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Brendan Mulhall, the 81-year-old fixer who can repair just about anything
Spotlight on one of our most tireless volunteers across NI
Original article by Camilla Foster, Press Association, published on Wed, 7 January 2026
An 81-year-old “super-fixer” from Northern Ireland, who has repaired everything from clocks to statues, has no plans to put down his screwdriver anytime soon and hopes to inspire future generations to whom “fixing things does not come easy”.
For Brendan Mulhall, from Downpatrick, fixing things is more than a passion, it’s a part of who he is.
A true pillar of the community, Brendan is rarely short of work and said he receives calls every day about broken objects. Whether it’s a record player or a children’s JCB toy, he’s the man people turn to.
“Some people are good at art, some people are good at football, it just happens to be that I can fix, repair and make things,” Brendan told PA Real Life.
“It’s just one of those things that I feel at home doing, and I feel it’s just something that is part of me.”
Growing up, he said he eagerly watched his father repair things and the skill came naturally to him. His earliest memories of fixing date back to when he was just 10 years old working on his friends’ bikes before quickly progressing to cars.
“My friends used to bring their bicycles to get the punctures, gears and steering fixed. Then after that I used to make carts to help people transport things around the village,” recollected Brendan.
“When my dad was younger he worked in the motor industry, so I learnt how to bleed the brakes in a car, how to change the clutch, how to put a radiator in and I was doing all that from a very early age.”
You can read the entire, original article here.
