Omagh native first female Dean of Derry and Raphoe

THE Diocese of Derry and Raphoe is to get its first female dean following the appointment of Omagh-born Rev Liz Fitzgerald as Rector of the Grouped Parishes of Raphoe, Raymochy and Clonleigh and Dean of St Eunan’s Cathedral.

News of the appointment, by the Bishop of Derry and Raphoe, Rt Rev Andrew Forster, was announced on Sunday at a service in the Raphoe Group of Churches and in Rev Fitzgerald’s current parishes of Gweedore, Carrickfinn and Templecrone.

The Omagh native said that when the proposition was initially put to her by Bishop Forster to succeed Rev Arthur Barrett as Dean, she responded, ‘Who me?!’”

But Rev Fitzgerald says she is looking forward to the challenge immensely.

“When I was ordained curate, I never thought that I would see a time when I would be in full-time ministry in a parish, so that is very exciting for me. My grandmother lived next door to St Patrick’s Cathedral in Armagh. As a child, I’d be in and out of the Cathedral and I just loved the feeling and the atmosphere and I would have worshipped there, so to be invited to be Rector of St Eunan’s Cathedral is wonderful. The ‘Dean bit’ I think is exciting, it’s a privilege. I have a lot of learning to do.”

Rev Fitzgerald says she is undaunted by the appointment and is ‘putting her trust in God’.

“I was brought up in a family where we considered professions as genderless. If it was the right person in the right place to do the right, good job. The fact that I’ve been appointed [St Eunan’s Cathedral’s] first lady Dean, I don’t feel weighed down by it at all. I think it’s very exciting. It’s certainly a historic event, but I feel the weight of the calling more than the weight of history. Am I daunted? I just feel spiritually guided.

“I feel spiritually very content in what I’ve been asked to do, and I feel God will be my guide and will see me through it – but I still have to do the graft.”