Kevin Bell Trust: nearly 2,500 families helped after son's death in New York

The Kevin Bell Repatriation Trust has brought home almost 2,500 bodies to families across Ireland since 2013. Founders Colin and Eithne Bell are now stepping back from daily operations.

From a kitchen table in Newry to nearly 2,500 repatriations

The Irish Times reports that a Co Down couple who lost their 26-year-old son in a hit-and-run in the Bronx in 2013 have helped bring home almost 2,500 bodies to grieving families across Ireland — operating what is described as the only organisation of its kind in the world.

Kevin Bell was killed in the Woodlawn area of the Bronx in June 2013. Within a week of his death, £150,000 — about €175,000 — had been fundraised by supporters to cover the cost of repatriating his remains. When Kevin's US employer covered that bill directly, his parents, Colin and Eithne Bell, set the money aside to help other bereaved families. The Kevin Bell Repatriation Trust was founded shortly after, initially run from a kitchen table and a filing cabinet in the family home in Newry.

"The next thing, it just snowballed," Eithne recalls.

The trust now operates globally. Active cases at the time of the Irish Times interview included repatriations in progress from New York, Australia, London, Thailand, Malaga, Crete, New Zealand and Kenya. The charity currently handles 30 to 35 repatriations per month, and every cost is met in full by the trust. Neither the UK nor Irish governments cover the expense of repatriation, which for the United States alone can run to $15,000 — nearly €13,000.

"There's not a parish in Ireland we haven't touched," says Colin Bell.

Colin and Eithne, who recently announced they are stepping back from the day-to-day running of the charity, invited The Irish Times to their Newry home to speak about the trust's work and its origins. The couple insist they will remain "very much involved." Nine months ago, they hired a director of operations to work alongside an existing staff member at the trust's Whitegates Community Business Park office in Newry, where the charity has been based for a decade.

"It's got too big," says Eithne.

The trust's reach extends beyond what many might expect. Women who have experienced miscarriages abroad have been among those supported. "We'll bring the baby home," says Eithne. The oldest person repatriated was a 104-year-old west Belfast man returned from Spain to Clonard. Colin Bell, a retired schoolteacher and former Down GAA minor player, describes a schedule that took him to Listowel in Co Kerry the previous day — where a €20,000 cheque was presented — and on to Lurgan, the Cross Keys Inn at Toomebridge, and schools in Omagh and Dungannon.

The human impact of the trust's work is conveyed directly by families it has supported. Margaret McCullough, a Belfast woman whose son Niall McCullough (27) died from a brain injury following an accident in Wolverhampton four years ago, described the moment Colin Bell took her call.

"Colin asked me where Niall was. He told me to leave it in his hands," she said. "It wasn't just the financial aspect of it, it was knowing what doors to open, how to deal with all the red tape. We didn't have to do any of that. It's a bad enough time without having to get your family member home."

Niall's father, Billy McCullagh, described Colin Bell as "a humble, calm man." Margaret McCullough recalls going to shake Colin's hand after a fundraiser the family organised, and receiving a hug instead.

The repatriation of Kevin Bell himself was, by any measure, unusually swift. He died at quarter to three on a Sunday morning. His post-mortem took place that same Sunday afternoon. His body was released to an undertaker on Monday, placed on a flight home Tuesday night, and arrived at the family house in Newry by Wednesday lunchtime.

"Unheard of. It was just miraculous," says Colin.

It was during Kevin's wake, as further donations continued to arrive, that Eithne says the couple made their decision.

"More fundraising was coming in and I remember we were in the sitting room. We looked at each other and I thought, 'Kevin's not the first and he won't be the last'," she says.

Kevin Bell was one of seven children and, his mother notes, "our only redhead." He was a set dancer and céilí dancer — "any adjudicator would have said, 'the wee redhead fella, he has the feet'" — and he "loved life," she says.

The trust's emblem is a goldfinch. Eithne Bell explains the choice: "We picked it because it has a red head and birds like to come home to nest."

The last gift Kevin gave his mother was a bird table, chosen during a Kris Kringle at Christmas. For Eithne, the work of the trust has been inseparable from grief.

"It kept Kevin with us — that's what your days were consumed with," she says.

For Eithne, the trust's existence is rooted in something specific to this island. "This could only happen in Ireland," she says. "It is about the importance of getting your loved ones home."

Source: Irish Times