IT IS 40 years since 23-year-old Daniel O’Donnell released his debut album The Boy From Donegal. Since then, this devout Roman Catholic’s mix of popular, country, traditional Irish, and devotional songs has achieved 12 gold-selling albums and 16 albums in in the Top Ten. His songs “Light a candle” and “Here I am, Lord” are popular choices for funerals.
Growing up in the fishing village of Kincasslagh, the youngest of four siblings, he had a childhood that revolved around the church. “I grew up a couple of miles from where I live now, and the church was the centre of all our lives,” he says. “We went to everything that was on in the church; we were part of it. I sang in the choir at masses, right through all the different services of the year. That stays with you as you grow older. It’s nice to have that in my life.”
In the 1960s and ’70s, mass was mainly celebrated at weekends, with weekday masses and saints’ days occurring periodically during the year. “The singing was always done on Sunday. I always enjoyed the singing, and I never thought about being on the altar. My oldest brother was an altar boy. Now, of course, there are altar servers. It’s girls and boys, which is lovely.”
Mr O’Donnell does not yearn for the old days of Latin mass. “Very little of the Latin has stayed with me. The Psalms we started with, I can remember some of the words.” He also recalls a significant change in the mass: “I can remember the priest with his back to the people, although that changed with the Second Vatican Council. Sometimes, it was still done, because I can remember it. Some of the older priests found it hard to change at the time. I do remember the priest facing the altar.”
He adds that Latin was a barrier for some of the faithful. “Nice as the Latin was, I don’t think a lot of people understood what they were saying. You went through a ritual, but you weren’t maybe as involved as you might be. A lot of people came with rosary beads and just prayed the rosary all through the mass.”
Praying the rosary was a keystone of Mr O’Donnell’s childhood, and remains part of his faith. “The rosary is a very important prayer in the Catholic Church, and, as children, we would have said it in the house. My grandmother lived with us, and she always headed the rosary. Every night, you got put out of the kitchen for laughing or carrying on during the rosary. It leaves an imprint in your mind, that it’s an important part of growing up, too. I just carried it on.”
The rosary plays a crucial part in mourning for Irish Catholics. “The rosary is said a lot here in Ireland. If somebody dies, we have wakes in the houses, and it’s much quicker than in other parts of the world. Our funerals will just be two days after the person dies. So, for the two nights they have the wake in the house, the rosary is said at eight or nine o’clock at night. All the neighbours and everybody comes into where the body is and say the rosary.”
Mr O’Donnell’s father, Francis, died when he was six, having regularly travelled away from home to Scotland, to work in agriculture. “I don’t think my father’s death impacted me greatly — I wasn’t aware of it: I was so young. It obviously changed the dynamics in the house, but, from my point of view, I didn’t feel I was affected by it. I was sheltered by other people and members of the family and my mother, but I can’t go back and say I relied on faith at that time; I was too young.”
CHRISTMAS is spent in the community where he grew up. “I love Christmas. I love the whole thing. I would leave the Christmas tree up all year if I could. But, for me, the main part of Christmas is the mass, and I still go back and sing with the choir whenever I’m at home. I would be involved with the choir, and singing the hymns is just lovely; so that is Christmas to me.
“We call it the midnight mass, but it’s usually around nine o’clock at night at our local chapel. And then again the next morning, for the mass. There are different carol services, and there’s a local variety group who go out and sing carols, and I join them. It’s very much based around the singing of carols, which is beautiful.”
The Kincasslagh choir does not stand on ceremony: “We’re just a very basic choir; so we just get up there and sing as best we can. There’s just six or seven of us, and we just blast it out.”
Mr O’Donnell has spoken of his crisis of faith as an adult, when he fell in love with a divorcée, Majella McLennan, having met in 1999 at her parents’ bar in Tenerife. For devout Catholics, divorce remains a contentious issue, and the couple parted for a while before reuniting. They married at St Mary’s, Kincasslagh, three years after meeting.
“In relation to Majella, I realised when I was going through that, that love is love, and God doesn’t put things in our way without good reason. Sometimes, we have to work around things that we can’t understand. And that’s what I did, and what we did, in that situation. You need to accept sometimes the thing that makes you think, or makes you uncomfortable, is the most important thing.”
An annulment of Majella’s previous marriage made a wedding at the main altar possible. “Majella had applied for an annulment, and that came through; so we got married in the church. It was lovely.” More than 200 fans came to wish them well, one saying it was the closest Ireland could come to a royal wedding.
Pilgrimages to Medjugorje are part of the couple’s shared devotional practices. “Majella and I go to Medjugorje a few times. It’s in Bosnia Herzegovina, and we’ve enjoyed it immensely. We will go again. That’s the only place we would go on a pilgrimage.”
Explaining the inspiring quality of the Balkan village, Mr O’Donnell says: “It started out as a village in Bosnia. In the early ’80s, our Lady, the Blessed Mother, appeared to six children, and she still appears to three of these people who are now adults. . . Where the children met her was on Apparition Hill.”
He continues, “I was on Apparition Hill after going there with a group, and my head just filled up with words, and I just wrote down what I was thinking. That became a song called ‘Sweet Queen of Peace’.”
Describing Medjugorje as his “go-to” pilgrimage place, Mr O’Donnell has also climbed Ireland’s holy mountain, Croagh Patrick, in 2022, as part of the Irish broadcaster Charlie Bird’s fund-raiser for motor neurone disease. He took his late mother, Julia, to Lourdes in 2008 on what would have been her 60th wedding anniversary. And he visits Ireland’s national shrine in Knock. “Occasionally, if I was passing Knock, I would visit, and there’s a few places around here that are holy places that you would pop in and out to.”
Although he had no supernatural experiences in Medjugorje, Mr O’Donnell says that the power of pilgrimage sites is tangible. “I saw nothing out of the ordinary in Medjugorje but the power of thousands of people united in prayer or for positive reasons is very strong. It’s a very powerful thing and I felt that in Croagh Patrick and every time I’m in Medjugorje. There’s so many people there with a common interest, although they are all there for different reasons, but, when people are positively gathered, you could fly, almost.”
REFLECTING on his personal devotional practices, Mr O’Donnell reveals “I’m a bit lazy with the confession, I have to be honest.” But prayer is important to him. “When things are going well, and everything is flying; then, when the chips are down, you call on God more often. And that’s a human thing to do. But I would just, as a daily thing, if something’s good, thank God, and if something’s not so good, I would ask him how can he help me.”
While touring, the singer seeks out a church to attend mass, paying attention to the liturgical capabilities of the priest. “You’ll go to different places. Sometimes the mass depends on the priest — that’s the reality, that’s a human thing. Sometimes, a really powerful priest can make the experience better. But the important thing is that you have the eucharist, that’s the central thing.”
Summarising his own faith, he says simply, “The nearest we get to God or Jesus in this world is the next person we meet. It’s how we relate to them that’s most important, and how we conduct ourselves in situations.”
Devotional music continues to prove popular with his fans. “Everywhere we go, people are open to faith and gospel music. One of the biggest albums I ever released — I’ve released a few — were the Inspiration albums. People still search for them, and look for them at shows if they’re buying CDs. A lot of people — even though they’re not going to churches — search and get solace through music as well, and have their own way of expressing their faith or spirituality. We can’t judge people for the way they conduct their lives.”
Daniel O’Donnell’s greatest hits album Through the Years is out now on Demon Music. Tickets for his 2025 UK tour are on sale at: danielodonnell.org