Forty-seven years ago, a bouncing baby boy was born in the outskirts of Belfast, Northern Ireland’s capital. The boy was talented and had a bright future.

Globally, there are an estimated 250 million registered football players, but only 123,000 play professionally. This means just 0.05% of all players make it to the professional level. Philip Mulryne was among the 0.005% of footballers who went pro… how ‘privileged’!

All in all, Mulryne had an interesting journey, plying his trade with several top clubs before turning to the altar (priesthood), in one of the most unique yet inspiring life journey.

Mulryne began his budding career as a youth player at Manchester United in 1994, when he was just 19. During his time in Manchester, Mulryne was part of the team that won the 1995 FA Youth Cup.

Unfortunately, and any football fan could excuse him, he struggled to break into a Manchester United first-team that boasted of football greats like David Beckham and Paul Scholes. Nonetheless, he was able to make one league appearance for the Red Devils, a game against Barnsley in the 1997-1998 season.

As any footballer would do, Mulryne moved to Norwich City in 1999, for a fee of about £500,000 (approx. KSh87.4 million), in search of more playing time. He would make an incredible start to his career at Norwich, scoring a brilliant free-kick in his second match.

Unlucky Mulryne spend the following season (1999-2000) on the sidelines after breaking his leg. However, he bounced back and was part of the Norwich City team that reached the finals of the Division One play-offs in 2002. In 2004, he was part of the Norwich team that made sure that The Canaries are promoted to the English Premier League, although they would be relegated after just one season.

In 2005, Mulryne was fished out of the squad due to disciplinary issues after 27 appearances. He moved to Cardiff City, only for his contract to be terminated at the end of the 2005-2006 season after making only a few substitute appearances for the club.

In 2007, he moved to Leyton Orient on a free transfer after undergoing intense trials. He made his debut for the club in February 13, 2007, in a home game against Brighton & Hove Albion.

After the 2006–07 season, he was released from the club, despite helping Orient avoid relegation. Mulryne’s football career continued with brief stints at AFC Bournemouth, St Mirren, King’s Lynn FC, and Cliftonville before he retired from the game in 2008 at the age of 30.

Journey to priesthood

In a previous interview, the former Manchester United player-turned-priest opened up about what led him to priesthood after retiring from football.

Now 47, Mulryne says he began to feel dissatisfied with his lifestyle towards the end of his football career, despite “having everything that young men want.”

“We have a wonderful life as a footballer and I was very privileged, but I found with all the surrounding stuff that eventually there was a kind of emptiness with it. I was quite shocked – why am I not happy when I have everything that young men want?” he said on Belfast Live.

Mulryne first enrolled at the Pontifical Irish College in Rome in 2009. During his priesthood journey, he spent two years studying philosophy in Italy before undertaking a four-year theology degree in Belfast. His retirement, he says, started him on a journey towards exploring his faith, within a year, his whole life changed.

“I volunteered at a homeless shelter for a while. I started going back to mass and I started praying again on a regular basis. I just found a real sense of fulfilment with it. Football was huge highs and lows and here was something that was giving me a steady sense of contentment.”

“It’s hard to pin down a particular moment. I would say it started in my last year at Norwich, not explicitly and I wasn’t thinking about it at that time but I started to get dissatisfied with the whole lifestyle.”

Mulryne was ordained a deacon in October 2016 by Most Rev. Diarmuid Martin, the then Archbishop of Dublin. On July 8, 2017, he was ordained a priest by Most Rev. Joseph Augustine Di Noia, Titular Archbishop of Oregon City, at St. Saviour’s Priory, Dublin. He celebrated his first Mass as a priest on 10 July 2017 at St. Oliver Plunkett Church in Belfast. 

Mulryne says he does not regret his decision to join priesthood.

“My vocation to priesthood and religious life came later in the course of that year – I felt this strong desire for this way of life, and I stayed with it for a few months, and then got the courage up to explore it, and I took the decision, and it’s now eight years later.”

He also shared how he keeps up to date with Ruben Amorim’s team.

“We don’t have a TV in the monastery,” he said. “We have a room with a couple of computers, so I watch the three-minute highlights. I get all the highlights, so I keep in touch with it.”