‘Little did we think how precious this photo would be - it’s a treasure’

A picture, we’re told, can tell a thousand words.

At Joe and Angela O’Donnell’s home in Leck, there are lots of framed photographs dotted here and there upon the walls.

Each has a date. Tells a story. Has left a memory. 

The sharp sunset of late April shines through the living room window, from which there’s a birdseye view of Letterkenny, with St Eunan’s Cathedral piercing the horizon and a town that they have watched grow over the years to a size they never would have expected. 

Just above the mantelpiece, there’s a family photograph taken 40 years ago this month, by the late Dermot Donohue. 

The photo catches the O’Donnell family in a moment in time - smartly dressed, some with the impish grins of youth, plenty with wide smiles. All together.

“It wasn’t something we would usually do,” Angela says as she looks at the photo. “That year, both Joanne and Philip made their confirmation, so we thought it would be nice to get a family photo. We never had one taken before, and we had them all dressed up, half-respectable at least. Little did we think how precious this photo would be - it’s a treasure.”

At the time, Joe and Angela had seven children - Sharon (14), Philip (13), Joanne (12), Patrick (8), Joseph (5), Adrian (4) and Kevin (20 months). 

“It was only a week or two beforehand,” Joe adds of a day that they would never forget.

On a sleepy Saturday morning, April 26, 1986, a fire tore through their then family home at 65 Ard O’Donnell and four of those children wouldn’t make it out from an upstairs bedroom - Sharon, Joanne, Adrian and Kevin -  alongside the family babysitter, 25-year-old Noreen O’Donnell from Ballybofey.

Angela, nee McBride, was brought up between the walls of that very house, which is in the centre of town, just a hop, skip and a jump from Letterkenny’s churches and schools. It was in that same house that she and Joe then started a family, having tied the knot. 

Their home sat at the end of a six-house terrace, built in the 1940s, with two upstairs bedrooms, before a downstairs extension saw a porch added at the front, two bedrooms at the side and made for a more spacious kitchen.

Joe, originally from Main Street in Dungloe, is from a family of undertakers and moved to Letterkenny after he met Angela. He was a businessman, a taxi-owner and had run for Fine Gael in the local elections. 

“I also sold videos from about 1978 and we had the first shop in the town, V-90, renting out video-machines and tapes,” Joe, or Joe 90 as he is commonly known, says. “Even then, a two-hour tape was £22. Very few had them at the time. Films were a wild price!”

As Joe had sold on the buses he operated, the O’Donnells were to switch their phone number that last weekend in April 1986.

“It was like Victoria train station,” Philip, their eldest son, who is now 53, says of the family home. “Daddy operated buses and taxis at that time. From six in the morning until three the following morning, there were people coming or going. It never stopped. Day or night. 

“He had sold off the buses, and we were getting a new phone number. We were all in the house on a normal Friday night and were all looking forward to a Saturday lie-in for a change. My father had missed so many Saturdays and Sundays with work, so in a way, we were looking forward to a bit of a new life. As it turned out, we got a new life, but not the new life we had planned.”

“Sharon, that Friday night, put her head up against the glass-paned door which separated the hallway and the sitting room and said ‘don’t call me too early in the morning’ - it was only 10 or maybe 11 o’clock,” Angela recalls. “All the rest were in bed. That was the last time I ever saw any of them.”

Early Saturday morning, around 9am, a blaze started in the sitting room, which was at the back of the house.

Assistant County Manager Des Mahon would later say: “A member of the household first discovered the fire on opening the door of the sitting room” and “the fire spread explosively up the stairs and later to the attic with a chimney effect.”

Angela and Joe were in the front upstairs bedroom and roared to all to get out. The older boys - Philip, Patrick and Joseph - were sleeping downstairs. Philip pulled on a shirt and trousers, but was still barefoot. He made it to the neighbours, the Prices, and Patrick, having attended life-saving, knew what to do in the event of a fire - to stay as low as possible. He crawled out along the ground, whilst Joseph gripped his foot and they scampered over to Josie and Eileen Gallagher’s.

