A Star is Born
DURING HIS SCHOOL days I became aware that Daniel had a great love of people. I didn’t know then just how far his popularity with folk would spread. But I recall one incident that made me realize I had a very special boy.
Daniel would travel by public bus to and from secondary school in Dungloe. One day, after shopping in the town, I returned on the same bus with him. As we waited to board, the driver said: ‘Let all the schoolchildren stand back now while the adults get on and get seated.’
Daniel said, ‘Mammy, you go on and if you see everybody seated keep a seat beside you for me.’
So I went away up to the middle of the bus and found myself a seat, with a spare one beside me for Daniel. I heard some people behind me saying, ‘Danny’s not getting on.’ I thought they were talking about one of their own. I glanced round and it was a man and a woman, an elderly couple who were neatly dressed, well groomed and both had beaming, friendly faces.
Then my Daniel appeared at the door of the bus, and I heard the lady saying in an excited tone, ‘Oh, Danny’s on.’ And Daniel came down the aisle of the bus wheeling a trolley. I thought to myself, where in the name of God did he get the trolley? He came down to where I was sitting, and then he left the trolley standing alongside the couple behind me.
Daniel sat down beside me and the lady said to him, ‘You’re not sitting beside your girlfriend today.’
And I said, without looking back, ‘Oh, but he is sitting beside his girlfriend.’
The lady asked, ‘Do you know Danny?’
‘Well, a good right I should have to know him,’ I said.
She asked, ‘Do you live near him?’
I told her I did.
‘Don’t tell me,’ she said in an excited state, ‘you’re not his mother by any chance?’
‘I am, that’s who I am,’ I replied.
‘Well, do you know this, you must be the proudest mother in Ireland today,’ she said. And she told me their story and the difference that Daniel had made to their lives.
‘We came down from County Down in the North because we were afraid of the Troubles. We bought a little house down here. Every so often we go up with this trolley to the supermarket in Dungloe for our groceries. Before Daniel came to that school up there, some of the youngsters used to kick the trolley in front of them in a stampede. Sometimes it would tumble over onto the road and the groceries would all be tossed out. Since the day Danny first saw us, he took the trolley off us and made us go on and get a seat on the bus. Then he would take the trolley on and leave it beside our seat. And when he would be getting out at Kincasslagh, he would take the trolley to the door of the bus to leave it handy for us when we were getting off at our stop. He is such a lovely, considerate young boy, we absolutely love him. Now that’s my story about Danny.’
All the pensioners had a similar tale to tell about Daniel. ‘Our hearts will be broken the day he leaves that school. Daniel is always helping us on the bus with our bags. And if there’s one of us who needs support getting in and out of the bus, it’s Daniel who steps up to lend a hand. That boy has so much good in him. He would make a good priest; oh, he would be a lovely priest,’ they would say.
Daniel, of course, would sit there red-faced with embarrassment whenever he heard anyone paying him compliments like that.
Daniel had a lovely singing voice as a child, and, just as I did with Margaret, I always encouraged him to use it. There were singers on both sides of his family but particularly on Francie’s side. Francie’s mother and father had lovely voices. Every one of Francie’s sisters and brothers could sing. So Daniel didn’t lick it off the ground, as they say. It was in the genes.
Whenever there were concerts in our local parish hall, I would always take Daniel down to sing. The priest would invite him up on to the stage, and he would perform for the crowd. I remember the first song he ever sang was called ‘Little Cabin Home on the Hill’.
One time there was a local talent competition in Castlefinn and I brought Daniel along to enter it. That was his first time ever performing in a talent contest, and he came second. On another occasion while we were on a visit to County Mayo, Daniel entered a local talent event and won it. He was only eight years old at the time, but he was beginning to cause quite a stir. The crowd in Mayo thought he was something special. Everybody was saying to him, ‘Oh, you are going places.’
It’s not that I was pushing Daniel towards the stage. I had no dreams of him becoming a professional singer. I just saw it as part of his growing up, something that would give him confidence. It takes a lot of bottle to go out and sing in front of a crowd.
Even though he was my youngest child and I was left on my own to bring him up after Francie died, I didn’t smother Daniel. I kept a close watch on him during his very young years, but as he got older I let him find his feet in the world. I allowed him to go away on holidays to relatives and friends. He used to go to Arranmore Island and stay with a cousin of ours, Agnes Sharkey, who originally came from Owey. She had married an Arranmore man and settled on that island. I recall how Daniel once spent six weeks there. He would go up to Sligo and stay with Ita Carney, a friend of Margaret. I never worried about him because I knew he would be safe with the people he was visiting. I’d send him off on the bus, and somebody would meet him at the other end of the journey. Some of the money he earned working in the Cope during his schooldays covered the expense of a holiday every year in Scotland, where he stayed with relatives in Glasgow, Edinburgh, Perth and Callendar.
