Bishop Niall Coll: ‘Called back to the place and people who first formed my faith’

The text message arrived from the Papal Nuncio like a bolt from the blue.

Perhaps even, it was Divine intervention.

Bishop Niall Coll glanced at his phone at the beginning of last week and the message from the Archbishop Luis Mariano Montemayor, the Vatican’s ambassador to Ireland, was straight to the point.

He needed to speak with the Bishop of Ossory “urgently”.

The following morning, on the invitation of the Papal Nuncio, Bishop Coll visited the office on the Navan Road at Ashtown, Dublin. Archbishop Montemayor, the papal representative in this country, informed the St Johnston native that Pope Leo XIV had appointed him as the new Bishop of Raphoe.

“To be called back to the place and people who first formed my faith is both humbling and deeply moving,” the 62-year-old Bishop Coll says.

He gave his first address, just minutes after his appointment was simultaneously announced at St Eunan’s Cathedral in Letterkenny and in the Vatican on Thursday morning.

He stood at a microphone on the very same marble floor at the altar in the Cathedral where he was ordained to the priesthood by the then Bishop of Raphoe, Seamus Hegarty, in June 1988.

This is a calling home in so many ways for the son of Kathleen and the late Willie Coll from Hillhead in St Johnston.

It was here, in the Raphoe Diocese, where he was “born, baptised and ordained” as he referenced his deep affinity and connection to the See of Raphoe, which has been vacant since the departure of Bishop Alan McGuckian SJ in 2024.

When Bishop McGuckian took up a new role as Bishop of Down and Connor, Bishop Coll had his feet under the table in the Ossory Diocese for only year, having been ordained as a bishop by the Archbishop Dermot Farrell in St Mary’s Cathedral, Kilkenny on January 22, 2023.

“My deepest feeling at the moment is the gratitude that I'm coming home and that I'm with my own people,” Bishop Coll says. “That said, the people of Ossory were really welcoming and kind to me, and I'm very sorry to be leaving them, but that's the instruction that I got, and I thank them from the bottom of my heart for their kindness, for their faith, and for their support. 

“A mixture of sadness that I have to uproot so soon from Ossory, from Kilkenny, and then gratitude and happiness that I will be back home among my own people, and like this morning, it has been, in a sense, interesting that everyone here is speaking with northern accents. Normally in Kilkenny, I have to, at times, slow my speech down so that they can understand my northern accent, but they were very patient with me, and I thank them for that.”

Bishop Niall Coll with family members. Photo: Joe Boland (North West Newspix)

He returns to a Diocese much changed from the one he was first ordained. The late Fr Joseph O’Donnell - a close neighbour in St Johnston - as well as Fr Denis Quinn, Fr Paddy Dunne and Fr Pat Ward were all ordained on the same June Sunday 37 years ago. Vocations since have dramatically dropped, yet he hopes to draw from the area’s deep-rooted faith as he returns to guide parishioners during a key time in the Church.

“The Diocese of Raphoe carries within it over fourteen centuries of faith,” Bishop Coll says. “The ruins of ancient monasteries, churches and the holy wells scattered across our landscape remind us that faith has endured through every season of history - through poverty, persecution and change.  That heritage is not just our past - it is our responsibility in the present.  

“It is the land of Columba, Eunan and so many holy men and women who, across generations, lived their faith with perseverance and courage.  The rugged landscape of Donegal has shaped a faith that is resilient and steadfast - a faith that carried families through persecution, famine and emigration, that sustained parishes through hardship and change, that built schools, churches, monasteries, and communities where Christ was known and loved.

“Raphoe is living through a time of profound change - cultural, social and spiritual.  We are no longer at the centre of public life in the way the Church once was.  Many people who once found their identity naturally in the life of the parish now find it elsewhere.  Patterns of belief and belonging have shifted.  The number of priests continues to decline, and we feel this particularly in our smaller rural communities, where the priest’s presence has long been interwoven with local life.

“These are real challenges, and we do ourselves no favour by pretending otherwise.”

 His own faith was shaped very much at home in St Johnston. His mother Kathleen and sisters Caitriona and Annemarie were among the congregation on Thursday for the official announcement. His cousin, Fr Stephen Gorman, the parish priest in Rathmullan, was among a large crowd of priests from across the Diocese who were present.

The well-travelled prelate studied in Maynooth and Rome while he was centrally placed in education having had roles teaching at St Mary’s University in Belfast - where he was based for 18 years - St Patrick’s College, Carlow, Pobalscoil na Rosann in Dungloe and St Eunan’s College in Letterkenny.

Bishop Niall Coll with students from St Eunan's College. Photo: Joe Boland (North West Newspix)

Among the roles he will assume now as the Bishop of Raphoe will be a patron of some schools, including St Eunan’s.

“Supporting and strengthening that work (of Catholic schools) will be a priority for me,” Bishop Coll says, “deepening the good work already being done and building on the legacy that has shaped generations across our land.  Having myself worked in education, both here in Donegal and for many years in Belfast, I know the dedication and faith that teaching requires, and I am deeply grateful to all who serve in our schools today.”

The Catholic Church remains reeling in many ways from the sex abuse scandals that have dragged it through the hot coals over recent times.

“The church has learned so much from this terrible trauma,” Bishop Coll says. “in a sense we were the first institution in the country, indeed in the western world, that the spotlight shone upon, and we discovered many things that are not to our credit.”

He says that the safeguarding of children and vulnerable adults “will be my top priority as Bishop of Raphoe”.

Since Bishop McGuckian left in 2024, Monsignor Kevin Gillespie took on the role of Diocesan Administrator and the incoming Bishop praised his “steadfastness, discretion and generosity” which ensured that the pastoral and spiritual life of the diocese has continued without interruption”. 

In October 2023, Bishop Coll met the then Cardinal Robert Prevost - now Pope Leo XIV - who was the Prefect of the Dicastery for Bishops in 2023 and was leading the 16th Ordinary General Assembly of the Synod of Bishops on synodality.

He was very much on-message with the late Pope Francis’s position on synodality and a need for what he has previously referred to as “a need to develop a greater sense of co-responsibility in mission between clergy and people everywhere”.

He says: “I think the Church that's in a sense passing away in Ireland was very clerically dominated, there were so many priests and so many nuns that in a sense we were slow to develop the apostolate of the lay faithful. So that's the big emphasis today in the Church, is to remind everybody that Christ loves them and that they have a role to play in the life of the parish and the Church. 

“We may need to share resources more effectively, to collaborate across parish and diocesan boundaries, and to find new forms of ministry suited to today’s realities, whether through cooperation between parishes, with neighbouring dioceses or through new pastoral arrangements.”

Read next: A mother’s prayers answered as Bishop Niall Coll returns home to Raphoe Diocese

That he is of the people and places of the Raphoe Diocese will certainly be a benefit to the Bishop Coll when he formally takes up his new post at a yet-to-be-determined date in the future, expected to be in early 2026.

“A priest has to bloom where he's planted,” he says. “Sometimes you're among your own, sometimes you aren’t, you just have to try to bloom where you're planted. That's always been my philosophy.”