Daniel O’Donnell told David Hennessy about his new greatest hits and reflects on his 40+ year career and never anticipating fame or that his music would take him around the world.
Daniel O’Donnell has just released his definitive greatest hits album, Through The Years.
The double album of over 40 tracks celebrates his 40+ year career.
The new collection also comes as tickets go on sale for a run of UK dates next year.
It is 40 years this year since Daniel released his debut solo album, The Boy from Donegal.
Since then he has achieved 12 gold-selling albums and another seven which have gone silver.
Daniel has also scored 16 Top 10 albums and 11 Top 30 singles, including the top 10 hit Give A Little Love.
He is the only artist to have placed a different album in the chart every year since the gold-selling From The Heart launched his career in the UK in 1988.
Through The Years is chance to revisit hits including Whatever Happened To Old Fashioned Love, Footsteps and Crush On You.
It also comes with a bonus live CD of his concert recorded at The Millenium Forum in Derry in 2023.
Can you believe that it’s been 40 years? “Well it’s 40 years since the first album.
“Actually in January coming, it’ll be 44 years since I started with Margaret and her band, but the first album was ‘84 so that’s 40 years ago.
“Who could have thought really, back then, what lay in store?
“It is amazing, I suppose. And great too that all these years later, I’m still able to get out and about and do it.
“The audience are super, they’re very loyal.”
It is a very special relationship you have with your fans, isn’t it?
“Well, I’ve got to know a lot of the people. Some of them are coming for as long as I’m on the road.
“I would have met some even as far back as with Margaret.
“But then, when I started my own band, people started coming and some of those are still, I still see them. “Meeting people after the shows has worked in my favour because you do form that connection with people.
“Now, I don’t know everybody that comes to the shows. There’s no point in me pretending I do but I would know a good few people when I come out on the stage.”
You just couldn’t have foreseen how it all would go, that your music would take you to places like America and Australia, when you started off all those years ago? Fame, let alone worldwide fame was not on the agenda..
“No, not really.
“When I started out, I was with Margaret and then when I started my own we would go around a bit here in Ireland and England, but always to the places where Irish people sort of had predominantly settled, and that’s kind of where my mind was.
“I suppose I just didn’t envisage a market outside that or an audience outside that.
“When we started the first concert tour we did in 1987 early in the year, I went to Norwich which wasn’t in the throw of things as far as touring was concerned, prior to that for me.
“I remember going down to Norwich and we played in the Theatre Royal there.
“Dick Condon was the manager. He was Irish, I’m nearly sure he was from Dublin, he’s passed away since.
“I remember on the way out in the car I was with friends of mine, the radio was on and they played an ad for the concert.
“We thought, ‘Oh well, at least they’ll know what I’m going to be singing.
“Then we got out and met Dick and I said to Dick, ‘Are many people coming?’
“’Oh’, he says, ‘It’s done very well. It’s about 90% sold’.
“I says, ‘Will there be a lot of Irish people here?’
“He says, ‘About 5%’.
“And I said, ‘God’.
“I just thought that it was only generally Irish people that would want to come to the show and that night, I realised that there was no barrier with the music.
“Then we went to Inverness and Aberdeen, and again, that was very few Irish people at that audience.
“Then it just extended to wherever.
“It’s the same when we’re in America and Canada, I’d hardly meet an Irish person after the show.
“If you go to New York and Philadelphia and Boston, you’ll meet quite a few Irish but away out in the Midwest, in Wisconsin and Indiana and Iowa and Nebraska and North and South Dakota…
“We’ve just been to Winnipeg.
“I met four Irish four people at Winnipeg.
“It’s amazing how it has worked out.”
It shows the reach and the power of the music, doesn’t it? As you say, you don’t necessarily have to be from Donegal to enjoy My Donegal Shore….
“That’s it.
“The music that I would sing at home and abroad is very similar.
“I mean, away I always get requests for Danny Boy and I would generally sing it if I get requests for it. I would almost never sing it at home. Very occasionally you get a request for it, but the difference is not noticeable in the music. You could sing the same songs away that you’d sing at home.
