{"id":366395,"date":"2026-03-26T15:26:10","date_gmt":"2026-03-26T15:26:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/366395\/"},"modified":"2026-03-26T15:26:10","modified_gmt":"2026-03-26T15:26:10","slug":"mourners-at-amy-dohertys-funeral-hear-of-her-magnetic-personality","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/366395\/","title":{"rendered":"Mourners at Amy Doherty\u2019s funeral hear of her \u2018magnetic personality\u2019"},"content":{"rendered":"

Mourners at the funeral of Amy Doherty have been told she had a \u201cmagnetic personality\u201d and \u201cwould draw people to her by her joyful smile\u201d.<\/p>\n

The 28-year-old mother was found badly injured by police on Saturday and died later in hospital.<\/p>\n

A 30-year-old man has been arrested on suspicion of murder.<\/p>\n

The funeral mass for Doherty took place on Thursday at Holy Family Church in Ballymagroarty, Derry.<\/p>\n

\"AmyAmy Doherty (PSNI\/PA)<\/p>\n

Parish priest Fr Joe Gormley told the congregation it was \u201ca very sad day for the family of Amy Doherty, a very sad day for our parish and city\u201d.<\/p>\n

He said mourners would be thinking of Rhea and Ronan, Doherty\u2019s two children, and would be trying to \u201cmake sense of the events of last Saturday\u201d.<\/p>\n

He said March 21st is a day where, for the first time in six months, \u201cthe time of light in our days exceeds the time of darkness\u201d, but \u201cthe death of Amy brought a darkness, a sadness, anguish deeper than any lack of daylight\u201d.<\/p>\n

He said: \u201cThe darkness is, in a sense, deeply intensified when we hear the human story of the beauty of who Amy Doherty is.<\/p>\n

\u201cAmy is a person who has a magnetic personality who would draw people to her by her joyful smile.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"AA horse-drawn hearse leads the funeral cortege (Mark Marlow\/PA)<\/p>\n

He described her as a \u201cdedicated care worker\u201d who lifted the spirits of patients at Altnagelvin Hospital, in Derry, during the pandemic.<\/p>\n

\u201cShe\u2019d always try and find fun, find humour, particularly in those dark days when people were very afraid,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

He said she helped people set up video calls and encouraged patients to connect with people outside and enabled \u201cthose who maybe hadn\u2019t connected with others for a long time, to begin to do so, and to use the opportunity of Covid to do that\u201d.<\/p>\n

However, he said, the \u201cheart of her care\u201d was her two children, who \u201care the centre of our thoughts and prayers today and beyond\u201d.<\/p>\n

Doherty is survived by her parents, Patrick and Sharon, and her younger brothers, Shane and Ryan.<\/p>\n

\"AmyPolice at the scene in the Summer Meadows Mews area of Derry (Brian Lawless\/PA)<\/p>\n

On Wednesday the PSNI said the man who was arrested was receiving medical treatment and was not fit for police interview.<\/p>\n

According to Women\u2019s Aid, Doherty was the 30th woman in Northern Ireland to have been killed since 2020.<\/p>\n

Fr Gormley said \u201ca new culture\u201d needed to be built \u201cin the city and society and beyond\u201d where \u201cwomen are honoured, loved and cherished in the same way as Jesus loved, honoured and cherished women who knew he could depend on them when he couldn\u2019t depend even on the disciples\u201d.<\/p>\n

A friend of Doherty, Jasmine, read a poem about her which described her as \u201cthe laughter in the daylight\u201d and \u201cthe warmth of every room\u201d.<\/p>\n

It also included the lines \u201cAmy is more than how she left us\u201d and \u201cShe\u2019s not a shadow, she\u2019s not a number, but she\u2019s the light she gave so free\u201d.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Mourners at the funeral of Amy Doherty have been told she had a \u201cmagnetic personality\u201d and \u201cwould draw…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":366396,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[42,43,40,38,41,39],"class_list":{"0":"post-366395","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-headlines","8":"tag-headlines","9":"tag-news","10":"tag-top-news","11":"tag-top-stories","12":"tag-topnews","13":"tag-topstories"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/366395","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=366395"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/366395\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/366396"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=366395"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=366395"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=366395"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}