Daniel loved his visits to Edinburgh, and I remember him coming home after one holiday and telling me a story about the cuckoo clock in the city’s Princes Street. The cuckoo would come out of the clock on the hour, as I recall, and Daniel was fascinated with that. It was something of an attraction in Edinburgh, and a crowd would gather to watch it.
‘Mammy, do you know what, that cuckoo isn’t real at all. I always thought it was until last week when I heard some of the crowd saying it was a great invention! And I loved that cuckoo,’ he said, shaking his head in disbelief.
One time Daniel came home from Edinburgh with a lovely pair of shoes that had gold tips. He was a real dandy in them and couldn’t wait for Mass to come round the following Sunday when he would give them their first public outing.
Coming out of Mass a local lad said to Daniel, ‘They’re a fine pair of shoes you’re wearing.’
Daniel’s face lit up with pride.
‘And they’re a quare good bargain too at £4.99,’ the lad added.
Daniel stopped in his tracks and asked, ‘How do you know what I paid for them?’
The local teenager pointed to the sole of one of the shoes. Daniel checked it, and there was the sale sticker still on it. The whole chapel full of people had seen it when he knelt down at the altar to receive Communion. ‘Isn’t that shockin’ embarrassing,’ he said later.
As Margaret became more and more successful as a singer, she shared her good fortune with the family. In 1972, she even sent Daniel and myself off across the Atlantic by plane to visit my sister Maggie and many other relatives in America. Margaret had gone over there the previous year to do a tour and she had met a whole army of our relations. A big party was arranged for Margaret in New Jersey, and everyone who was related to us came along. She realized that night that I would love to have been at the party surrounded by all those family members, most of whom I’d never met. So she decided before she came home that she would send me out.
She’d also left the party that night with a bag full of envelopes. People would go up to her and say, ‘I’m a cousin of your mam’s’ and slip her an envelope. The next day when Margaret opened them she found that they were filled with cash, and the whole lot came to about $500. It seems everyone among the family connections in America was aware that I’d been going through hard times. They all wanted to give a little to help Julia back in Ireland. And I really appreciated their kindness, particularly as $500 was a fortune to me. I’m sure every family throughout Ireland has a similar story to tell. The American cousins, even though they might not have been to Ireland themselves, never forgot us all back home on the old sod. And they’ll never be forgotten for their generosity.
The following year I found myself on a plane for the very first time in my life. A trip to the States was a major undertaking way back then. You’d spend six months preparing for it and another six months getting over it. Nowadays I hear of Irish people going to New York for a weekend to do their Christmas shopping. How times have changed. But that trip to America over 30 years ago was worth it for many reasons, not least being the look of excitement on Daniel’s face. If Margaret had sent him on a space shuttle to the moon he wouldn’t have been more excited. Not many people of Daniel’s age – and not many of my age group either – got the chance to travel abroad in those days. A trip to America was really out of the ordinary, unless it was to emigrate. It was the talk of the whole community around Kincasslagh that we were off to the United States of America on a holiday.
I wasn’t looking forward to the long journey on the plane, but I was excited because it had been such a long time since I’d seen my sister, who was living in Bayonne, New Jersey. I said the rosary as we took off from Dublin, praying for a safe journey across the Atlantic Ocean. I had been frightened going onto the plane, and I wouldn’t sit at the window because I was afraid to look out. But once the plane took off and the journey was under way, I settled down. It was a long, long trip, about seven hours, but I dozed off for a time so that helped it to go by quicker than I imagined. Eventually the captain announced that we were on our descent and before long we were safely on the ground at John F. Kennedy Airport. I crossed myself in thanksgiving for a safe passage as the plane came to a halt, and I couldn’t wait to get off and meet up with Maggie.
It was an emotional reunion and a very happy time for us. Maggie wanted to know all the news from home and what had changed since she’d left. There was a litany of births, deaths and marriages to fill her in on, not to mention how the area had been transformed since she’d emigrated, with new homes springing up here and there. Maggie lapped up all the stories, and, as we reminisced, all the memories came flooding back; it was lovely to share them with everybody.
