The 39-year-old native of Madrid in Spain, who has been living in Ireland for more than four years and leads bus tours for Spanish-speaking tourists across the island, suffered a personal tragedy in his life.
“I suffered a big loss because I lost one of my best friends, and that’s why I decided to become Catholic because then I felt very weak. He was one of my best friends and killed himself in Spain,” he says.
He received the sacraments of Confirmation and the Eucharist in the church during the Easter vigil.
Durán Domínguez is one of 129 non-Catholics who attended the 2026 “rite of election” ceremony – part of the process of converting to Catholicism – at St Mary’s Cathedral, formerly the Pro Cathedral, in Dublin city centre where their intention to become Catholic was acknowledged by Archbishop of Dublin Dermot Farrell.
About half of the 129 were members of other Christian denominations (“candidates”), while the remainder (“catechumens”) had belonged to other faiths or none.
Each was accompanied at the ceremony by a sponsor, priests and parishioners from their home parishes in Dublin, as well as family and friends.
Durán Domínguez says his background is “not at all” Catholic. His parents were raised Catholics – born in the 1950s, when in the Spain controlled by dictator Franco, it was mandatory to be Catholic.
“They developed an animosity to the Catholic Church, as did many people then. It’s why they weren’t Catholic. They decided not to baptise me,” says Durán Domínguez, the eldest of three.
His “quest” began when he was 15, as he “experienced a lack of meaning” then. He tried to become Catholic in Spain “but my parents were opposed and there was nobody to support me”.
Today in Spain “an awakening is taking place at this moment”, he says.
“Many people want to be Catholic again and I think my parents are reverting. Many young people are becoming Catholic as well, so things are changing because when I left Spain things weren’t like that.”
He came to Ireland “maybe because it’s a Catholic country”; his father claimed the Irish would “force you to convert”, reflecting his antagonism towards the church.
“He has a big animosity against the Catholic Church because of his own experience. I don’t blame him,” Durán Domínguez says.
In June 2025 Durán Domínguez contacted Siobhan Gormally, a parish pastoral worker in St Peter and St Paul’s parish in Balbriggan, and began his journey to becoming Catholic.
Joy Adedokun (24), from Balbriggan, is another person converting to Catholicism. She comes from a staunchly Pentecostal background.
“I was more into serving people rather than having a keen one-to-one relationship with God. That was what I was missing. I wasn’t too happy with that at all,” she says.
With a masters in law from UCD, Adedokun works as a special needs assistant in a school while also studying to become a solicitor.
“In the Pentecostal Church we have a very negative view towards the Catholic Church, which is not true,” she says.
She carried out some research and called the parish in Balbriggan last August. “I just wanted to know more about the church,” she says.
She recalled how “from once I left the Pentecostal Church I would always find myself going to the church here in Balbriggan and I was really confused as to why I would feel an immense sense of peace”.
She would “always question myself as to why I was there”. From her own research she found her preconception of the Catholic Church was “just not right” and stemmed “from other people such as my parents”.
Meeting Gormally in Balbriggan parish, she felt “very welcome” – “like a new window was opened” – and she found herself “more in tune with my true self, being more me”.
As a child, Adedokun attended St Peter’s and St Paul’s primary school in Balbriggan as well as Balbriggan Community College at secondary level before going on to UCD. She thought the Catholic primary school education was “beautiful” but “felt very isolated” when told she could not receive First Holy Communion.
“My mother said it was not our belief, that it was something I couldn’t participate in as we don’t follow that way of things,” she says, though her mother did add: “Perhaps when you are older.”
Her mother was “very surprised” when Adedokun decided to become a Catholic; she says she felt “my heart drawn to this”.
“She said she would never have believed that I would have even considered becoming a Catholic,” she says of her mother. “It wasn’t a negative response, but rather a surprising one.”
Adedokun’s brother and two sisters were also “surprised and confused”. “They didn’t understand but now are more accepting,” she says.
Gormally, who studied theology and psychology as well as religion and education, says people who wish to become Catholics may undertake a course of “a year to three years” – depending on the person. On average, preparations to become fully initiated into the church take about a year.
The people come from “all sorts of backgrounds”, says Gormally.
Of the six people who will be fully initiated into the Catholic Church in St Peter and St Paul’s tomorrow night, one is of a no-faith background. Another is a woman from Mauritius, and her daughter, who has an Irish father. One convert is of an eastern European background, while another is from South Africa where her extended family are Muslim.
The 129 people of diverse and predominantly foreign national backgrounds being fully initiated into the Catholic Church in Dublin Archdiocese tomorrow compares with 89 in 2025 and 15 in 2022.
A ceremony converting four people at St Mary’s Cathedral tomorrow will be the last such ceremony in the cathedral until 2028 as extensive refurbishments begin there after Easter.
As he prepares to become a new Catholic, Durán Domínguez says he has told his mother back in Spain about his conversion. He also told his siblings. “But I have yet to tell father,” he says.
How many new Catholics are there in Ireland?
Figures for fully initiated ‘new Catholics’ in Ireland over recent years have not been collated by the church, but recent census figures show the population of Catholics in Ireland is continuing to decline, even as it remains, by some distance, the majority religion of people in the Republic.
In the 2022 Census more than 3.5 million people living in the State said their religion was Catholic, accounting for 69 per cent of the population. Among those with Irish citizenship, 77 per cent identified as Catholic.
A breakdown of the figures suggests young people are turning away from the church.
Among preschool children, aged up to four years, 65 per cent were Catholic in 2022 while in the five-to-nine age group the figure was 72 per cent.
This represented a drop of 21 per cent in the number of Catholics under 10 since the previous census in 2016, while the population in this cohort has decreased by 8 per cent since then.
In the 10-to-24 age group the number of Catholics was unchanged between 2016 and 2022, even as the population in this age group increased by 14 per cent.
Similarly, between the 2016 and 2022 censuses, the population of 25-to-44-year-olds grew by just 1 per cent while the number of Catholics in this age group fell by 17 per cent.
Meanwhile, in 2022 the number of children aged up to nine years who were reported to have no religion increased by almost 60 per cent on the 2016 figure.
In 2022, people aged 25 to 29 years were less likely to describe themselves as Catholic, at 53 per cent, than any other age group.