“We didn’t know they were there,” Angela says, looking back. “We thought they were gone, too.”

Noreen had been the first to raise the alarm and, in an incredible act, decided against saving herself to go upstairs to try and save Sharon and Joanne and the younger boys, Adrian and Kevin. All five would perish in the upstairs back bedroom.

“She passed us on the stairs going back up,” Angela says of Noreen. 

Frank Kerrane, the Chief Fire Officer, was in the area just by chance, meeting a neighbour, Dan McMenamin, for a Saturday morning round of golf, and warned Joe and Angela it was much too dangerous to step back in.

“We knew there and then they were gone,” Angela says of Noreen and the children.

Margaret Gallagher, who lived nearby, made the emergency call and later told the Donegal Democrat: “I wanted to run in, but there was nothing I could do. It was like your own death. An emptiness. Everyone felt the same.”

Annie Gallagher, another neighbour, offered Joe a swig of whiskey. He had, by his own admission, had his issues with drink, but by 1986 was 13 years sober. He took a look at the bottle and shook his head, and now it’s 53 years since he touched a drop - he’s never broken to this day.

Neighbour John Wilkie, quoted in the Donegal News on May 3, 1986, said: “We thought we might be able to get upstairs, but the stairs were on fire and we could barely see through the thick, black smoke. There was no way anyone could get up or down the stairs.”

He added: “We will do everything we can to help put Joe and Angela’s life back together again.”

Billy Watson was first to arrive at the scene and said: “The heat was so intense, nobody could have stepped inside.” 

Hugh Doherty, who lived opposite O’Donnells, had been to morning Mass only to return to the tragic scene. He said Sharon “was like a mother to the other children - I don’t think she would have left the children even if she could have got out herself.”

Charlie Price and Joe got a ladder that John Wilkie had taken over, onto the rear roof with Malachy Nee and Seanie Floyd, but with the windows black with smoke, they decided to break a small one. Flames shot through the window just as the fire services were arriving.

Paul McCormack, another witness, would later say: “I don’t think the children could have been saved. When the fire brigade arrived, they were unable to tackle the blaze because of the low water pressure for 20 to 30 minutes.”

“Nothing but sludge came out,” Philip says of the hoses. 

Having lived in the house from being parented to being a parent herself, Angela had constantly lobbied the Urban District Council to improve water in the area. Water pressure - or the lack of it - was a serious concern. 

She, chillingly, told the Donegal Democrat six months beforehand in the edition of October 11, 1985, that she "was living in fear of an outbreak of fire" and added: “I don't think you should have to beg for water.”

Despite having little or no water in the house, not enough, she noted, to “fill a cup of tea,” the garage of their home was constantly flooded. 

“Her home is a fire threat as there is not sufficient water pressure to quench the fire threat should it occur,” the Democrat added in 1985. 

“I still worry if a fire broke out in a hospital or a school,” Angela adds now. 

Philip, who has the most vivid recollection, recalls not wanting to take any part in the removal, which took place on the Sunday, nor the funeral on Monday morning.

“Wasn’t happening,” he says. “Myself and Thomas Keys (Snr) stayed back, and everyone had gone. Thomas said let’s go to the garage. Then he said we might go down a run to the Cathedral. I didn’t go into the mortuary and stood outside with my grandfather. Eventually, I wandered in and was in maybe the fourth or fifth row.

“I looked at the back of the altar, and it was some sort of light, which looked like a tunnel. Maybe it was my mind, with a lack of sleep, but whatever it was, it had a very calming effect to the point of me knowing it was going to be alright. I went from not wanting to attend at all to wanting to carry a coffin.  It was just one of those moments.”

