Dermot Kelly 
Personal Profile
Life is often filled with twists and turns, writes Matthew Carlson
A person’s life very rarely moves in a straight path and Diocesan Youth Director Dermot Kelly, is no exception to this wise aphorism. From working in Disney to exploring the importance of pilgrimage, Dermot’s story is a prime example of how God gently moves his hand in people’s lives.
Dermot describes growing up in a home with Catholic parents as helping him now as he attempts to raise his own children in the Catholic Faith. “Now that I am a parent, I can kind of relate to that, the power of prayer through family and the role that females played in my life, especially my grandmother and my own mother,” says Dermot. He continues that having such strong role models helped him develop his own Faith, morals and reverence to the power of prayer, as well as devotion to Our Lady.
Direction
Although Dermot is now employed in the Archdiocese of Armagh, his life wasn’t always heading in the direction of being employed by the Church. “I worked for Walt Disney World in Florida and then came home and worked in the hospitality industry, I was working for Hilton Hotels in Dublin and in Belfast,” he explains. “I was coming straight out of university and was placed in a very good job, a place to develop myself and to grow in a very energetic, exciting industry.”
As a young man, Dermot ended up attending World Youth Day (WYD) in Sydney and his life course was altered. “I was in my early 20s at that point in life I had gone through school, university and I had already started a career that I believed was for me, perhaps I was influenced by society, maybe I wanted to have the best, or achieve the best and strive to always be the best,” says Dermot.
His choice of going to WYD started Dermot on a journey that would eventually end with him being involved in Ireland’s World Meeting of Families (WMOF) this year.
Dermot describes WYD as a platform that increased his understanding of the Church, interacting with Catholics from all around the world. This eventually led to Dermot changing paths completely and joining the archdiocese in Armagh as their Youth Director.
“I started getting involved in my local parish I suppose for a way of release as well, my local church had a young priest and he had a positive influence on me to accept the invitation to come help him at a local youth group,” says Dermot.
He continued that over the course of two years and studied for 15 weekends to receive his ministry certificate, at which point he joined on as the youth director.
According to Dermot, one of the ways that his ministry has reached out and engaged young people is through pilgrimage. “Pilgrimage is something that we strongly believe in and we believe in giving young people the experience and hopefully in that, young people will recognise their own talents,” says Dermot.
Although there are many people that would argue that the Church is increasingly out of touch with the youth, Dermot maintains that there are ways to engage young people in the Church.
“There definitely are young people that are yearning to want to know more about their Faith, they certainly want to know the answers to the questions that they are seeking.
“I would say a recommendation to that is that we would love to see how we can encourage young people, and also to journey with young people on their Faith pathway as well.”
As if working with young adults wasn’t enough to keep Dermot busy, he is also a family man with a wife and two kids. Dermot says that although his job isn’t typically from 9-5, his wife is supportive of him and understands that he thoroughly enjoys his job.
He does highlight however that it’s “important” to also spend time with family and friends, rather than being solely focused on work.
According to Dermot, his line of work has just recently began expanding. Historically, young adult ministry was aimed at people from ages 16-20, but recently the Church has been pushing for that to include people older than that, as they are full of passion and have talents to offer.
Outside of the Archdiocese, Dermot was chosen to oversee the Teen Global Village at the WMOF which saw as many as a thousand international young people each day.
Even though his life isn’t on the path that he originally envisioned, God called Dermot to a life serving young people and his family in the Church.
He says that sometimes God will put people and circumstances in our life that we weren’t expecting, and use us in extraordinary ways.