The red carpet was rolled out for us, and shortly after we arrived there was a big party organized so that we could meet all our relatives and their friends and neighbours. I remember how there was a big table in the middle of the floor and it was creaking under the weight of bottles of drink. Most people at the party were having a drink, but I had never touched alcohol in my life. People would come up to me and say, ‘Will you have a drink?’ And I’d tell them that I didn’t drink. ‘Would you not take a drink of 7UP?’ someone asked me. I didn’t know what 7UP was at the time, and, thinking it was alcohol, I refused. Daniel became the centre of attention, and all eyes were on ‘the cute young Irish boy’, as I heard someone remark. Daniel even sang for them. He performed ‘Little Cabin Home on the Hill’ and ‘The Philadelphia Lawyer’, and there were loud cheers and lots of back-slapping when he finished. He was beaming with pride.
Daniel and myself spent a total of six weeks in America on that trip, and we visited many relatives, including Bill and Margaret O’Donnell. Daniel was very happy there and he enjoyed the company of their children, John and Bridget Mary, who were around his age. He even accompanied them to school one day on a big yellow bus, a visit that caused quite a stir among the American schoolchildren. When he returned home later in the afternoon, Daniel told me that all the young Americans had been going on and on about how they loved his accent. ‘Gee, would you speak for us?’ they would ask. He loved all the attention.
I was like a child myself on that trip as I discovered things I’d never seen before. Like cranberry sauce. One day when we sat down to a turkey dinner I saw the cranberry sauce on the table and I presumed it was jam. I thought it was very odd when I saw everyone digging in and putting this ‘jam’ on their turkey. When I got nobody looking I dipped my finger in the jar and tasted it. Well, it was lovely, so ever since then I’ve been a fan of cranberry sauce.
My daughter Margaret had a boyfriend who was working in New York at the time, and she came out for a visit while we were there. It was a surprise for Daniel and myself when she walked through the door. I look back now on that period with a lovely warm feeling. That was a great holiday for us, and I’m so glad that Daniel still has those wonderful memories of our time together in America.
On our return to Ireland, Margaret was waiting to collect us at Shannon Airport. At that time there were no restrictions on the amount of luggage you could take with you on the plane, which was just as well because I think I brought half of America home with me. I took everything that was given to me while I was on holiday. There were people throwing out trash, or what they called trash, but it was real good stuff to me, so I offered to take it off their hands and home it all came with me. I remember Daniel going up to Margaret in the airport at Shannon and saying, ‘God, Margaret, we’ve an awful lot of stuff!’
There was a carnival dance that night in Killala, County Mayo – it was in a marquee – and Margaret was performing with her band. So we packed everything into her car at the airport and off we headed for Killala. The car boot was stuffed, there were cases and bags tied onto the roof with ropes, and you couldn’t see Daniel in the back with all of the bits and pieces that were packed around him. I don’t know what the fans must have thought of Margaret when they saw her car pulling into Killala that night with what looked like all her worldly possessions.
Margaret remembers that show for another reason. During her performance she invited Daniel up on stage to sing ‘Little Cabin Home on the Hill’, and she says it was the moment she realized that he had something special about him. Margaret had heard Daniel singing before, of course, but she had never seen an audience react to him like they did on that particular night.
My first inkling that Daniel was thinking of following in Margaret’s footsteps came in 1980, when he went to college in Galway city, where I thought he was studying to go on to be a teacher or an accountant. I was delighted that he was pursuing something that would give him a good living and that had security, because I knew from Margaret that the music business was far from easy. I would have loved to have seen Daniel go on to become a teacher because I think he would have been an excellent one. He was always so good at communicating with people, and he’s a great listener. I think he would have inspired people to do their best, and he would have given them the confidence to strive for their highest goals.
I have to admit to being very sad and concerned about his welfare seeing him leaving for the Regional College in Galway. Even though he was 18 years old and had already been out in the world a bit, including spending that summer of 1980 washing dishes in the kitchen of a Dublin hotel, I was afraid that something might happen to him. In Dublin he’d stayed with his brother James, but at the time I was always concerned about him whenever he went to any city. I used to be frightened that he’d get killed crossing the road. When he moved to Galway, it was very hard on me because I missed him terribly, and I still miss him to this day when he’s away. But you have to let your children go, whether you like it or not.
The only thing that eased my worry was the fact that I knew he was staying with very nice people, Sean and Pat Nugent. They were a lovely couple, and Daniel would tell me how they treated him like one of their family. Even so, he didn’t settle into college life in Galway.
At first, he used to come home every third weekend. Then it became every weekend. And that was a marathon journey. The public bus used to take him up to Donegal town; then he’d have to hitch the remaining 40 miles to Kincasslagh. After a time, I began to realize that it wasn’t just his love of home that was bringing him back. He didn’t like it in Galway at all, even though the Nugents were so nice to him. I think he didn’t fit in well with college life. By the time Christmas came, Daniel had already made up his mind that he was going to leave and join Margaret’s band.
