Sunday Mirror (Northern Ireland)
IRONMAN DAN
Singer helps his band members get ready before going on stage
You pull the curtain and have a great sleep .. it’s comfy DANIEL ON SLEEPING IN THE TOUR BUS BUNKS
DANIEL O’Donnell has admitted he does the ironing for his entire band when they go on tour.
The Donegal crooner, who has just turned 60 and was once Ireland’s most eligible bachelor, offers an insight into his life in an RTE documentary to air this week.
Cameras capture him ironing musicians’ shirts before they go on stage, happily sleeping in a “comfy” bunk on the tour bus with the rest of the crew and extolling his love of cheese and onion crisps.
Daniel At Sixty delves into his joy at being a grandad, falling in love with his wife Majella and his plans for the future.
The show also tracks his transition from a singer adored by his fans, but seen as a strait-laced teadrinking personality by most of the rest of the population, to his emergence as a muchloved personality with a thoroughly decent nature and a penchant for dry quips. He muses: “For years people thought that I was dull. I don’t think I was ever as serious as people perceived me to be.
“It’s not that they don’t like me, they just don’t understand and they think they don’t like me, you know.”
He opens up about the joy of falling in love with Majella after years of being one of Ireland’s most famous bachelors.
“When I met Majella pretty soon it was different. There was an excitement about it.”
His Catholic faith meant he initially questioned marrying
Majella, who was divorced with two children when they met in Tenerife in 1999.
“It was in my mind, how would that going to work and I thought maybe it wasn’t going to work.
“It was probably to do with me getting married outside the church and I decided maybe we would part company, and we did.
“And then I remember being at Mamma Mia in London and I sitting, watching, thinking, ‘Majella would love this’.
“I remember thinking why am I resisting something if it is God-given, it’s not given to cause trouble.
“Getting married my thought was if God put someone in my life that gives me joy, why would he do that if that’s wrong? Life is not black and white.”
The cameras follow Daniel behind the scenes at his concerts in Birmingham, Blackpool and Llandudno, joining him at his triumphant return to Branson Missouri for his traditional run of preChristmas shows.
And he shows the cameras where he literally bunks in with the rest of the crew in one of the 16 beds on the tour bus.
“In there you snuggle up, you pull your curtains and have a great sleep, it’s
really comfy. I’m sure people think it’s an awful way to live but really it’s very comfortable, that’s our home,” he explains.
The programme also delves into his charity work and the impact of a visit to an orphanage which led to The Romanian Challenge Appeal, which raised over a million euros to build purpose-built homes for youngsters in the country.
He says: “I think it’s important people who have a platform realise that their voice is louder and it important to use it.
“I think I realised that especially with Romania.”
Today the singer would like to be remembered for bringing people together.
He adds: “I can’t believe I’m 60, I don’t know what you are supposed to feel when you are 60, but I am just so grateful for all the things that have happened in the 60 years.
“I don’t want to be out there and somebody saying ‘God he was great in his day’. I don’t want to be that person.
“I think there will come a time when I won’t tour but I hope there won’t come a time when I won’t sing.”
Daniel At Sixty is on RTE One on Tuesday at 9.25pm.