Rise to fame Not getting enough opportunities to perform solos with the band, O'Donnell decided in 1983 to record his own material. On 9 February 1983, he recorded his first single,
Johnny McCauley's "My Donegal Shore", using
£1,200 of his own money, and sold all the copies himself. Later that year, he formed his own musical group, Country Fever. After the group disbanded, he formed The Grassroots. In 1985, Mick Clerkin, manager of the Ritz label, saw him perform and introduced him to Seán Reilly, who remains his manager. Under Reilly's management, O'Donnell began regularly selling out concerts in England. According to O'Donnell, by January 1992 he had reached "rock bottom" with
exhaustion. After a three-month recovery break, he returned to the stage, performing at the
Point Theatre in Dublin.
Success By the mid‑1990s, O'Donnell had become a household name across
Ireland and
Great Britain. He appeared on popular television programmes in both countries and received several awards. Among these, he was named Donegal Person of the Year in 1989, an honour he has described as his most meaningful. He was also awarded Irish Entertainer of the Year in 1989, 1992, and 1996. His first UK chart hit came in 1992 with "I Just Want to Dance With You" (later covered by
George Strait), which led to his first appearance on
Top of the Pops. Throughout his career, O'Donnell has befriended several of his childhood idols, including
Cliff Richard and
Loretta Lynn. He also developed a close professional relationship with the Irish singer
Mary Duff, who has frequently toured with him. In 1994, O'Donnell cancelled a series of concerts in
Northern Ireland following death threats from
loyalist paramilitaries. The threat was made in a phone call to the Viking House Hotel in Kincasslagh, County Donegal, warning that he would be killed if he proceeded with four sold‑out concerts at the Slieve Donard Hotel in
Newcastle, County Down.
2000–present In 2002, O'Donnell was awarded an Honorary
MBE (as an Irish citizen) for his services to the music industry. He has achieved 20 UK Top 40 albums, 15 Top 40 singles, and has sold more than 10 million records. He gained considerable success in
North America after starring in seven concert specials on
PBS in the United States. He has charted 18 albums in the Top 20 of the U.S.
Billboard World Music Albums Chart, and has also appeared on the Independent Albums chart. In 2011,
RTÉ broadcast a Christmas Day special,
Daniel at 50, to mark his 50th birthday. In 2015, O'Donnell became the first artist to have released at least one new album in the UK charts for 28 consecutive years (1988–2015), when
The Hank Williams Songbook entered the UK Albums Chart at number five. A Daniel O'Donnell Visitors' Centre opened in
Dungloe in 2012 to display his memorabilia; it closed in 2019 when the building was sold. In Autumn 2015, he appeared on
Strictly Come Dancing, and was eliminated third. In October 2015, O'Donnell and his wife Majella starred in the first series of their television programme ''Daniel and Majella's B&B Road Trip''. The series aired on
UTV before moving to RTÉ in 2016. ==Personal life==