Coming up to Christmas, Daniel had already spoken to Margaret about becoming a singer. They had discussed it when he went along to one of her shows in Galway. Although she didn’t discourage him, Margaret’s advice to Daniel was to give it serious consideration.
Whenever he performs himself in Galway these days, Daniel always loves to tell the audience how Pat Nugent, the lady of the house where he stayed, had also given him advice when he told her that he was leaving to become a singer. ‘Wouldn’t you be better off learning something first?’ she’d responded. It always gets a laugh, including from Pat, who never misses his shows.
To be honest, I was very concerned about Daniel leaving college to join a band, even though it was Margaret’s. But at the same time, I didn’t interfere, although I did ask Daniel to be sure that he knew what he was doing, and would it not be better if he did something else. James also tried to discourage Daniel from going into Margaret’s business.
‘Look where he is today and to think that I tried to stop him,’ James says now.
Young people have to find their own way in life, make their mistakes and make their fortune, good or bad. Daniel could not be persuaded to give up his dream, so on 28 January 1981, he stepped out onto the stage behind Margaret at a venue called the Rag in Thurles, County Tipperary. It was his first performance as a professional entertainer. He had joined Margaret’s band as a rhythm guitarist, except he couldn’t play guitar, so it wasn’t plugged in. But that was the start of his apprenticeship, pretending to play a guitar in his sister’s band. ‘I had to start somewhere,’ Daniel always remarks whenever anybody mentions it to him.
When I reflect on it now, I realize that Margaret had a huge influence on Daniel’s early adult life. He developed his stagecraft from watching how Margaret performed and how she communicated with the audience.
Daniel got a real buzz from performing with Margaret. He saw how the music and the singing created so much excitement and joy for people, and he grew to love the applause. He never did learn how to play that guitar.
The following April, Daniel played his last show with Margaret at the Longford Arms Hotel in Longford town and started out on his own journey in music, not realizing just how far it would take him.
As his career began to take off, he moved to Dublin, and I went with him. Margaret was living in Galway because her band was based there, but she also owned a house in Ballinteer on the south side of Dublin city.
‘Why don’t you go into my house instead of getting a flat?’ she suggested to Daniel as he made plans to move to the city. ‘Sure you’ll have it for nothing, and in any case I’m worried that someone will break in and squat in it.’
He was delighted with Margaret’s offer, and a week after that we both moved in. I didn’t want Daniel to be away on his own with nobody to wash his clothes or cook for him. We both settled into the house in Dublin, and it was a good time for us. It was a home from home for Daniel, and he always looked forward to my cooking, especially my apple tarts and pancakes.
During those early days Daniel didn’t have much money. He couldn’t afford a car, and he didn’t even have a bicycle. But he never asked anything of me because he knew I didn’t have any money either. It’s not that he would want to be buying things anyway. Material possessions weren’t important to him, and still aren’t to this day.
We arrived back from the city centre one day and there was a note under the door, with a message asking Daniel to ring a particular number.
‘God, Mammy, I don’t know whose number that is,’ he said.
We had no phone in the house, so Daniel headed off on foot to the nearest phone box to make the call. He returned soon afterwards to say that the phone was out of order. He then said he would take the bus into the local village of Dundrum and make the call from there. It transpired that it was a Wexford woman who was desperately trying to contact Daniel. The woman and her friend were big fans and had been to all of his shows since he’d started. The Wexford woman told Daniel that her friend was dying and that she kept crying out, ‘Daniel, Daniel, Daniel.’ The woman pleaded with him to come and see the poor lady. Of course, he went as soon as he could organize a lift.
I don’t know what it is about Daniel that draws people to him in that way. What I do know is that he has brought so much happiness and comfort to many people since he became a singer. Throughout his career, he has gone out of his way to call on the sick or people in need for whatever reason. And he has made such a difference to the lives of those people. Daniel has told me time and again that he feels privileged to be in a position to have that effect on others. It has been a really rewarding experience for him. And, as his mother, I am so delighted that my Daniel has been able to bring so much sunshine into the lives of others.
I travelled a lot with Daniel during our time in Dublin. He’d be going off with Ronnie Kennedy from the band and he’d say, ‘Sure why don’t you come with us? You might as well, instead of sittin’ at home on your own.’ He didn’t have to ask twice.
