Deep sadness at the passing of Derry Feis stalwart Fr Kevin Mullan

Hundreds of tributes have been paid to the late Fr Kevin Mullan, who sadly passed away in the early hours of Saturday, May 6, following a lengthy battle against illness. The Omagh native led the parish of Drumquin for many years before his ill-health forced his retirement from front-line ministry in 2020. 

Fr Mullan, was laid to rest at Dublin Road cemetery in Omagh on Tuesday following a private Requiem Mass at the home of his sister Joan. On Monday evening there was an interdenominational service at St Patrick’s in Drumquin where his remains had lain in repose in the parochial house prior to removal for a period in that church which he had served with such distinction as well as many others. 

Ordained in 1971, one of his first clerical postings was a stint at St Patrick’s, Pennyburn. A former student of St Columb’s College, it was here that Fr Mullan rekindled his love of the city and became associated at organisational level with Feis Dhoire Cholmcille, where as a boy and young man he had competed as an Irish dancer. 

Fr Mullan pictured at the centenary Feis Dhoire Cholmcille in 2022 with committee members Colette Craig, Aisling Bonner and Ursula Clifford.

When news of Fr Mullan’s passing emerged, his lifelong friend and of Registrar of Derry Feis, Ursula Clifford said: “I am heartbroken to hear of Fr Kevin’s death. My own mother Sibeal Sharkey was like a second mother to him when he came to Derry at first and was appointed as feis secretary. He had a particular passion for the Irish dancing at the Feis and keeping it going as well as organising all the other disciplines. 

“He was perpetually in our house organising the Feis. Derry Feis didn’t take place between 1972 and 1974 because of the Troubles. But it really didn’t disappear at all. Thinking about my mother and Fr Kevin, you’d wonder what would have really happened to the Feis if it hadn’t been for them organising the Bogside Festival. That was basically to keep people interested even though it wasn’t officially named Feis Dhoire Cholmcille. Fr Mullan remained as dedicated to the feis as chairperson after he moved to Drumquin as he was when he was secretary.”

Despite his illness, Fr Mullan paid his customary trip to Derry this year during Feis week and as recently as two weeks ago presided at the Requiem Mass of his friend and former Feis treasurer Noel McCaul at St Patrick’s, Pennyburn. 

In 2022, Fr Mullan was involved in helping to commemorate the centenary of Feis Dhoire Cholmcille and in a video interview about his thoughts on the Feis he said: “The Feis became, really, my whole life when I was here in Derry city. When Bishop Daly asked me to take it on, it was in a lull because of the Troubles and he wanted to revive it. He had just been made bishop, so ‘muggins’ was asked because I did Irish dancing. I never, never regretted giving my time to it. It made what I am – a physical wreck – but very happy.”

Fr Mullan pictured with his late mother as a young student of St Columb’s College receiving a prize for his historical studies.

The late priest also made a substantial written contribution to a book marking the centenary of the Feis in which his ability as a writer, his sharp wit and wonderful sense of fun shone through. 

In one passage Fr Mullan wrote: “As I look back on those happy, happy years in a world which I have never really left, many special memories come flooding back and there are special moments that stay with me: the glorious sounds of choirs and orchestras and young maestros in the making, the sheer perfection of senior dancers in their individual set pieces and their eight-member teams energised by the best accompanists in the world, the variety and fun of the action songs and that night when we had a visit from the morality police, checking a rumour that some performers would be wearing flowers and little else. We had our standards. 

“Fond memories, that evening and now, bright the light of those other days around me. It was midnight, but the night only brings the dawn closer. 

“Derry Feis will go onto see the fáinne geal an lae.”

On top of his extensive duties as the leading figure on the committee of Derry Feis, Fr Mullan also of course had a full-time role as pastoral carer and parish administrator. Always mindful of the need to strive for reconciliation during darker days in the north, one such peace-making act unintentionally embroiled Fr Kevin and a clerical counterpart from the Presbyterian tradition in controversy in the mid 1980s. 

By 1984, Fr Mullan was ministering at Christ The King church in Limavady. Opposite to the Catholic church was a Presbyterian church then overseen by Rev David Armstrong. When the minister opened his church’s door on Christmas morning, Fr Mullan was standing there. Rev Armstrong invited him in. 

It was a visible and simple, but very powerful gesture of peace in incredibly fraught political circumstances. However, the act of reconciliation resulted in death threats being issued against Rev Armstrong and his family. Such was the pressure caused by the fallout that the minister first relocated to England and then to Co Cork where he later retrained as a Church of Ireland minister. 

Speaking after Fr Mullan suffered a heart attack in 2017, Rev Armstrong said: “Fr Kevin and I go way, way back and we struck a blow against bigotry. We were pioneers that crossed the divide. In fact, it was Kevin who initiated the whole thing. When I arrived at my church on Christmas morning, he was at my door. I brought him in. It was a step towards reconciliation and a step towards hate in Northern Ireland. My family paid a very heavy price, but Kevin always kept in touch. I will never forget that for family events Kevin drive through the centre of Ireland to Cork to be there.

“He is a man without walls or barriers and always a ready smile even for those who may not agree with him. He is a lovely Christian and is 100% faithful to his church and to his Lord. He is my pal in Christ”. 

Coming through one such incident should have been enough for a single lifetime, but when on 15 August 1988 a bomb tore through the centre of his hometown of Omagh, Fr Mullan was thrust headlong into first coping with the gratuitous loss of 29 people and two unborn children and the decades that followed saw him use his pastoral abilities to deal with the ensuing psychological trauma of the victims' families, many of whom he would have known personally. 

As Catholic chaplain at Tyrone County Hospital in Omagh, Fr Mullan witnessed the horror of the bombing at first hand. 

On the twentieth anniversary of the Real IRA attack in 2018, Fr Mullan addressed a remembrance service near the scene of the atrocity. 

He said: “Come you who 20 years ago did this to Omagh, please come back once more among us to this market place, which you tore up with your bomb, to this street and its shops where you left our relatives, friends and visitors broken, bleeding, dead,” he said.

“You were not afraid then. Come with your tears, and do not be afraid now.

“In your eyes we may read the apology of your heart. In our tears we may not know how to respond.

“We too must step out of the dark”. 

Tributes were also paid to Fr Mullan on social media. One such tribute came from Michael Hutton, a long-serving stage announcer at Feis Dhoire Cholmcille who wrote on the institution’s Facebook page: “We have all lost a true friend. A man who put other’s needs before his own. My friendship dates back to when he was a curate at St Joseph’s in Galliagh and he asked me to assist at Feis Dhoire Cholmcille in the late 1970s and I continued to do it for over 40 years out of respect for him. Rest in peace Fr Kevin, you truly left your mark on all of us.”

John Peoples, a former accompanist at the feis wrote: “Fr Kevin was a lovely, gentle man and a wonderful caring and spiritual priest. I knew him from Galliagh many years ago. He was the first to bring me to play at Mass and later to take choirs. I am so sorry to hear of his passing. May God rest his gentle soul.”

Secretary of Feis Dhoire Cholmcille, Aisling Bonner said: “On behalf of the Committee of Feis Dhoire Cholmcille, I want to express sincere and heartfelt condolences to the family circle, clerical colleagues and countless friends of Fr Kevin on his passing. 

“His dedication to and support for Derry Feis remained undiminished throughout his life. To say that his experience, intelligence, knowledge and wisdom will be missed by us all at the feis is a vast understatement. In many ways he epitomised the feis motto - ‘Do chum glóire dé agus onóra na hÉireann’, which means ‘For the glory of God and the honour of Ireland’. 

“May he rest in peace”.