“You might sing different songs tonight than tomorrow night, not all but some, but not for any reason other than maybe somebody asks for a song.”
Daniel’s mainstream breakthrough arrived in 1992. Originally by John Prine, it was I Just Want To Dance With You.
It became Daniel’s first Top 20 single, leading to a memorable first appearance on Top Of The Pops. Also on the show were rave collective The Shamen, at No 1 that week with Ebeneezer Goode.
Looking back what have been the real highlights of your decades in the business. I can guess that Top of the Pops would be one..
“Yeah, Top of the Pops certainly was.
“That was a huge thing for me.
“I mean, I grew up with Top of the Pops.
“I was that generation that Top of the Pops was one show in the week that we watched.
“Television was different then in the fact that if you were on television, then everybody saw it.
“We all watched Val Doonican’s show and we watched all those shows, anybody that had a show on. Cliff would have had shows on, Cilla Black had variety shows on and then Top of the Pops, you just watched it and that was it.
“I never thought I’d be on it. It was fantastic to get on.
“I was on the same night as The Shamen.
“I was saying yesterday it was the front door and the back door. You couldn’t get more opposite.”
Yes but back then whole families watched Top of the Pops together because it would have bits of everything on there..
“I know.
“It’s a different time but you can’t knock where we are now. Every time is the right time.
“When I started out, we put out a single record.
“Then we made an LP and cassettes, and then the CD came and DVDs.
“Everything has its time and everything is a progression, and you have to go with the flow.”
There has been big change, in Ireland as well as anywhere else, since you made your first record in 1984. How do you see the country today?
“I think for the most part, Ireland is great and we’re very blessed here.
“Irish people are still Irish people and they have a warmth about them and just an openness about them.
“I don’t find that just because of who I am.
“You see it certainly in communities, most of Ireland is rural.
“That community spirit, you cannot put a price on it.”
Is the really great thing about getting to where you have the good you have been able to do in communities? That is surely the best thing about having a platform like yours…
“Yeah, you get good opportunities.
“I always say what I do is easy done.
“It’s just that people like me, when we speak our voices louder, people hear it more readily.
“A lot of people do far more work but maybe the gain is not as big.
“They’re working hard but they’re just not known and they’re not noticed, but they do far more than I would do.
“I suppose that’s where the importance is.
“When you have a bit of- I don’t know what word is, celebrity or whatever you call it- It’s a privileged position to be in and if you can do things, you should try.”
Speaking of fame, again it was never your intention but have you always been at ease with it?
“Well, I never dwelt upon it.
“I suppose I always think where I was brought up has a big part to play in how I dealt with everything.
“I’m still blessed that I’m able to live more or less where I was.
“I’m only two miles or two and a half miles from our home place, where our house is. And I know everybody locally not because of who I am but just because that’s where I was brought up.
“It’s a nice part about home and where we live, you know?”
That’s it, you are still there. You’re still the boy from Donegal, aren’t you?
“We might be stretching the boy bit now,” Daniel laughs.
Okay, man from Donegal at this stage. But you never left Donegal or wanted to leave Donegal, did you?
“No, I lived in Dublin for a while when it was more practical, when we were doing all the dances and travelling to Kerry and Cork and Antrim and wherever.
“You would be going four or five nights a week and it just wouldn’t be no logistical sense to travel back to Donegal every night.
“But then in about ‘96 I realised that I didn’t have to live in Dublin because I was doing tours then, and I was just going away for a week or two weeks or three weeks, or whatever length it was, but when I was off, then I could be back at home.
“That’s when I made the decision to go back home.
“I’m back in Donegal full-time now, I still spend a lot of time away but that’s where my base is.”
We have mentioned My Donegal Shore, your very first studio recording, already. It was written by the late Johnny McCauley who was known to play at The Galtymore…
“And he wrote Pretty Little girl from Omagh.
“Johnny wrote a huge amount of songs from an Irish point of view.