But I wasn’t totally dependent on Daniel for company during my time in Dublin because my son James, his wife, Eileen, and their family were there – as was my dearest cousin, Willie McDevitt. We had a very strong bond, Willie and myself. We were more like a brother and sister. Willie used to always say to me, ‘You’re the one cousin out of all the cousins that I like the best.’ He was a kind and gentle man. Every summer for many years Willie and Rose came up to our house in Kincasslagh for their holiday. We didn’t have much space, but we made up beds on the floor, and they always enjoyed their time with me.
Willie was a chef by trade, and as our James grew up he too showed a great interest in cooking. And it wouldn’t be normal dishes like bacon and cabbage or beef stew. James would be experimenting with meat and vegetables and making up dishes of his own. My mother was living with us at the time, and she was the one who would sample whatever he baked. I’d often see her scooping the last of the juices off her plate with a finger, she was a big fan of James’s cooking.
When Willie came on holidays to us during the summer, he was very impressed by James. ‘James would make a great chef, Julia,’ he’d say to me. Then he said to James one time, ‘If you want to go on to be a chef, come to me and I’ll get you started.’
The summer that James left school at 14, I went on a short visit to one of Francie’s sisters in Scotland, taking only Daniel with me as he was too young to leave behind. When James got me over in Scotland, he packed a bag and went away to Dublin to Willie. The first I knew of it was when I came home.
‘James is gone,’ Kathleen said, and I knew by her tone that it wasn’t to the local shop.
‘Gone where?’ I asked, almost afraid to hear the answer.
‘He’s gone down to Dublin to Willie to be a chef,’ she told me.
I was shocked but at the same time relieved because I knew he would come to no harm once he was under Willie’s wing. I was heartbroken to lose him, and I cried for weeks. James was so much fun around the house, and I missed his trick-acting.
‘Don’t you worry about him, Julia. Rose and myself will look out for James. He’s a good lad and he’ll go far in life,’ Willie reassured me.
James said later that he knew, if he’d asked me, that I wouldn’t have let him go to Dublin at 14. And he was right. But now that he was there, I put him in the care of Willie and gave him my blessing.
And so began James’s outing in the world on his own. Willie started him off washing saucepans and peeling potatoes, and gradually taught him the trade of being a chef. James worked his way up the ladder until he was as good as Willie himself.
As soon as Daniel and I moved into Margaret’s house in Ballinteer, Willie came to visit us every day, even if it was only for a few minutes. He’d be checking to make sure that everything was all right with us. Family meant everything to Willie.
I have so many happy and funny memories of Willie during that period in Dublin. I recall how one time it was snowing outside and the path to our house was covered in mucky slush. So when I saw Willie’s car coming up the road, I raced into the kitchen and got a bundle of newspapers to spread in the hallway where we had a pink carpet. Willie would always come in through the hallway and go over and sit in our armchair. I spread the newspapers the whole way from the door to the armchair so that the pink carpet wouldn’t get destroyed. When Willie came in, he began to lift the newspapers, and he lifted every one of them and laid them down in a neat bundle beside the armchair. He passed no remark about the papers, and I didn’t say why they were on the floor.
Some time later, I heard how he’d said to Rose when he arrived home, ‘Do ye know, Julia is getting very untidy.’
‘Why do you say that?’ Rose asked him.
‘There were newspapers scattered all over her floor. I had to tidy them up,’ he replied.
I laughed when I heard that.
Sometimes Daniel would drop me off at Willie’s home when he went away, and I’d spend the evening with him and Rose. We got on well together, Rose and I. She was like a sister to me. I always liked her.
As soon as I walked through their front door, Willie would go off and get me a pair of slippers. ‘Take off your shoes, now, and make yourself comfortable while you’re here,’ he’d say.
One night while I was in Willie’s house I told him that I had to go into St Vincent’s Hospital the next day for a check-up.
‘It’s a pity you’re not going into Vincent’s in a couple of days because I have to go in myself and the two of us could have gone together,’ Willie replied.
On the day I arrived at St Vincent’s I saw Willie’s daughter, Rosita, and Rose sitting there. What are they doing here? I thought to myself. I went over to them, and I could see by Rose’s face that she was very upset. Willie had been rushed to hospital. He was dying. Whenever I think about that day, I always think how it was such a strange coincidence that I had to go into the hospital at that very moment.
When I went in to see Willie I realized that he was in a very bad way. He had an oxygen mask on his face, and when I went over to the bed he removed it, put his arm around me and gave me a kiss. I didn’t stay long so as not to tire him, and as I was going out the door he shouted, ‘See ya!’
That night I stayed with Rose at their home. We were sleeping in separate rooms and at 3 a.m. a knock came to the door. The two of us rushed down the stairs. Willie was dead.