Didi Semple - An Appreciation of one of Derry's most caring, unique and colourful characters
Earlier this year a family and a community lost one of its most caring, unique colourful characters. This was when Didi Semple passed away at his home on Sunday, February 8 2026, after a short illness with his family all around him in the village of Steelstown which he loved and lived in for many years.
Not long after his 71st birthday, Didi left this world but according to those who knew him he did not leave their hearts: his children Diarmaid, Feargal and Grainne, their spouses Chelsea and Laura and grandchildren Declan and Rose also the Semple and Brady families. Also, his wider family, friends, colleagues, his students, and the foreign students from Foyle Language Centre (who he often hosted in his home) and those he had touched in his own special way, all recalled different aspects of Didi’s character.
But it will be as a generous, caring, adventurous father that he will be remembered by his children most as they were growing up. Despite working full time, still developing his music skills, establishing the versatile “Cromore Beatles” and looking after hens and chickens at his Steelstown home, he always ensured that his children would never miss out, they always came first.
Summer holidays were always spent in Donegal in their caravan. Each evening Didi with guitar in hand would round off the day with a sing-song. They were real family holidays that the children still recall.
Didi’s sisters have all fond memories of Didi but maybe not the time he decided to try and brew his own beer in their terraced house in Tyrconnell Street. The house was never designed to be a brewery. Luckily, Didi soon gave this up and returned to his old haunt “Mary B’s” and many at the wake recalled those days too.
One thing about Didi was that he seldom forgot his sisters’ birthdays. But each time he wrote the birthday card to each of his five sisters it was to “his favourite sister.”
Music was his life and his studio at home bears testimony to this, where numerous guitars but other musical instruments adorn every nook and cranny. When it came to music, Didi was a perfectionist as the Cromore Beatles knew.
He had a wide range of tastes in music, some quite obscure. Numerous young people, some of them his students, some family members acknowledge that they had learnt to play the guitar through Didi’s patient teaching. Didi was not only a musician but also a prolific songwriter.
The Cromore Beatles played many venues, especially cafes such as the Café Central, Claude’s Café, the Richmond Centre, the Maritime Festivals, weddings and family events. Regularly they played outside the Children’s Hospice Shop fundraising for them.
His skills at teaching were mentioned by the many young people who came to say goodbye to Didi. They said he was patient, encouraging, challenging, affirming in his approach even though originally many of them just did not want to learn. They loved him and his approach as did Didi’s teaching colleagues from the “Tech.”
From Window Cleaner, to student, to teacher, Didi engaged with so many people in many different ways throughout his life but always managing to touch their lives.
Didi Semple by his actions, by his generosity, by his willingness to spend time with others, by nurturing the strengths and skills of young people, by leading a good life and being a good friend to many and a good neighbour and by having faith in others, this is how Didi lived a full life.
If you never met Didi, then you missed out. Once met, never forgotten.
As Didi’s funeral came to an end in the City Cemetery, Didi’s musician friends picked up their guitars and the music played. Then the lyrics of his favourite song by Labre Siffre was heard: “It Must Be Love.”
Didi’s life was all about love, as those who knew him loved him.