Margaret
GOD NEVER BLESSED me with a singing voice, but I’ve always loved music. Growing up I memorized the words to all the old ballads I heard from our elders on Owey. It’s just that I could never sing them.
As a youngster I’d listen almost in a trance when some of the old men – and one or two of the grandmothers – on the island would sing in the corner of someone’s house at night, surrounded by neighbours. Those wonderful ballads had been passed down from generation to generation. Even though I couldn’t chirp like a bird myself, I always appreciated a good singer when I heard one.
I knew from the moment my cute little daughter Margaret began singing that she possessed something special. Today, they call it the ‘X Factor’, although nobody has been able to describe what that is. Whatever it may be, I was convinced that Margaret had it, and I encouraged her to sing at every opportunity, whether in the house or at concerts down in the local parish hall. I had retained a fine store of ballads in my head from long ago, and I taught Margaret the words to all of them. She was quick to learn and I could see that she had a real passion for it.
‘Give us a song there, Margaret,’ local people would say when she called to their house on a visit. Annie McGarvey, the blacksmith’s daughter, lived across the road and she had struck up a very close bond with Margaret. She loved to hear the wee girl sing. It was the same in every house Margaret called to. ‘Ah, you’ll give us an auld song,’ they’d say.
At that time there was a very popular local band called the Keynotes. The band members were Enda Breslin, Johnny Gallagher, Condy Boyle, Tony Boyle, Eddie Quinn, Charlie McCole, Paddy Joe O’Donnell and Hughie Ward. They were a nice, clean-cut band, dressed in sharp suits and they had become a household name in Donegal.
The Keynotes were also aware of Margaret’s talent as a singer. There was no dancing during Lent in those days, so the band used to get involved in a little drama group, staging shows in the local hall for charity. During the interval the local priest, Father Deegan, would get Margaret up to sing. So the Keynotes recognized then that she was very talented.
In September 1964 two members of the Keynotes, Tony Boyle and Condy Boyle, came to me and asked if I would allow Margaret to join the band as their lead singer, Enda Breslin, was leaving to join the Garda.
‘I’ll have to talk to her father, but I don’t see why not,’ I agreed.
I thought maybe she could sing an odd night with them for a small fee. The money would certainly be welcome and it would be no great ordeal for Margaret. I’m sure that she didn’t have an ambition to be in show business at the time, as she was far too young and innocent to be thinking about what road she was going to go down in life. It was more a case that she really enjoyed singing and the applause of the crowd.
I began to think that if Margaret could become a singer in a band when she left school it would give her a job at a time when work was hard to come by. It would mean that she wouldn’t have to emigrate to make a life for herself, and I wouldn’t lose her.
I wrote to Francie and told him that the Keynotes wanted her to become a regular singer with the band. Being a great singer and a musician himself, he was delighted to hear the news. His response was that as long as I was sure that no harm would come to Margaret then he was happy to let her go with the band. It would be good for her, he felt. His other concern was for her education. He didn’t want it to affect her schooling. She could sing at weekends and during her school holidays. Margaret danced a jig around the kitchen when she heard the news. She was so happy when she got Francie’s blessing.
When I took Margaret to perform with them in a place called Ardara, the reaction she got was incredible. The hall was heaving with young couples out for a night of dancing. But when Margaret began singing the whole atmosphere suddenly changed. Instead of dancing, the crowd stopped in their tracks and stood enthralled as they listened to the rich tones coming from this slip of a schoolgirl. When she finished the first number, the crowd went wild; they were clapping, cheering, whistling and calling, ‘More! More!’
Little Margaret just couldn’t stop smiling as she stood among the band that night and soaked up the adulation. I think it was at that moment that her fate was sealed. She was destined to become an entertainer. Margaret went on to sing three more songs before she left the stage. And not for one second did she show any nerves. It looked like she was born to be there. Afterwards, I chatted with the Keynotes and the boys were all talking about the reaction of the crowd that night. They had never experienced anything like it. I think they realized that they were on to something big.
The twists and turns of life are strange. I never dreamt that in my 40s I’d be on the road with a show band. But that’s exactly where I ended up as I accompanied Margaret and the Keynotes to dances at venues around Donegal. I would travel with someone from the band and sit in the dance hall for the whole night when they were playing. I was watching Margaret grow into a professional singer. Now, however, she was no longer known as Margaret to the public. My little girl, the popular singer, had become known to fans of the Keynotes as Margo. This was the stage name she had taken with the band. Within a few months the Keynotes had become the biggest attraction in Donegal and the surrounding counties. Everyone was talking about this amazing wee girl who was singing with them. The Keynotes had even altered their stage style to complement their little lead singer. They were now wearing specially designed matching cardigans – just like Margaret’s.
