I wish I could have given Daniel a baby
Majella opens up on pain of not having a child with singer
I found Daniel to be very engaging, very funny, very witty
MAJELLA O’DONNELL ON FIRST MEETING STAR
MAJELLA O’donnell has said she would have loved to give husband Daniel a child.
She told how the Donegal crooner is great with her grandkids, despite not having kids of their own in the 16 years they have been married.
She said: “I supposed I wanted it more so for Daniel. I’d had my kids, I wasn’t too bothered. I would have loved to have given him a child. I was 42.
“We didn’t do anything to prevent it and nothing ever happened. It was kind of like it wasn’t meant to be.
“Now, I am so grateful, I am really grateful, that I haven’t got a baby or a 15 year old.”
Majella, 58, tells Brendan O’connor on RTE’S Time Out on Friday how Daniel is “fabulous” with her grandchildren.
But he believes he wouldn’t have made a good father because he would have always been on tour.
Majella added: “We have two grandchildren and Daniel is absolutely fabulous with them.
“I mean getting up in the middle of the night, changing the poo-iest nappies, feeding them.
“He’s real hands-on and I said to him, ‘God, it is such a shame that you didn’t have your own children, you would have been a great father’ and he said, ‘No, Majella, I wouldn’t because I wouldn’t have been here. I would have been away on tour because that is what I wanted to do. I wanted to be travelling all the time’.”
Majella also recalled her first meeting with Daniel, 56, and admitted they kissed on their second date.
She said: “I knew Daniel O’donnell, I knew the name. Initially, I thought country music, knitted jumpers, drinks tea, no craic.
“That is probably what a lot of people perceive and they are very wrong. People shouldn’t make judgements about people until they know them.
“This was the perception that television had put out, that the media had, and that people were quite happy to go along with. “I found him very engaging, very funny, very witty, which surprised me. And I suppose I realised as well that when you meet somebody you don’t have to be into what they’re into to love them.”
Majella also challenged Brendan on the “cutting” comments he had made about Daniel in the past.
She said: “I have heard you talking about him on shows, somebody will say something and you’ll have a cutting remark to make.”
The host defended himself, saying: “I don’t think it’s a cutting remark, I think Daniel being where Daniel is in the culture, of course, there is going to be jokes made about him.”
Majella responded: “That’s only because people are not seeing what I saw all the way along.”
Time Out With Brendan O’connor is on RTE1 at 9.30pm on Friday.