Letterkenny stood still for the funeral, with Bishop Seamus Hegarty, who would do so much for the O’Donnell family, telling mourners: “It must be the greatest consolation to be assured that their children closed their eyes for the last time in their bedrooms in Ard O’Donnell and opened them again in the splendour of God’s presence. They are home now.

“The death of these children will not be in vain if they bring us closer together as a community and motivate us to carry another’s burdens. Community-building is something which we are all engaged in and encourage. Four children and their heroic babysitter, by dying, have done more than many of us could do in a lifetime.”

“We never got to say goodbye,” Angela says. “The last time we saw any of them was Sharon at the glass that Friday night. The baby, Kevin, was in our room, and in the early morning, Sharon came in and took him upstairs.”

“Looking back now, I think that was a good thing,” Joe says. “We were better off.”

“But the Monday was too soon,” Angela says of the funeral having been in Letterkenny General on Sunday, following the removal. “We should’ve taken another day.”

Over at St Mary’s Church in Sessaighoneill, crowds gathered inside and out to pay their respects to Noreen.

“I would not attempt to explain or give reasons as to why this tragedy has happened, as this could take away from the family’s grief and the dignity of the way Noreen gave her life,” said Fr Stephen Kearney, who was joined by Fr Seamus Gallagher as the chief concelebrant at Noreen’s Requiem Mass.

“She was part of the family,” Angela says of Noreen. “Her boyfriend used to work in the video library and our two girls, Sharon and Joanne, loved her. She would take them into town shopping, they’d be looking at make-up in the room. We had another daughter and we called her Noreen.

“We were lucky when Noreen came along. Noreen was born the year after the fire. Noreen brought us a lot of happiness and a lot of joy. It was a bonus that she was a girl.”

Family friends, Sadie and Sean Doherty, the fruit and vegetable suppliers, took Joe, Angela, Philip, Patrick and Joseph - in their pyjamas - into their home at Mountain Top just hours after the fire, before the family spent the summer months in Ballyraine, helped out by Patrick Martin Doherty of Ballymacool.

“We had nothing, literally,” Angela says. “We were in our nighties when Sadie and Sean took us in, which we were so thankful for. Within a couple of hours, we had everything we needed in terms of material things, shoes and clothes, a bed, and somewhere to stay. The only thing that was missing was the children.

“We used to have 11 or 12 with the children’s grandparents and all in for dinner, then it was down to five in Ballyraine. It felt strange. People were coming to Ballyraine, and it was very nice of them. We’d just sit and talk and talk and talk.”

The plan was to return to 65 Upper Ard O’Donnell. 

“Moving back was the right thing,” Philip says. “We went to Lincoln that summer to mammy’s sister, and we were getting updates. Mickey Blake would be telling us this is done at the house and that is done at the house. It was finished by the time we were back at school in September. Four months later. The town did so much for us.”

Seven years afterwards, the O’Donnells moved from Ard O’Donnell to Leck, where Sharon, Joanne, Adrian and Kevin are laid to rest in the cemetery directly across the road, which was quieter in those days.

“People asked why we were moving to the country,” Angela says. “They thought we were mad. Letterkenny was smaller then. But it’s only out the road. In Ard O’Donnell, when you pulled the curtains, you could see the graveyard, just like you can here. I like the fact I can dander down to the grave and prefer going down there for a walk on my own and in peace.

“In the early days, we always talked about the children, no matter who came in. Even now, it’s the same. Sharon was a character. You heard her before you saw her, and she was like a second mother to the babies. She cooked and she cleaned and helped me. Even though she was only 14, if you had to, you could leave her to look after things and she would. She was the only girl in Loreto Convent who wore cream shoes. When she was asked by the teachers why, she said it was to match the cream frame on her glasses.”

“She had an impact on anyone who ever met her,” Philip adds of Sharon. “There was 11 months between us, so we were the same age for a few days every year - and that annoyed her.”

“Joanne was a lady,” Angela says. “Loved reading.”

