The 55-year-old brother of Declan Donnelly passed away in the hospital after being admitted with a “mystery illness.”
A beloved Roman Catholic priest from the north-east of Ireland, Dermott Donnelly was receiving care at North Durham Hospital after collapsing in his parish in Newcastle.
Following the event, it is said that Donnelly was “extremely unwell,” and parishioners were asked to pray for him before their next gathering.
Father Dermott Donnelly passed away peacefully on Friday afternoon in the hospital, according to a statement from the diocese of Hexham and Newcastle.
A statement from the diocese said: ‘It is with great sadness that we have to inform you of the death of Fr Dermott Donnelly, who died peacefully this afternoon in hospital.
‘This has come as a great shock to all of us. Please pray for the repose of his soul and keep his family, especially his mother, in your prayers at this difficult time.’
Hexham and Newcastle Bishop Robert Byrne said he will be ‘greatly missed in the diocese for his sterling work with youth, on both a diocesan and national level’.
He added: ‘He was a good and faithful priest.’
Donnelly was a regular visitor to his brother’s traditionally London based shows, while the presenter travelled to the north-east frequently to attend Mass and visit the youth projects which had been a labour of love for the priest since the 1990s.
Following his hospitalisation, a statement from Stanley, Dipton & Byermoor Catholic Parishes read: ‘Please pray for Father Dermott who is extremely unwell in hospital.
‘Tomorrow evening between 6pm-7pm there will be a period of time before the Blessed Sacrament so that we can come together as a community in St Joseph’s Church to pray for Father Dermott’s welfare.
‘Please be respectful to Father Dermott and his family at this difficult time, we will update you as and when we receive the most up to date information verified by the Diocese.’
A source told The Sun: ‘Dec arrived with other family members. There are around 12 of them there at the hospital. It was very sudden and everyone is just praying he pulls through.’
Donnelly began his career as a curate in Chester-le-Street before being asked two years later by the Bishop of Hexham and Newcastle to establish a youth programme designed to introduce underprivileged children to the Catholic Church.
He turned the Youth Ministry Team into a flourishing organisation and opened the Global Youth Village Centre in County Durham in 2010 on the site of a former summer camp.
Over the course of 30 years, he persisted in raising money for the youth ministry, creating the Emmaus Youth Village, and training young people to become leaders throughout the globe.
Speaking in 2015, Donnelly acknowledged that his relationship with well-known figure Dec aided him in bridging the age gap with his parishioners’ younger members.
He said: ‘I don’t advertise that I’m Dec’s brother, but the kids always seem to know. It bridges the gap between me and them.’
As recently as April he visited outgoing Prime Minister Boris Johnson at 10 Downing Street, where he joined religious leaders including His Excellency the Papal Nuncio and His Eminence the Cardinal and members of the hierarchy of Ukrainian church in the UK to pray for peace in war-torn Ukraine.
He said at the time: ‘It was a real privilege to join Christian leaders from across many churches at Downing Street and to stand together in prayer, the silence was so profound.
‘It was a moment when the power of vulnerability encountered the vulnerability of power. The best weapon we had was prayer.’
Dec is one of seven children and was raised on Newcastle’s Cruddas Park estate with brothers Martin, Eamonn and Dermott and sisters Camelia, Patricia and Moira.
Despite his enormous success, he once admitted to considering his own career in the church before quickly realising it wasn’t for him.
He recalled: ‘Growing up was like The Waltons but in Newcastle. We all lived in a council house in Cruddas Park in the West End. The house had three bedrooms.
‘You don’t need to be a math’s genius to work out that three bedrooms and nine people equals a bit of a squeeze.
‘The four boys were in two sets of bunk beds in one room, the three girls were in another and my mam and dad had the third room.
‘My mam and dad, Anne and Alphonsus, came to Newcastle from Ireland in 1958.
‘You’d often find the Donnelly clan at the Tyneside Irish Centre on a Saturday night and that was where I had my earliest performing experiences.’
He added: ‘Later on my brother Dermott trained to be a priest. When I was about 14 I did briefly consider following in his footsteps.
‘Then, one day, I got the bus home from school and it was full of lasses from the local girls’ school, Sacred Heart. I knew right there and then that the priesthood wasn’t for me.’
The ITV staple and wealthy broadcaster has purchased his mother a £600,000 home in the affluent Ponteland neighbourhood of Darras Hall, close to Newcastle, whose neighbours include former England football star Alan Shearer.
While Dec thought about a career in the church, his elder brother, who appeared on Junior Songs of Praise and was interviewed about church life by a puppet named Hacker T Dog, flirted with television.
In 2001, he experienced a more contentious taste of stardom. He was negotiating to host a Channel 4 show called Confess, encouraged by Dec.
The selling point of the show was that it would encourage viewers to publicly confess their sins, with the slogan: “Share your sins, relieve your soul.”
Dermott was chosen to play the showbiz-savvy priest who would at least give them advice on the right course of action, although not go so far as to absolve them as in a real confessional.
A pilot show was shot, but once it was announced, the outrage from the Catholic Church was strong enough to see it quietly dropped. Some of the kinder remarks from church officials decried it as ‘intrusive’ and ‘superficial’.