They have been streamed 10 billion times, sold 20 million albums and have had half a dozen number one songs.
Yet, Irish band The Script have always maintained a relatively low profile in their personal lives.
They hit headlines last year when guitarist Mark Sheehan died tragically after a brief illness when he was only 46.
The news shocked music fans but even more shocking was it to his bandmates and family.
In a new interview, singer Danny O’Donoghue has spoken of how he has turned to faith during the difficult time of mourning his bandmate and friend.
He said:
“Anybody who’s lost somebody I guess knows that you never really get rid of the grief, it’s there and you just tend to try to grow around it.
“Gone too soon. Way too soon. And I think after he passed away, like everybody else, you’ve got every reason in the world to just go off the rails. So I spent the majority of all last year questioning everything.
“Questioning is there a God, is there not? What am I doing in life? Can we continue on as The Script? All those questions that you ask yourself in those moments.”
He continued:
I also then started going back to church and I’m in church every day. Catholic mass, I go every day.
I set the alarm, get up in the morning, I don’t look at the phone, and go to church to practice gratitude for the life I’ve been able to live so far, and offer up prayers.
I go to the gym to work out. I go to the studio to make music. But where am I going to get, spiritually, what I need now?
I’m not the biggest believer in all of it. I used to go to church, I was an altar boy years ago, and just the structure of it and what it does and the practice of it.
I haven’t touched a drink in six months. I feel better than I’ve ever felt, considering the circumstances, and I don’t know what it is that’s there — but I know there’s something there. So, for me, I love it and I go every day. I don’t miss a day.
It sounds like he is on an important journey and going the right way about it.
Pray for him and if you see him at Mass offer him encouragement and your prayers.
He has certainly come a long way since 2021, when he discussed how the death of his father affected his faith:
Because he went before his time. How dare God take him in his prime? You question your mortality. You question all of these things. And with those questions come answers. But, you’ve got to keep going. Know that there is a bigger plan. A better plan.
I pray to a thing upstairs. I don’t know if it’s a man, I don’t know if it’s woman. It’s a good thing to have an image to pray to, but to believe in man-made religion is pretty hard for me.
To go from prayerful agnosticism to daily Mass is a remarkable change in a short time. Pray for Danny and his bandmates.