“I don’t know that there has ever been a songwriter that wrote so many significant songs.
“He wrote Cottage in the Borderline, Among the Wicklow Hills, Destination Donegal, My Donegal Shore, Four Country Roads, Hometown on the Foyle.
“You could go on and on talking about what he wrote, and they’re all well known among the Irish people.”
Johnny passed away in 2012 but it seems we have lost so many greats in the last decade..
“We have.
“Even in our own music here, Big Tom and Larry Cunningham and Brian Coll and Gene Stuart and Jim Tobin, there’s so many.
“And Joe Dolan, of course.
“Joe was on the fringe of it all.
“He was part of the scene even though he wasn’t singing the music that Big Tom and Larry and them all were singing.
“But he still was a part of it.
“We had a great tradition of music here and even now.
“Everything changes but the younger people now are doing it, they are going to bring it forward and they’re always going to be people that come along.
“When I started out, the thing was that the music business was done. There was no market.
“I can remember managers saying to me, ‘The type of music you’re going to do, there’s no market for it’.
“And here I am 40 years later singing it.
“And that will happen with all generations.
“You had Michael English came along, John McNicholl, Lisa McHugh, Nathan Carter is huge, Derek Ryan.
“There’s a new group now putting their head above water and some of them will make in roads.
“There’s always going to be a market for the music that people choose to sing.”
We just mentioned the Galtymore where I’m sure you had some magical nights..
“I did.
“I came sort of late to it now, I suppose but I played the Gresham, I played the Galty, I played the National and the Town and Country, which was the old Forum. I played the Hibernian with Margaret.
“But it was still a great time. It was still when these places were absolutely packed.
“I was maybe just one of the last of the younger group.
“After me, I don’t think the younger ones got to do it in the same way.
“But I can remember the Galty.
“God, it was fantastic, and the National.
“They were very different.
“The National, even though we were in it, it had a more pop feel to it even though it wasn’t. It wasn’t at all pop but the Gresham and the Galtymore was just real Irish.
“It was like Ireland just came to London.
“I remember being at the Irish world Awards in the Galty and not long, I suppose, before the Galty was taken away.”
We had London Irish Vintage Day not long ago, didn’t you show your face at that one year?
“The year that I was on strictly, I went down to that.
“Majella and myself, we went down for the afternoon.
“It’s a great event, isn’t it?
“You probably don’t remember the London Irish festival.
“I was in it in ‘84, ‘85 and ‘86 and I don’t know how long after that, it went on but it was huge.
“I was there with Margaret probably ’82, ‘83 and then to get on that, it was the top dog in London.
“But the vintage day mirrors it a little.”
Before I let you go, are you coming to the UK at some point soon?
“We are, next May we’re over.
“We’re going to Bournemouth, Ipswich, Liverpool, Aberdeen, Glasgow and Birmingham, and then they’re putting together a tour for October in other places.”
The very last question has to be, after 40+ years, you’re going to carry on for a long time yet, aren’t you?
“I suppose I’ve cut down a good bit on the amount of shows I do.
“Next year I have it cut down to about 50. This year I did 80 but I’m happy with 50.
“It’s nice to get the time off too. It’s nice to be at home.
“We have three grandchildren and a fourth on the way, albeit the fourth is in Australia.
“But yes, it’s lovely to have the time with them and just to get a balance on what you’re doing when you’re not out.
“I have that fairly well done. I record the Opry shows and I record albums and there’s always other wee bits and pieces outside of touring that I would do.”
Through The Years- The Very Best of Daniel O’Donnell is out now on Demon Music.
Daniel tours UK 2- 8 May 2025.
He plays Pavillion Theatre, Bournemouth on 2 May, Ipswich Regent on 3 May, Liverpool Philharmonic on 4 May, Music Hall in Aberdeen on 6 May, Royal Concert Hall in Glasgow on 7 May and Symphony Hall in Birmingham on 8 May.
Tickets for Aberdeen on sale 31 October, all other dates 1 November.
For more information, click here.
