Church leaders to gather as Bishop Niall Coll to be installed as Bishop of Raphoe

Bishop Niall Coll will be formally installed as the new Bishop of Raphoe on Sunday.

The Episcopal Installation of Bishop Coll will take place at St Eunan’s Cathedral in Letterkenny, which will be close to its 1,000 capacity on Sunday afternoon.

Archbishop Eamon Martin, the leader of the Catholic Church in Ireland, will be present alongside fellow Principal Celebrants: His Excellency Archbishop Luis M Montemayor, the Apostolic Nuncio to Ireland; Bishop Alan McGuckian SJ, Bishop of Down and Connor; and Bishop Philip Boyce, Bishop Emeritus of Raphoe.

Following the moment of his Installation during the Mass, Bishop Coll will then lead the liturgy as Chief Celebrant and deliver the homily as the new Bishop of Raphoe.

Since the departure of Bishop McGuckian SJ to Down and Connor in 2024, the Raphoe Diocese has been without a Bishop and there had been rumours of a possible amalgamation with the Derry Diocese. However, confirmation of Bishop Coll’s appointment by Pope Leo XIV in November put those rumours to bed.

A son of Kathleen and the late Willie Coll from Hillhead in St Johnston, the 62-year-old will now lead The See Of Raphoe.

In July 1988, after seven years studying in Maynooth, he was one of five candidates for the Sacrament of Holy Orders at St Eunan's Cathedral and ordained by the then Bishop Seamus Hegarty.

The Raphoe Diocese has a Catholic population of 83,050 and consists of 33 parishes and 71 churches.  There are 39 diocesan priests and seven priests on loan in active ministry in the diocese. 

There are 26 others who are currently working in other dioceses, retired or on sick leave.  

The Bishop of Raphoe is patron of 99 primary schools, and there are 20 voluntary secondary schools and State schools in the diocese.  

The choir for Sunday’s Mass will comprise members drawn from the 33 parishes of the Diocese of Raphoe, and will perform the music throughout the liturgy under the direction of Father Michael Carney.

Also in attendance on Sunday will be members of the Irish Bishops’ Conference, both serving and retired, and other clergy from the Dioceses of Raphoe, and from Ossory.  

Family members and friends of Bishop Coll, along with lay representatives from across the diocese, as well as teachers and students from local schools, will also make up the congregation.  Representatives of other Christian denominations are also expected as are civic leaders and local and national public representatives.

Bishop Coll’s appointment as Bishop of Ossory by Pope Francis was announced in October, 2022 and he was ordained as Bishop of Ossory in January, 2023.

The young Niall Coll was a student at St Baithin’s NS and then St Eunan’s College, where he later returned as a teacher.

A skilled theologian, he has served at third level in both St Patrick’s College, Carlow and St Mary’s University College, Belfast, while he also taught in Pobalscoil na Rosann. As a young priest he served as a curate in Dungloe and he was the Parish Priest of Tawnawilly having previously served as the Parish Priest of Drumholm before moving to Kilkenny.

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In 1992 he was sent to Rome to study for a Doctorate in Theology at the Gregorian University and in 1995, he was awarded a Doctoral Degree for a thesis in Christology which was later published as Christ in Eternity and Time: Contemporary Anglican Perspectives.

Thereafter, following his return from Rome, he was appointed as a lecturer in Systematic Theology in Saint Patrick’s College, Carlow. 

Bishop Niall is editor (with Father Paschal Scallon CM) of A Church with a Future: Challenges to Irish Catholicism Today (Dublin: Columba Press, 2005), and also of Ireland and Vatican II: Essays Theological, Pastoral and Educational (Dublin: Columba Press, 2015).  

He was, for many years, editor of Le Chéile: A Catholic Schools Ethos Journal, published by Saint Mary’s University College, which sought to promote the values and work of Catholic education locally, and he is a member of the Irish Inter-Church Committee. 

“To be called back to the place and people who first formed my faith is both humbling and deeply moving,” Bishop Coll said recently of his appointment as Bishop of Raphoe.