By the time the Bothy Band disbanded in 1979, Ní Dhomhnaill had been persuaded by singer/songwriter Mike Cross to emigrate to Chapel Hill, North Carolina in the United States.
Relocating to Portland, Oregon, in the mid-1980s, Ní Dhomhnaill was reunited with her brother Mícheál, who had emigrated to the area from Ireland a few years before.