Derrybeg Church fire: 'It was just frightful, the intensity of the flames'

It was shortly before 4am on Easter Monday when the ringing phone shook the already-woken Fr Brian Ó Fearraigh.

Phone calls to the parochial house at such an hour can be expected - but this one was different.

The words, from Brid Hickey on the other end of the line, were panicked and almost haunting.

“Tá an Teach Pobail ar thine. Tá an Teach Pobail ar thine.” 

(“The church is burning, the church is burning”).

Initially, startled by a noise outside, Fr Ó Fearraigh woke in his room, at the front of the parochial house, and could see nothing amiss outside. He peeked through the curtains of the sitting room - also at the front of the building - and there was little to suggest the sight that was unfolding only yards away.

As he made his way down the hallway, he was stopped in his tracks by the call.

Outside, St Mary’s Church - where Fr Ó Fearraigh celebrated Easter Sunday Mass the previous morning - was up in flames.

A fire, still unexplained, was tearing through the 53-year-old building.

“A beautiful Church for beautiful people,” Fr Ó Fearraigh reflected this week. “This was their place of worship, in good times and sad times, where they smiled and where they shed a tear. 

“Teach an phobail, the people’s house, that’s what St Mary’s Church was. It is heartbreaking to see it as an empty shell.”

At 3.57am, the sound of an explosion reverberated around Derrybeg.

“The place shook,” one local told the Donegal Democrat.

“The fire lit up the whole town land. It was like a major floodlight that was on. It was just unnatural.”

Like many others who gathered, Fr Ó Fearraigh was helpless as firefighters battled the flames as they tore devastatingly through the building.

“The flames were rising to the heavens,”  Fr Ó Fearraigh said. “It was just frightful, the intensity of the flames. It was an inferno.

“The embers were coming down like snowflakes, down even as far as the parochial house. There was absolutely nothing that I could do.”

Firefighters battle the fire at St Mary's Church in Derrybeg

What is left now is only a scorched octagonal shell, the unique roof completely consigned to memory. The sacristy, located off the main Church building, appears to have escaped damage and there were no injuries reported from the blaze. 

Seats and pews have become ashes. The concrete altar and its granite face - for so long the very focal point of the building for worshippers - disintegrated in the fire.

“I am heartbroken to learn of the destruction,” said Monsignor Kevin Gillespie, the Diocesan Administrator of the Raphoe Diocese.

It was in St Mary’s where the then Fr Gillespie said his first Mass following his ordination in 1999.

“I think of all the people of Gaoth Dobhair at home and away who will receive this news with great sadness.

“Séipéal Mhuire has served the parish since 1972, and it is here that the most significant moments of the life of the parish are marked. 

“With God’s help, with our Lady’s intercession, with the support of the community and the hard work of the clergy, a new parish church will rise again in one form or another.”

Monsignor Kevin Gillespie

Monsignor Gillespie and Fr Ó Fearraigh hailed the firefighters from units of the Donegal Fire Service and also An Garda Siochana who attended the scene.

“The work that they did was a prayer itself,” Fr Ó Fearraigh remarked.

“That Church meant so much to so many people,” said local Sinn Féin TD Pearse Doherty. “It is a place we go to for comfort and solace. It has torn the heart out of the community.”

An anniversary mass for Deputy Doherty’s father, Micheál, who died in 2012, was due to take place in St Mary’s on Monday night. 

Nightly Masses have been held this week at St Colmcille’s Church in Cnoc Fola and a long-term plan for Masses will be announced before the weekend. 

The Gaoth Dobhair parish also includes the Churches at Cnoc Fola, St Patrick’s in Meenaweel and the Church of the Sacred Heart in Dunlewey, but Sunday Masses for St Mary’s churchgoers may yet be held in another venue in the parish given the large volume of people who will need to be housed. 

Over €60,000 has already been pledged in a fundraising venture.

Parishioner Mary Coyle of Coiste Forbartha Dhobair is part of a local committee that came together to rally for the cause since Monday.

“We are a strong people, very resilient,” she told the Donegal Democrat. “It is very important to stay together as parishioners and we will get through this. The Church is so central to everyone in Gaoth Dobhair and it is lovely to see how everyone is working shoulder-to-shoulder to ensure that St Mary’s gets rebuilt. The public reaction has been fabulous”

Last Friday, mourners gathered for the funeral service of Nell Cullen from Bunbeg, a former Lady Captain at Gweedore Golf Club.

Fr Brian Ó Fearraigh

On Sunday, upwards of 800 people packed into the Church for Easter Sunday Mass. Local bands, Banna Ceoil na Crannóige and Banna Ceoil Dhobhair, added to the joyous occasion. Footage of Banna Ceoil Dhobhair jamming into the parochial house for an impromptu set was shared on social media. 

Little did anyone know what they would wake to.

“This is maybe a lesson to us all on how things can change so quickly,” Ms Coyle said, noting how the parish are keen to support Fr Ó Fearraigh, curate Fr Brendan Ward and retired priest Fr Seán Ó Gallchóir, a native of the Gaoth Dobhair parish. 

“We had the Easter celebrations, the prayers and the fun…and then the devastation of Easter Monday. It also shows us how a community and its people can stand together in the face of a tragedy.

“Out of such bad will come good. There is nothing left for us to do but to move on and to focus on what needs to be done to support the priests who have supported us in every happy occasion and sad occasion. 

“It is time for us to give something back.”

St Mary’s Church was officially opened in August, 1972, blessed by the then Bishop of Raphoe, Anthony McFeely.

Then building cost £123,000 at the time with the parish priest, Canon McGettigan, touring extensively in the United States on a fundraising effort. 

The Church was designed by Patrick Carr & Partners architects from Ballybofey in an octagonal shape “allowing the congregation to fully participate in the eucharistic service”, and was built by Joseph McMenamin and Sons from Ballybofey.

This week is not the first tragedy to befall the Catholic Church in the area.

In August 1880, five people lost their lives during a major flood in the old St Mary’s church while Mass was being celebrated.

The five who drowned in the awful tragedy were: 13-year-old altar server Séamus Ferry of Stranacorkra, Derrybeg; Grace McGarvey, Carrick, Derrybeg; Conal Boyle, Inishman island; Enrí Ó Gallchobhair, Magheraclogher, Bunbeg; and Neil Doherty, Magheraclogher.

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Back in 1854, also at Easter time, a fire destroyed a previous incarnation of the Church.

They rebuilt before and they will do again.

This Saturday night, a marquee at Teach Phaidí Óig in Crolly will host Oíche Tairbhí, featuring Daniel O’Donnell, Moya Brennan and Mairéad Ní Mhaonaigh, as well as a host of local artists with all donations going directly toward the restoration of the church.

Hope and healing, they say, will feature strongly on the night.  “Every voice, every hand, every note of music brings us closer to seeing our chapel rise once again,” the organisers say.

Fr Ó Fearraigh, who hails from nearby Magheroarty, and has recalled how the Church held “a lot of dear memories for our parishioners”, but pointed out: “There is a wonderful resilience in people.” 

Echoing that theme, Deputy Doherty added: “There will be a rebirth here - we will see that Church rebuilt from the ashes”.