Little did I realize as I travelled with her during her early days as a singing schoolgirl, the truly incredible impact that my daughter would have throughout Ireland and among the Irish in Britain. Any money Margaret made at that time she handed over to me, and I kept an account of it. My intention was to give it all back to her some day. But things didn’t work out that way.
Shortly before his final trip home from Scotland, Francie sent Margaret the lyrics to a great song called ‘Bonny Irish Boy’. He told her in a letter to learn the words and that when he arrived home he would give her the air of it. Coming from her daddy, this song was extra special. Margaret learned it and Francie gave her the tune to it upon his return. When she later sang it for the Keynotes, they recognized that it had real potential to become a hit. Everyone loved it so much they decided that ‘Bonny Irish Boy’ and another song called ‘Dear God’ would be their first record to go on release. Margaret nearly jumped through the roof of our kitchen when she heard the news.
The day that ‘Bonny Irish Boy’ was due to be played on Irish radio for the first time should have been a moment of great joy and celebration. Instead, our whole family had been plunged into a big, dark pit of sorrow. That was the same day Margaret’s darling daddy suddenly died. It was such an incredibly cruel coincidence. When tragedy struck, ‘Bonny Irish Boy’ was immediately withdrawn from the Radio Eireann show as a mark of respect.
I’ll never forget Margaret’s reaction when it was played on the programme just three weeks later. We listened to the news and then ‘Bonny Irish Boy’ came on. Margaret had been sitting stiffly on a bench in front of the fire. The moment she heard the music starting, she leapt up, jumped over the seat and made a dash to her bedroom in floods of tears. She was inconsolable. ‘That was Daddy’s song and he never got to hear the record. If only I’d known that he was going to die I would have got a tape and played it to him,’ she sobbed.
Later, we took a recording of the song over to Francie’s grave and we played it. As the sound of ‘Bonny Irish Boy’ reverberated around the graveyard, our heartache spilled out.
The success of the song was bittersweet. It went on to become a Top 20 hit.
Although he was no longer physically with us, I know that Francie had an influence on the fortunes of his family from beyond the grave. Just a couple of years after he died, Margaret had blossomed into one of Ireland’s biggest female singers. Everywhere she performed there were crowds queuing to see her. She was a superstar in Ireland at that time. There really was no one else like her. The excitement Margaret created wherever she went was something you’d normally associate with Hollywood stars. ‘Mother, I can’t believe what I’m seeing. All those people coming to see me. It’s just incredible,’ she would tell me.
Margaret had blossomed into a very attractive young woman. On stage she was larger than life, even though she was just 5 feet 4 inches tall. She looked like a young Cilla Black. By then her stage image had changed. She was wearing the fashion of the time – a mini skirt! And along with the joy of seeing Margaret become a success as a singer was the fear that she was moving away from me.
By the early 1970s, Margaret had formed her own band, Country Folk. We had grown accustomed to hearing her records on the radio. But when she released a song called ‘I’ll Forgive and I’ll Try to Forget’, it was the first time that she had a number-one hit. She was just 17 years old and there was great excitement, not just in the O’Donnell home but all over Donegal. Everyone was so thrilled and proud that one of their own had got to the top of the charts. With the celebrations that followed you’d think that the county had won the Sam Maguire, the coveted trophy that goes to the All Ireland football champions every year.
Margaret shared her good fortune with the family and was a great source of financial support to me from the moment she started performing with bands. I was still knitting the sweaters and watching the pennies, but the dire circumstances in which I’d found myself after Francie’s sudden death had now eased. However, I had lost my influence over Margaret and that was now my biggest concern. That is the natural course of life as children grow into young adults, but Margaret was in a business where there were so many temptations and I felt the need to question her frequently about her lifestyle even though I had no reason to suspect that she was doing anything wrong.
Margaret and myself are very alike in the sense that we both have strong personalities. She had become very independent in her early teenage years and wanted to live her life as she deemed fit. She was no longer willing to accept me as a figure of authority. Even though I had hoped that by finding work as a singer Margaret wouldn’t be forced to emigrate, she did leave me. And, as she was old enough and able to support herself with a good wage, there was very little I could do about it. Margaret moved away, first to Dublin and then to Galway. I was very upset over this conflict in our lives, and I fretted over her when she was away from home.
