A NUN FROM Northern Ireland will be a step closer to sainthood today following a special ceremony in Spain.

Clare Crockett, 33, from Brandywell in Derry, was killed in an earthquake in Ecuador in April 2016 when the building where she had been teaching music collapsed.

She has been described as a larger-than-life character who had been an actor before choosing the religious life and turned down a chance to present on children’s TV channel Nickelodeon to become a nun.

Friends were in disbelief when she declared she was going to be a nun while holding a “beer in one hand and a cigarette in the other”.

She ultimately took her Holy Orders with the Servant Sisters of the Home of the Mother order.

Her motto in life was “all or nothing” and she has previously been associated with fertility miracles.

The opening of the cause for the beatification of Sister Clare is scheduled to take place in the Cathedral of Alcala de Henares in Madrid at 5.30pm local time (4.30pm Irish time).

The ceremony is the first step towards sainthood.

Sister Clare’s sister Shauna Gill told the PA news agency that more than 100 people have travelled to Madrid for the event, which will be livestreamed online and at the Brunswick Moviebowl in Derry.

She said the group includes friends, family, priests and Derry Bishop Donal McKeown, adding: “There’s people we’ve never met before here too so it’s a great experience.”

She said the family is “very proud and excited” and that the ceremony will see her sister declared as a “servant of God”.

“There’s four steps to becoming a saint, so this is the first one. Clare’s life will be investigated before we can move on. No one knows how long it can take, 10 years, 20 years, two years, it depends on how fast things move.”