“She was different,” Philip adds of his younger sister. “She was much quieter - very much into athletics and swimming. She won swimming medals at Ulster level. Even at such a young age, she was very committed. She represented the City of Derry, so would have to be in Templemore in Derry at 6am to swim and then be back to go to school, Scoil Mhuire Gan Smál, which was right beside our house, for 9am.”

“I remember one evening going to Derry to collect her,” Joe says of Joanne. “Her and her wee friend went down to the Bogside to watch the riots. Not a bother on them. It was a different world in those days.”

“Adrian was only four,” Angela says. “Just a nice, wee, quiet boy. Once he had his dodies, one in each hand and another in his mouth, he was happy. Never wanted sweets, just doodies.”

“He was always with Paddy (Patrick),” Philip adds. “Joe Joe (Joseph) was not much older and was a divil! He still is! He’d bang in through the door and he’d be playing Daniel O’Donnell. For that second, it was a distraction. A nice distraction.”

“Patrick doesn’t talk about what happened,” Angela says. “He deals with it in his own way and would go down to the grave.”

“Then Kevin was the baby. A lovely wee boy. People, bar our very close friends, didn’t know the two little boys, Adrian and Kevin, so well. They were just growing into life.”

In simpler times, in the days when parents like Joe and Angela had to chase the children into the house from playing instead of out of it, there are only happy memories. 

“Always out and about,” Angela says of the children. “You’d be trying to get them in for a bite to eat and once they had the last swallow, they’d be out the door again until bedtime.”

This Sunday marks the 40th anniversary of the fire at the O’Donnell family home in Ard O’Donnell.

To mark the anniversary, a committee of friends have organised a remembrance event, including a musical tribute at St Eunan’s Cathedral on Sunday, April 26 at 3pm. The event will feature guest artists including Margo O’Donnell, Shunie Crampsey, Sinead and Alex Black, Kyra and Joseph O’Donnell, Ruairi Gallagher and local choirs and performances from local artists, family members, and friends.  Noreen’s family will also be part of this year’s remembrance, with Noreen’s sister Evelyn due to give a tribute at the Sunday event.

The O’Donnell family also invites members of the community to attend a commemorative Mass, celebrated by Fr John Joe Duffy, at St Eunan’s Cathedral on Saturday, April 25, at 4pm.

Both the mass and memorial can be viewed live on the Church Services website for those who are unable to attend.

“Cathy Gallagher was 11 years old when the fire happened and she wrote a poem that Saturday morning in 1986,” Philip adds. “She’s 51 now and she is going to read that poem on Sunday. So many people have put so much in. There should be a lot of healing now. Maybe we need that.”

“I was very emotional all week, but I feel a real peace now,” Angela says of the preparations. “You never really get over the loss of a child, or children, but we had very good people around us. I don’t want this weekend to be a sad thing. It’s a celebration of their life. There’s a calmness with me and I’m looking forward to it. I hope everyone enjoys themselves.”

“It’s as much a celebration of us, the survivors,” Philip adds. “Not just us, the family, the wider community, but especially Sharon and Joanne’s friends. We never did anything 40 years ago, and we have a chance to now. 

“Bishop Hegarty used to say mass in the house, and in later years we went to him in Derry.” 

“Joe would’ve been driving Bishop Hegarty around the country,” Angela adds. “He always seemed to know when to turn up. He was our counsellor at a time when there was none.”

“You think about the children and about Noreen when you’re getting up in the morning and when you’re going to bed at night. That’s all you can do. You never forget. We have such great memories of the kids and Noreen. No bad memories whatsoever. What’s in your heart can never be taken away from you.”

Not long after the fire, Dermot Donohue presented the family photograph to the O’Donnells that he had taken to mark Philip and Joanne’s confirmation. It has been reprinted over and over again, but it hasn’t lost an ounce of its poignance. It gets more special with each passing day, month and year. That picture tells more than a thousand words. So much more.