Margaret will tell you herself that she rebelled against me. She had always been a lot closer to her father. She was Daddy’s girl. If there was something she needed to talk about, she would go to Francie to discuss it. And when Francie died, she remained Daddy’s girl. She still didn’t feel that she could confide in me. It’s not that Margaret and I didn’t have love for each other, but she had a mind of her own and she wasn’t shy about telling you what was on it. She paid no heed to any advice I had to offer. It was something I had to accept. But of course it didn’t stop me offering advice where I saw the need. It would have broken my heart if anything bad had happened to her.
Despite our disagreements, I was proud of Margaret, proud of her achievements and delighted to see so many people in Ireland falling under her spell as a singer. Everywhere I went, people would introduce me as ‘Margo’s mother’. One of the early highlights of Margaret’s career was the night she appeared on the Late Late Show, which was hosted by Gay Byrne, one of Ireland’s greatest and best-loved broadcasters. It was the most popular TV chat show in Ireland. If you got the chance to appear on the Late Late Show then you had truly made it. Everyone in Ireland would see you because everything stopped on a Saturday night when the Late Late Show was on the telly.
There was incredible excitement in the family and in the entire county of Donegal when the news came through that Margo was going to sing on the show.
Around that time, Hughie Green was a big star on British TV as the host of a talent contest called Opportunity Knocks. My own mother loved that show and watched it religiously. She thought Hughie Green was the bee’s knees. Whenever he gave a wave on the telly, she truly believed that he was waving at her, and she would wave back at him. The whole family thought this was hilarious, God bless her innocence. And no one had the heart to tell her the truth.
When my mother heard that Margaret was going to be on the Late Late Show, she said, ‘Be sure to give me a wave, Margaret.’
‘I will, and wear your best clothes when you’re watching,’ Margaret told her.
I didn’t go to the Late Late Show with Margaret as I was looking after my mother. But I sat in front of the television filled with joy and pride as my daughter was introduced by Gay Byrne before singing one of her big hits. Her granny, dressed in her Sunday best, didn’t take her eyes off the small screen. As the studio audience burst into wild applause at the end, Margaret gave a little wave. Her granny smiled and waved back.
Margaret was given a hero’s welcome upon her return to Donegal. The entire county turned out to greet her. If she had won the Eurovision Song Contest there wouldn’t have been as big a reaction as there was to that first appearance on the Late Late Show. Before she finally made it home, we told Margaret what my mother had been wearing as she watched the show. When Margaret walked in, her granny was delighted to see her. I could see her face light up with a mixture of admiration and joy.
‘That was a lovely outfit you had on,’ Margaret said, and she went on to describe it.
Granny gave a little smile. ‘Well, good God, I knew that Hughie Green could see me,’ she announced.
Margaret glanced over at me but kept a straight face.
We both laughed inside. Poor Mother.
I remember the first time I saw a television, I had been married for many years. John Phil, a neighbour across the road, got one in his house. And it became a great source of interest among my own children, particularly John Bosco and Margaret, who used to sit on a grassy hill and look in John Phil’s window at it. In due course, we rented one ourselves. In those early days there was nothing on the television during the day. You’d turn it on and all you’d see was a test card. It wouldn’t come on till the news at 6 p.m. My mother, when she was with us, would always watch the news. She’d tidy up her hair and sit in a chair in front of the television. A man called Charles Mitchell was the newsreader and he’d come on and say, ‘Good evening.’ And my mother would say, ‘Hello!’ It was so real to her.
A lot of older people at the time couldn’t figure out television at all. We had a neighbour called Joe Doalty and one night while he was visiting us there was an ad on the television for floor-cleaning liquid. A woman known as ‘Supergran’ was showing a girl how to use it. The ad came on three times while Joe was in the house. Shaking his head, Joe remarked, ‘Isn’t that a stupid young wan there. Three times that woman is after showing her how to use that floor cleaner and she still doesn’t know how to do it!’ Margaret was doubled over laughing in the corner. It was the funniest thing ever.
It was the same with the telephone when it eventually arrived in Kincasslagh. It was a turn-handle phone and it was operated through the local post office. After 10 p.m. you had to go on to what they called a ‘party line’. Several people shared the same line and each house that had a phone knew by the number of rings whether it was for them. If it was five rings it was for us. A neighbour called Pat Neil Pat, who was on our line, had three rings. One night the phone rang five times, but when I answered it I could hear Pat Neil Pat on the line and the operator talking to him.
‘How many rings did you hear, sir?’ the operator was asking.
‘I heard five, but it should only be three,’ Pat replied. He’d been expecting a call.
We laughed, thinking of Pat sitting by the phone and getting all hot and bothered when it rang five times.
