies. . . and at night time we're all old hags again". "I walk down Baggot Street and see people going in and out of work and then around Stephen's Green and down Grafton Street and into Trinity. It does have a route. I have to have a route because I have no sense of direction, " she laughs.

Back to that email from the record label. "I'm just very private. And I think, you know, I think our culture is essentially private. We're not the type of . . . I know there's a few . . . but we're not really in general the type of people who go, 'This happened to me when I was four and I'm going to cry about it.' So I think for that reason I just don't feel, I don't like to read about my personal life, or myself. I don't know why that is. I just, do you understand what I mean?

Can you imagine youself being in the papers about your personal life? I think everybody would go 'oh God'. I don't have a big problem with it and I think I've been very lucky in comparison to a lot of people where it can be very stifling to your whole way of life. I don't let any of that stifle me. I live like a normal person. But I just kinda, I think it sounds silly when they start talking about your love life." Your dead right, I say.

"Well, thanks a million. Thanks Una. Thank you, " she says emphatically relieved, happy, I think, that I'm not going to make her uncomfortable for the sake of it. Hey, if someone doesn't want to talk about it, what's the point?