Imelda stands patiently in the howling, drenching gale, a 50ish woman with pitifully swollen ankles, dressed in nothing more than a light, old cardigan and summer skirt slapping wetly around her calves. The umbrella she wrestles with is for the protection of her 83-year-old mother, huddled in a wheelchair. They are queueing for the coveted certificates - the ones that certify that they have had tea with Daniel.
"He always asks after Mammy so I brought her with me today to meet him," she says shyly. And has it been worth it? She frowns, puzzled at the question. "Do you mean should I have brought her out in the rain? . . . Yes, she loves his music. Oh, you mean me? I . . . I don't think I could go on if I didn't have his support."
Simple as that. Anyone who has come to Kincasslagh in Co Donegal to sneer or to indulge in a bout of lofty psychoanalysis has stepped on stoney ground. We might be on a pilgrimage to Lourdes. Imelda is here to be healed as surely as any pilgrim to the French shrine, although neither she nor Daniel might recognise it as such.
She is only one of thousands - many in wheelchairs like her mother, some just children - who have travelled hundreds of miles for the type of spiritual renewal that the kind and gentle Daniel, he of the awesome memory, seems able to deliver. With the rugged, stoney hills of the Rosses as a backdrop, fronting onto the wild, stormy Atlantic, Daniel's big, neat bungalow seems a fitting refuge for a healer.
High up in the queue that snakes down the hill towards the house, Joan Williams from the English Lake District leans painfully on her cane and in quiet, dignified tones says she'd wait for as long as it took. Her discovery of Daniel early this year came at around the same time as her diagnosis of multiple sclerosis. Since then, she has been to 20 of his concerts.
"He recognises me at all of them. I've had five postcards from him since February asking how I'm doing. He's given me a reason for getting out and going on." Pick another queueing group at random: Judy White, Jackie Allibone and Jenny Pengelly from Devon and Cornwall (in Judy's case, via the Falklands).
"I lost my husband and father; the house was burgled and I had a nervous breakdown. Daniel is just . . . a kind man. He gives you hope," says one. He brought another through her little grand-daughter's terrible illness. "I'd never pay the price I've paid for this trip to see anybody else," says Judy, who confesses that her legs are "like rubber" at the thought of meeting him. "I've been saving for this for five years."
As the queue moves forward, the voices audible above the driving rain are English, Scottish, Welsh, Northern - many of them with no links with the Republic other than Daniel. Sprinkled lightly among them, the occasional Southern voice comes to the fore - such as those of Bernie and Patricia Kearney and Thomas and Mary Raftery from Fourmilehouse in Roscommon, a 260-mile round trip all in the day. Bernie and Thomas couldn't be described as great Daniel fans but they contribute as much to the unique charm of the occasion as anyone - prime examples of those few and slightly bewildered men who have given up a day to be indulgent chauffeurs, cheer-leaders and escorts.
Cyril and Judith Watson drove from the Lake District last Saturday - a 13-hour journey that began at 4.30 a.m. So, Cyril, why did you do it? He nods benignly towards Judith. "I just love him," she says, excited as a girl. "I've got his pillow, his teddy, watch, clock, diary, T-shirts, all his CDs, all his videos." And Cyril? "Basically," says Cyril, "he's the boy next door. How many pop stars actually get to know and really care about their fans? He does."
"Say hello to Margaret Forker in that paper of yours," says Christine from Edinburgh. She and her friends are a bawdy bunch, full of life and a bit contemptuous of the Daniel "obsessives". But like every Daniel fan, within them lurk hearts of fierce maternal love and concern for the boy they follow with touching fervour.
SO what's he got that . . . oh, say, Dominic Kirwan, hasn't? "He has that extra sprinkle of stardust that none of the others have," responds Brenda after some serious thought. "And Dominic Kirwan has a wife and bairns," adds Christine. "He's the son that every mother would want," chips in Frances Taylor. "He's the son I never had."
Their countryman, Wattie Flockhart, looks on with a wry smile. His wife, Kate, was off at first light to queue. "Write this down," he says. "Our wedding photos went in a drawer to make space for the Daniel O'Donnell shrine in our house."
And here's Pat Willoughby and her friends from Pontefract. She's wearing a fetching Daniel T-shirt and a big smile, having just looked into his eyes. "We're the coach the woman died on," she says. Eh? Yes, I'm afraid so. Margaret Verrity, a 70-year-old Halifax woman, collapsed and died in their tour bus on Monday just after leaving Daniel's Viking House Hotel outside Kincasslagh. One of her last deeds, they discovered later, was to write a letter to Daniel asking him to drop a note to a sick friend to cheer her up.
Pat and her friends have been "crying buckets" ever since. But the tour continued. "We know that's how she would have wanted it," they say firmly.
