Majella O’Donnell to tell all in ‘searingly moving’ autobiography

Majella O’Donnell will tell of her struggles with marriage break-up, crippling depression, and breast cancer in a "searingly moving" autobiography to be published next month.

It’s All in the Head: My Story, charts the story of a wide-eyed, music-loving child growing up in Tipperary with “dreams of a future full of hope and excitement”.

However, the 54-year old wife of Donegal singer Daniel reveals how these dreams were shattered by the break-up of her first marriage and her ensuing battle with severe depression that left her contemplating suicide.

The book will be released on October 9 by UK publishers Simon & Schuster. It will go head-to-head, in autobiography season, with her sister-in-law Margo O’Donnell’s tome Margo Queen of Country & Irish: The Promise and the Dream, which is released on September 22.

However, fans of the two women are already pre-ordering both books online.

The outspoken mother of two’s “empowering” new memoir will also recall her famous Late, Late Show moment, of September 2013, when she had her hair shaved off live on national television.

The charity event raised a phenomenal €600,000 to help the Irish Cancer Society.

“It was a public declaration from a private woman, a statement of enormous courage in her fight against breast cancer,” according to her publishers. The book also tells how, after the break-up of her first marriage and with her confidence and self-esteem at a low ebb, Majella decided to take charge of her life and make a fresh start.

Destiny lent a hand when she met and fell in love with world-famous crooner Daniel in Tenerife. Their marriage in 2002 brought “immense happiness and fulfilment” until tragedy again struck with her devastating breast cancer diagnosis.

Majella’s publishers promise readers a compelling story about “a woman who has learned about life the hard way, but who, with the love and support of her family, husband Daniel, and the public by her side has come through with a force of character and a deep-seated determination that will inspire us all”.

Meanwhile, Daniel and Majella jointly undertook the Ice Bucket Challenge at The Irish Fiddler pub in Tenerife yesterday, making donations to both motor neurone and cancer services in Ireland. Daniel nominated Irish singer Dominic Kirwan, while Majella nominated Noeleen Murphy of the Irish Fiddler pub.