In Memoriam: Willie Loughlin
by ASH Smyth
February 2025
ASH Smyth ‘remembers’ the Singing Laundryman.
Six years ago today, First Derry Presbyterian Church hosted the funeral of noted Ulster singer William Loughlin.
Aged 92, he had been singing in the church choir there for over seven decades, as well as touring Ireland and internationally alongside the likes of Maureen Hegarty and Joseph Locke. He first 'appeared in concert' in 1945, and made his BBC debut just two years later.
To date, Loughlin does not so much as have a Wikipedia entry. When I asked my mother if he'd presumably had to hold down a day job, she said, "Oh yes. He was the Peerless Laundry driver." Apparently he got big offers from the USA, etc. but said his life was with his church and family.
He gave regular recitals in Portrush, where my step-gran lived for 25 of the 30 years I knew her. And he sang at my own parents' wedding at First Derry in April 1979—a rare occurrence in the Presbyterian tradition, and one I'd guess was probably a favour to my maternal grandfather.
To my knowledge, alas, I never met the man. And the last time I was in First Derry was my grandfather's funeral, October 1986. There was no singing that day—least of all from me (I fell asleep, and my brand new slip-on shoes slipped off, quite noisily). My wife and daughter and I did try to see the church a few years back, but it was Saturday and so the place was shut.
In 1978, by way of a fund-raiser, Loughlin released William Loughlin Sings in Church on the improbably-named Shalom Recordings label. The sleeve-notes are a gem of '70s provincialism: a reminder that the city whose walls the green hill far away is without is actually Derry; an exegetical sidebar that no-one really knows what 'balm' is; and the phrase 'the black man had an innate talent for expressing Christian truth with hard but basic simplicity'.
Needless to say, the family owns two copies—though like as not, 8000 miles from home, I won't ever get round to listening to either of them.
For his part, Willie Loughlin (1927-2019) is quietly buried in Altnagelvin Cemetery, same as my grandparents.
