His father's record collection was broad and gave his son a love of classical, rock, country as well as traditional music.

[2] The strangeness of the sound of the Uilleann pipes enabled him to become a session musician with prog-rockers The Enid in 1987 on their album 'The Seed and the Sower'.

Máire Brennan, a member of the best-known Celtic-folk group, Clannad, called on Donockley to be a session musician on 'Two Horizons'.

In 1999, Donockley recorded 'Our Kate' on the album 'Debatable Lands' by Kathryn Tickell, contrasting two types of pipes with her; she plays the Northumbrian smallpipes.

[4] Together with Adrian Edmondson, Donockley founded the band The Bad Shepherds in 2008, performing punk and new wave classics on folk instruments.

Donockley's first appearance with Nightwish was on their 2007 release, Dark Passion Play, as a guest musician, providing some whistles and pipes to the songs "The Islander", "Last of the Wilds", and "Meadows of Heaven".

Donockley has recorded as a session musician with Roy Harper, Midge Ure, Del Amitri, Alan Stivell, Status Quo, and Leah.

He can be heard on recent movie soundtracks Robin Hood (Ridley Scott, 2010) and Ironclad (Jonathan English, 2011).