A decade of lending a helping hand in memory of Kevin

TEN years ago this month Kevin Bell tragically lost his life in New York city after being struck by a moving vehicle.

Being only 26 at the time of his passing and hailing from a group of seven siblings it goes without saying that his family were completely grief stricken when they learned of the passing of their beloved son and brother whose death will forever leave a lasting gap in their lives.

However, if any small measure of solace could be found in the midst of Kevins tragic passing it would be the astounding level of support that his family received in having his body repatriated to Ireland in the immediate aftermath of his death.

Having been lost to the world on Sunday June 16 2013 it was thanks to the collective efforts of his mother Ethna’s family ties in Manhattan as well as the amount of money fundraised by the people of Newry, South Armagh and South Down as well as the Armagh Gaelic team that it was as soon as the following Wednesday the 19th of June that Kevins family were afforded the privilege of being able to say their final farwewells to their much beloved relative in his home city of Newry.

According to Colin Bell, who is Kevins father, it was the overwhelming degree of compassion and generosity shown by all parties involved in having Kevins remains returned home to Newry which acted as the prime motivator for he and his family to found the Kevin Bell Repatriation Trust in eternal honour of their much beloved son whom they will forever dearly miss.

Lover of life

“I remember Kevin as the young lad who he was and who enjoyed life. He never wasted a moment of his life and he would have been looking for craic 24 hours of the day. He enjoyed everything that he did. Whilst he only had 26 years, he filled every moment of it. He was one of seven children, one of our second set of twins. He died on June 16 2013.

“At home he worked as a butcher and he also would have worked in an off licence, but in New York he worked in construction. At home he would have been well known, he was an Irish dancer who played tin whistle. He loved life, had lots of friends and you would never have found him sat in the house watching TV, he was always doing something.

“ He loved travelling. He had been in Australia and he had been in Thailand and it was his love of travel that brought him to New York.”

“Kevin’s was the quickest repatriation. Kevin was killed on a Sunday morning but he was home with us on the Wednesday morning. There has never been another repatriation as quick. This was purely down to the fact that Ethna's cousin lived in Manhattan and she knew a lot of people who wouldn't take no for an answer. She also had the help of the Armagh Gaelic Team. After Kevin was killed the people in Newry started fundraising to bring Kevin home. At no stage were we under pressure to pay to bring him home.”

Despite the fact that only a matter of weeks had elapsed since the untimely passing of their beloved son, due to the overwhelming level of generosity shown on behalf of all the people who were involved in securing safe travel for Kevins body back home to Ireland, Colin and his family would soon find themselves lending a helping hand to a family that found themselves in the very circumstances which they had been in only a few week prior.

£150,000 rasied in honor of Kevin

“Between the people in Newry, the people in South Down, the people in South Armagh, and the fundraiser in New York and the fundraiser in Australia there was £150,000 raised to bring Kevin home. It was only a couple of weeks after Kevins funeral that we heard about a young fellow who was from Carryduff who had been killed in Thailand. We had this money, £150,000 so we rang up this young fellows' parents and told them that we had this money and we would use it to bring their son home. A couple of weeks after this there was aother young fellow from Sligo who was killed in Las Vegas, we also contacted his parents and told them that we would pay to bring their son home.It went on like this for a while”

Donation in honor of Ryan Doyle

Although Colin and his family may not have been consciously aware of it at the time they had already taken their first tentative steps down what would prove to be a long road in helping others, a path which as of the tenth anniversary of the founding of the Kevin Bell Repatriation Trust has seen the organisation repatriate the remains of over 1560 Irish men and women who have died abroad.

However it was after a very generous donation made on the part of the family of Ryan Doyle, another native to the Island of Ireland who like Kevin had also passed away in tragic circumstances abroad only a year before, that the Bell family made the decision to permanently commit to safety seeing the remains of deceased loved ones back home by founding the KBRT.

“There was a young fellow by the name of Ryan Doyle from Leitrim in Castlewellan who had been killed in Australia the year before Kevin. At the time of his death Ryan’s family gave us over £70'000 that had been raised for him and along with the money that we had this was really the start of the Kevin Bell Repatriation Trust.

“After this we applied for a charitable status and decided to use the money that we had to help other families in memory of Kevin.

“If a family contacts us, or the department of foreign affairs in Dublin, as well as being able to pay to bring someone home we can also help a family if they don't know who to turn to for help or what to do. We can say to them that we can take it from here, we can bring your relative home, you don't have to do anything else. Being able to help families during this time is a really important element of the Kevin Bell Repatriation Trust. At a time when a family may be in shock and have never experienced the likes of this before they may not know how to get someone home from America or Australia and we are able to take over and make all the arrangements and also pay for it.

“The Kevin Bell Repatriation Trust has now repatriated 1564 loved ones to their families in Ireland from countries worldwide such as Australia, Argentina, South Korea, USA, Canada, Ecuador, Cambodia, India, Uganda to name just a few. The Trust repatriates approximately 15-20 loved ones back to Ireland per month. We repatriated someone from Kiev and we were able to get the body home a few days before the war started. It was a bit of a race but we managed it.

“As an organisation the Kevin Bell Repatriation Trust does not receive any funding from Government North or South, it is just families doing doing fundraisers that will help the next family. So people hold fundraisers for us but we are very, very lucky as there are fundraisers being held for us in Australia, in America. Anywhere where there are Irish people they hold fundraisers for us, so we are very, very lucky in this respect.”