From Leeds to Ireland: Can you help solve wedding dress puzzle?

A vintage dress last worn on a bride’s wedding day in Leeds and mysteriously donated to a Northern Ireland hospice earlier this year has been returned to the family who own it.
The dress pictured in 1966 and in 2015.The dress pictured in 1966 and in 2015.
The dress pictured in 1966 and in 2015.

An emotional Finbarr Gallagher and his daughter Marie were called to the stage of the City Hotel in Derry on Sunday afternoon to reclaim the dress Nancy Gallagher had last worn on her wedding day in Leeds in February 1966.

The search is now on to find out the identity of the person who donated the dress and how it got all the way from Leeds to Derry.

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It was Foyle Hospice shops area manager Jacqui McMonagle who first spotted the dress which had been found in a bag of donated clothes. “Our staff and volunteers believe that to every dress there is a story and set about trying to track down the original owner,” she said.

Hospice volunteers restored the dress to its former glory and began a campaign to find the original owner.

Marie McGrory was astounded when she saw the dress online and hunted out her mum’s wedding album to compare. “When we saw the dress we it was so like my mum’s dress she wore on her wedding day when she borrowed it from my dad’s sister, although it has been shortened.” she said. “They were married in Leeds in 1966. We asked my aunt if she still had the dress and she told us that it had been donated to a church in Leeds.”

Sadly Nancy died in 2013, and never lived to see her wedding dress returned to the family. Her husband Finbarr fought back tears as Apprentice winner Dr Leah Totton presented him with the dress he had last seen 49 years ago.

The family still want to track down the mysterious donor. “We’d love to find out who donated the dress,” Marie said. “We have to keep spreading the word.”