Niamh was a child who believed in magic ever before she even knew it actually existed. Her version of magic was in the way the rising sun shone through the autumn coloured leaves on the trees, how the winds made the grass and flowers dance and how the stars and the moon would glow to give you light even in the darkest of nights. She found her own muggle-ish ideals of magic in the beauties of nature and the most mundane things she found to be amazing inventions. Finding out actual magic existed, and she would learn to use it nearly bowled her over completely.

Moira and Kenneth Quinlan married at the extremely young age of 16, in secret using fake identifications and ran away from home in Cork to Wexford. Two years later Niamh was born. They never spoke to her much about her family on either side, the only thing they would say is, neither side approved of their relationship and that is why they eloped and ran away. When she is older she plans to change her lack of knowledge on this score.

The young girl often wonders if that is why her parents decided to join Cirque Dé Luna, to stay on the run. Moira works as a costume designer and Kenneth is a stunt instructor and coordinator. Due to all the moving around, Niamh was always 'home schooled'. A tutor came around on tour with CDL to give the few children of performers and crew an education. Lessons however, were never her strong point, especially attending them when she was supposed to.

She was always small for her age, but seemed to walk and hold herself like someone who was tall and had not adjusted to their long limbs and frame. This effectively makes her appear uncoordinated and clumsy. This however is far from the truth, Niamh has been doing gymnastics, dance, acrobatics and staff work/poi since she could walk. When she is practicing and actually performing, she is completely agile and the picture of grace and fluidity. No one, including the preteen, knows how this is possible, but hey she doesn't care much about her gangliness off the stage.

The only thing she really worries about is loosing even more weight that she doesn't even have due to barely being able to eat with her braces hurting her face. Occasionally she catches her mother giving her odd looks while she is training. When she was around nine years old, almost ten, somehow her staff caught fire on either end. It sent everyone into a panic, including Niamh. She had been fighting with her parents previous to the event about learning fire staff and poi.

Naturally because she was only a small child, irregardless of her talents, her parents gave an affirmative no. She tried to argue that she had been doing this since was barely four and was perfectly capable and knew all the safety procedures to move up to fire performance. Kenneth, threatened that if she were to see her go against his wishes to any of the performers to teach her, he would ban her from performing, or even training without the fire and she would be isolated to their caravan for a month.

Niamh for her part, like most borderline teenage girls didn't like to be put in their place and treated like a child. So, a couple of days later, she was practicing with her normal staff and in a bit of a huff that she couldn't practice with a fire staff. She was just coming up from a one handed cart wheel to catch the staff and when it landed in her hand, both ends bust into small flames. Niamh was so stunned she let out a yelp and dropped the staff to the ground. It went out instantly, like the fire knew it shouldn't be there anymore.

Several member of the Cirque saw what happened as well as her parents. Her mother frantically checked Niamh wasn't burnt while Niamh stood there shell shocked looking at her ruined staff on the ground. Her father was furious and asked the other kids had they tried to play some sort of prank on her because they knew how much she wanted to do fire performance. No one of course had tampered with her stuff, or at least one wanted to admit they had while Kenneth Quinlan was on a war path that his pride and joy nearly spontaneously combusted.

"Eh...I..ju-just wished it was on fire...I?!" was all she managed to get out when asked if she were okay, if she was hurt and what had happened. After the incident she wouldn't touch a staff or poi, lit or otherwise for weeks. She got a lot better at her tightrope walking, trapeze and hoop in its absence. However, Niamh has a form of narcoleptic epilepsy, so her fits of passing out or zoning out make aerial performance too dangerous; admittedly even by Niamh, to do. The other kids (all six) started nicknaming her Narco Niamh, when she was six.