Human rights activist and filmmaker Brendan Fay was a close friend of Fr Mychal Judge, the New York Fire Department’s chaplain, and the first named victim of the attack.

“That morning, there was such a beautiful blue sky. I got home from a run, and picking up coffees I had seen people gather outside an electrical store, and I wondered what they were watching. It soon hit home. The calls from Ireland started right away. And later, we saw that defining image, of my beloved friend, Mychal Judge.

While most were fleeing the horror and the terror of the World Trade Center, Mychal Judge and the other firefighters were making their way towards all that pain and anguish and suffering and tragedy. This was Mychal Judge, this is who he was.

We met shortly after I arrived in New York in the mid-1980s. He was one of a handful of priests who ministered to the gay community during our darkest moments. He’d say mass and provide sacraments for LGBT Catholic groups, and as the Aids crisis worsened, he got a reputation as the priest to call on for hospital visits. Mychal Judge had his own way, he often defied orders from the hierarchy.

We were outsiders, and here he was, saying we were loved, and we belonged, and that he cared. It was when many parishes refused to do funerals for people with Aids, so they’d call Mychal Judge. He understood our feelings as immigrants. I met him, surprisingly, at a sober meeting in 1991, and that’s where our friendship deepened. It became a very close, intimate bond. Sobriety was so important for him. His father died when he was six, and he’d often talk about that at funerals. Not about himself, but to children, how he understood their pain, their loss, particularly at a firefighter’s funeral.

'I remember my phone messages, a month later. People in tears, talking about Mychal, how our dear Mychal was gone'

In our house, here on the wall, there’s a picture of him at his 65th birthday, with my husband Tom and I. There were people there, from the Franciscan Friars, his beloved Fire Department, his family and the gay community. Mychal Judge had a heart as big as New York; there was room in it for everybody.

He celebrated immigration and was especially sensitive to those who were undocumented, including the thousands of Irish. Once, someone gave him a free travel ticket to anywhere in the United States. One morning he got a letter from a prisoner in an institution in California, so he chose to fly there to surprise him. He’d a few great phrases: ‘Here comes high levels of madness.’

We had dinner on August 16th, 2001, and went for a long walk. He talked about his pains of the past, his hopes for the future, then he hugged me goodnight, and asked me to give his love to Tom. He had this great way of embracing. That was the last time I saw him. I remember my phone messages, a month later. People in tears, talking about Mychal, how our dear Mychal was gone.

I often go to the corner of Church and Vesey streets, where they carried Mychal’s body to first, before he was left to rest at the church altar. The streets of New York, that was Mychal Judge’s cathedral, and where he found God, on these city streets.

On the day of the attack he needed last rites, so a young cop ran to the church, but couldn’t find a priest. Someone said that if he was a Catholic he could perform it. So there he was, this young rookie cop, a few firefighters, and they held him, and prayed. So, forget about the big vast funerals, it was what happened on the corner of Church and Vesey streets, in New York City. Surrounded by the NYPD, the Fire Department, all of whom he loved so much, and who loved him.

That was my friend Mychal Judge. I still miss him, I still think of him.”

Brendan Fay