For most of the past 40 years, the O’Donnell family marked the anniversary of their loss quietly.
In the years after the April 1986 fire at their Ard O’Donnell home in Letterkenny, private Masses were held at home, in the home of Bishop Hegarty in Derry, and later in Letterkenny.
Next weekend, the remembrance will take a different form.
On Saturday 25th April, Joe and Angela O’Donnell, together with Philip, Patrick, Joseph and Noreen, will gather with family and friends for a 40th anniversary remembrance Mass at St Eunan’s Cathedral in Letterkenny.
The following afternoon, on Sunday 26th April, the Cathedral will host a musical tribute in memory of Sharon, Joanne, Adrian and Kevin O’Donnell, and their babysitter Noreen O’Donnell.
When friends suggested having a commemoration and explained what they hoped to do, Angela began to see it in a new light.
“I was kind of apprehensive,” she said. “But when they told me what they were doing, I thought it was a beautiful idea.
“It’s a celebration of their lives. It’s not a sad thing and it’s not morbid. It’s a celebration.”
The celebration of their children and babysitter is woven with a grief that has never fully gone away.
The O’Donnell family tragedy unfolded on the morning of 26th April.
Sharon, aged 14, Joanne, aged 12, Adrian, aged 4, and baby Kevin, aged 18 months, all died in the house, as did Noreen O’Donnell, 25, from Sessiaghoneill in Ballybofey, who lost her life trying to save the children.
Angela and Joe O’Donnell with the memorial photo of their four children and babysitter Noreen O’Donnell, who lost their lives in the 1986 fire. Photo: Rachel McLaughlin
It was supposed to be an easy Saturday morning, with no school and a chance for the family to have a lie-in.
Angela still remembers one of the last things Sharon said the night before.
“We had a glass door from the sitting room into the hallway, and when Sharon was going to bed she put her face to the glass door and said, ‘Mammy, don’t waken me early in the morning.’
“That was the last thing.”
By the next morning, everything had changed.
“Somebody said there was a fire, so we went downstairs. But we never got back up again,” Angela said.
The Chief Fire Officer happened to be just three doors away that morning, calling for a neighbour to go golfing.
Joe and Angela tried to go back into the house, but were stopped.
Baby Kevin had been in Joe and Angela’s room, but Sharon had come in during the night, or early that morning, and taken him out to a room on the upper floor at the back of the house.
Fourteen-year-old Philip was told to run outside to grab a hose, but the fire had taken hold.
His younger brother, Patrick, who had been doing lifesaving at the pool at the time, remembered to get low to the ground and crawl. He told Joseph to hold onto his feet, and the two boys made it out together. Joseph, who was six at the time, was the youngest survivor.
“We were out, not a long time but it seemed like a long time, and somebody said the two boys were over in Josie and Eileen Gallagher’s,” Angela recalls.
“We wondered was there anybody else out.
“But they were all up in the one room at the back of the house.”
The fire brigade arrived quickly. But there was another devastating problem.
This is the part of the morning that still brings anger.
“They opened the hydrants that morning in Lower Ard O’Donnell and somewhere else in another part of the town, and nothing came out of them, only muck,” said Angela.
To this day, Angela worries whenever water outages happen in Letterkenny.
“I worry for the schools, I worry for the hospital. Because if the hydrants are not working, the fire brigade is not working.”
Ard O’Donnell had suffered water supply problems for years.
“You’d go to turn the tap on at night, and there was nothing,” she said.
Before the fire, Angela had gone from door to door gathering names in an effort to get something done about the local water supply.
“Strange enough, they built a water plant at the back of the house after the fire. Too little, too late,” she said.
Angela never blamed the firefighters themselves.
“I don’t care how much money is spent on the fire service, they couldn’t be paid for what they do. I would never begrudge the firemen equipment or anything they need, because they need everything they can get.”
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For all that happened, the heart of the 40th anniversary is about remembering the children and Noreen.
“This is about celebrating them. Even celebrating the survivors,” said Philip.
The Mass and tribute will be a moment too for Joe and Angela, and for the family that remained and grew after the fire.
Joe and Angela’s youngest, Noreen, was born the year after the fire and named in honour of the family’s hero babysitter.
Philip described the days in the aftermath as living “day by day, minute by minute”.
Even growing up, he was often seen first through the tragedy.
“You could be met by a stranger down the street, and they could introduce you as the young boy that lost the brothers and sisters, not as Philip O’Donnell.”
The family talks openly about their loss, but each grieved individually.
“You’re either a talker or you’re not. Everybody has their own way,” said Philip.
Angela, Adrian and Joe Joe
Sharon looking out at Joanne, Adrian and Joe Joe
“Time does help,” Joe says. “But you don’t forget, it’s one of those things.”
“Every special occasion is not the same,” adds Angela.
“They’re the first thing in your mind in the morning and the last thing at night.
“You have your memories in your heart, and you have your photographs.”
A portrait of Joe and Angela O’Donnell with their seven children, taken by Dermot Donohue, sits on the mantlepiece in the family home in Leck. It was taken just a week before the fire, when Joanne and Philip made their Confirmation together, and Angela says the family were lucky to have it.
“I could come in here to dust and I’d find myself standing talking to them in the picture. I’m the same when I go down to the graveyard. I tell them whatever happened that day.”
The children’s place in the family has carried into the next generation too. Joe and Angela now have six grandchildren, and their home is busy with young ones coming and going. “The wee ones love coming down to the grave, to see their aunts and uncles,” Angela said.
The O’Donnell family grave at Leck, Letterkenny. Photo: Rachel McLaughlin
Noreen the babysitter is at the heart of a memorial photo in the living room.
Friendly with Sharon and Joanne, she was a regular presence at weekends and, Angela said, “just like one of the family”.
“She came in and just made herself at home. She was a lovely girl and it was a pity we lost her as well.”
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.
As part of the Mass, personal items connected to the children will be carried forward, including a teddy bear that belonged to Kevin, notebooks that belonged to the girls, and small gremlins and E.T. toys linked to Adrian.
Philip said it is especially important that Adrian and Kevin are remembered in this way.
“The two wee boys always get left out, because nobody got to know them,” he said. “They hadn’t formed the same friendships.”
Sharon and baby Kevin O’Donnell
Sharon was the “other mammy” in the house, rarely seen without a child on her hip. She loved style and school, and loved to bend the uniform rules even more. In Scoil Mhuire gan Smál, she had the responsibility of taking the roll books to the office. Joanne was quieter, always with her head in a book.
Their friends, many of them now in their 50s, will have the opportunity to reunite and remember them this week.
Among the music chosen is Our Lady of Knock, while Joe Joe and his daughter Kyra have also recorded a version of Oceans (Where Feet May Fail), about trusting God in uncertain times.
The Gateway Singers will provide music at the Mass. The 40th anniversary remembrance Mass will be celebrated by Father John Joe Duffy at the Cathedral of St Eunan and St Colmcille on Saturday 25th April 2026 at 4pm.
A musical tribute will follow at the Cathedral on Sunday 26th April at 3pm, featuring Margo, Shunie Crampsey, Sinead and Alex Black, Kyra and Joe Joe O’Donnell, Ruairi Gallagher and local choirs. A retiring collection at both events will be in aid of St Eunan’s Cathedral Painting Fund.
The family’s hope for the weekend is a simple one.
“I think Sunday will be emotional. It’ll be hard, but it will be nice,” said Philip.
“I just hope that everything goes well, and that whoever comes enjoys it,” Angela said.