The Northern Irishman, who won 27 caps for his country during a career that included spells with Norwich and Cardiff City, was ordained a deacon in the Catholic Church in 2017.
Mulryne, who began his career at Old Trafford after progressing through the club’s academy, made just one Premier League appearance for the club before moving to Norwich in 1999 for £500,000.
After becoming a fans’ favourite at Carrow Road, the Northern Irishman made over 150 league appearances for the Norfolk side before moving to Cardiff City in 2005.
His career then began to decline, barely making an appearance for the Welsh side before moves to Leyton Orient and King’s Lynn Town – retiring in 2008.
While many former footballers have gone on to become coaches or TV pundits, Mulryne has chosen to give up his glamorous life to pursue a more spiritual one.
Aged 31, he began training to become a Catholic priest after he began to fall out of love with football. Mulryne, who earned more than £500,000 a season during his peak years, didn’t like where his career was heading – and so made the dramatic change.
Speaking about his conversion to the priesthood, Mulryne previously told Norwich’s official website: ‘It’s hard to pinpoint a specific moment. I’d say it started in my last year at Norwich, not explicitly and I didn’t think about it at the time but I started to feel unhappy with the whole lifestyle.
‘We had a great life as a footballer and I was very privileged, but I found that with all that around me, there was a kind of emptiness to it. I was quite shocked – why wasn’t I happy when I had everything that young men wanted?
‘It started me on a journey to rediscover my faith, the faith that I had as a young man. I decided to go home for a year and actually in that year everything turned upside down.
‘I volunteered at a homeless shelter for a while. I started going to church again and I started praying regularly again. I just found a real sense of fulfilment in it. Football is big ups and downs and this was something that gave me a sense of stable contentment.’
Mulryne, 46, goes by the title of Father Philip Mulryne after being ordained a Dominican priest in 2017 and now oversees a congregation at St. Mary’s Priory Church in Cork.
Having quit gaming more than a decade ago, Mulryne revealed that he has no regrets about his decision.
He added: ‘My vocation to the priesthood and religious life came later that year – I felt a strong desire for this way of life and I stuck with it for a few months, then plucked up the courage to explore it and I made the decision and here we are eight years later.’
Mulryne enjoyed his fair share of fan adoration throughout his career, but it wasn't always smooth sailing.
He was sent home in disgrace from the Northern Ireland squad in 2005 after breaking curfew to go drinking with team-mate Jeff Whitely.
Peter Crouch, who played alongside Mulryne at Norwich, has suggested he may have played a small part in pushing the former footballer to become a priest.
In his book, How to Be an Ex-Footballer, the former Liverpool striker said: ‘Perhaps – and this is a possibility I don’t like to think about – it was hanging out with me in those happy months that convinced him he needed a new direction in his life.’
Mulryne once dated glamour model Nicola Chapman – who appeared on Real Footballer’s Wives in 2005. She is now a beauty and fashion vlogger on social media, with more than two million subscribers to her YouTube channel.
She spoke to MailOnline in 2017 about her relationship with her family and the difficulties of living with multiple sclerosis.
Mulryne first enrolled at the Pontifical Irish College in Rome in 2009, having previously spent two years studying philosophy in Italy, before embarking on a four-year theology degree in Belfast.
Paul McVeigh, who played alongside Mulryne at Norwich, said he had been visiting his friend in the Italian capital and was stunned by the news.
‘Unfortunately, Phil struggled with injuries towards the end of his career and decided to stop playing and move back to Belfast to try to decide what he wanted to do with the rest of his life,’ McVeigh told the Catholic Herald.
‘To my surprise, and probably to everyone in football, Phil decided to study to become a Catholic priest.
‘I’ve kept in touch with him and know that he has turned his life around and is doing a lot of charity work and helping the homeless every week.
‘However, I was absolutely shocked that he felt this was his calling.’
In 2016, the former midfielder was declared bankrupt by Belfast High Court. It is believed he invested heavily in a fund that exploited a legal loophole that gave tax benefits to those who invested their money in the film industry.
The bankruptcy was described as a ‘self-judgment’ – implying he had declared himself bankrupt.
Many other footballers have taken part in such schemes – which help them significantly reduce their tax bills – in what has become a culture within the game.
The scheme allows individuals to deduct any investment in the UK film industry against tax.
But they have been the target of a crackdown by HMRC over what they see as tax evasion.
Before being declared bankrupt, Mulryne was a member of Tudor Films LLP and Zeus Films LLP for the past 13 years.
According to the company accounts, Tudor Films reported losses of more than £900,000, while Zeus lost more than £800,000.
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