As time went on, Margaret became more and more popular. She went on to popularize a new form of music generally referred to as ‘country and Irish’. Indeed, she would become affectionately known as ‘Margo, the Queen of Country and Irish’ by her fans and the music critics.
Everything was now going so well for Margaret that my concern for her welfare had eased. It was time to let go of my child. She was now a young adult making her own way in the world. As hard as it is to do, especially with a daughter, you have to cut the strings and let them off sometime. Margaret herself had long since made the break, but now I had to do that in my own mind. Of course, you never stop worrying about your children, even when they do become adults. And sometimes those concerns come to haunt you, as I would discover.
One day in the early 1970s, as I was busy making pancakes in the kitchen, John Bosco arrived. I knew immediately by his expression that something was troubling him.
‘What’s up with you, Bosco?’ I asked.
‘There’s been an accident,’ he said.
My heart nearly jumped out of my chest. ‘What’s happened?’ I asked in a state of panic.
‘It’s Margaret. She’s been in a crash,’ Bosco said quietly.
‘She’s not dead?’ I asked, gripped by fear.
‘No, no, but she’s in hospital,’ he said.
‘Hospital? Oh, Bosco, Bosco. What’s wrong with her?’ I cried, realizing that it was serious.
‘I don’t know. But she’s not going to die, I know that much. She’s going to be all right. As soon as you’re ready we’ll go to Galway,’ Bosco said, trying to calm me.
Margaret had been driving to perform at a carnival in Corofin, between Tuam and Galway city, when the crash happened. A car drove out from a pub and went straight into her path. It happened in a flash, giving Margaret no chance to avoid a collision.
It was the kind of news that every parent dreads. We got to Galway as soon as we could. Margaret was in intensive care. It was serious. She had a lot of injuries. They included head injuries, which gave us the most concern. My heart was pounding against my chest when I saw the reality of the situation. Would she be able to walk and talk and do all the things she loved, including singing, ever again? We were reassured by the medical people that, although Margaret had a long, hard road ahead of her, she would make a full recovery.
It was a terrible time in her life. Although she was eventually released from hospital, she had to return as an outpatient every week for a full year. I’m sure it felt like an eternity to her. It must have seemed like there was no light at the end of the tunnel. She became very depressed. Her life at that moment seemed so bleak. There seemed to be no end to her suffering.
After her accident Margaret suffered a series of blackouts. She was put on a course of medication to counteract them. She was on the medication for six years.
She went back touring with the band after she recovered, but Margaret tells me today that she has no memory of being on stage, or of any of the happenings in her life, during that period. ‘I don’t remember six years. They are wiped out,’ she confessed to me.
As she wasn’t living at home when she returned to the stage, I had no idea for some time that Margaret’s life had taken a turn for the worse. I was delighted that she was able to return to performing. She was still one of the biggest singing stars touring Ireland. But, despite the fact that she had become a much loved singer all over Ireland, Margaret now felt insecure going on stage in front of a crowd, and she fretted over how a new album would be received by the public and the critics. In moments like that she would get into a terrible black state.
Margaret loved singing, but she despised the business side of her career. By all accounts it wasn’t a very nice industry. I know from Margaret that some people in the music industry used and abused her. They took advantage of her, particularly when she was vulnerable during times when she was struggling to cope with life. As one of Ireland’s top female stars, she should have been a millionaire. But she never got what she was entitled to.
Margaret managed to keep her singing career going because she wasn’t feeling down all of the time. A year would go by without any great trauma, but then something would happen and she’d fall back into a deep, dark place. As a mother it was terrible for me to see her going through this torture. It was nearly as hard on me to see Margaret going through such turmoil in her life as it had been losing Francie. There wasn’t a night would go by without me praying for her, praying that the light would come back into her life. And there were times when I cried myself to sleep with the worry, fearing that something terrible would happen to her.
Her own determination along with counselling helped Margaret to eventually find peace in her life. Thank God she came through it in the end.
Despite the clash of personalities and the many rows we had, Margaret and I became very close as the years went by. I think that because she spoke her mind during our arguments and because I defended and explained my position, we got to know each other better than if we had not been involved in that kind of communication. It was definitely a learning process for both of us.
Today I have the most wonderful communication with Margaret. No matter what I have concerns about, I will pick up the phone and talk it over with her. That’s not to say I don’t have the same relationship with my daughter Kathleen, who has been so close to me through all the years. I do. But I’m so glad that I have that respect and friendship with Margaret after all we’ve been through.
I didn’t realize we had become so united until Margaret turned to me one day and said: ‘You know, Mother, I haven’t got a closer friend today than you.’
I burst into tears.