A bittersweet anniversary

Twenty-Five years ago for the second time in my life, Ray Houghton made me a very happy Irishman.

I was in Lavelle’s pub in Belmullet in my father’s county.

As the match started I hoped against hope that our lads could do something.

With only eleven minutes gone, I looked on in disbelief as the ball looped over Gianluca Pagliuca.

The global Gaeltacht went mental.

In the Giants Stadium in New York, it looked like a home game for the Irish.

There were Tricolours everwhere to be seen.

Then again, unlike in Ray Houghton’s native city, it isn’t a crime to be Irish in the Big Apple.

The crowd in Lavelle’s probably could have been heard by Jack’s lads in New York as we screamed in unison “put him under!”

It seemed an impossible ask that our fellas could hold out against the Italian superstars.

After all, they had Roberto Baggio and Giuseppe Signori probing for the equaliser.

It was one of those games where if the opposition had have levelled the match then it was a racing certainty they would eventually win.

They didn’t.

We won!

It is hard to adequately describe the huge outpouring of simple pride and joy as the final whistle sounded.

Our boys had given everything in punishing heat.

Tommy Coyne was fit to collapse when he was substituted and Paul McGrath had played the game of his life.

We had defeated the nation who had put us out of Italia 90.

At some unspeakable hour, I happily stumbled out of that fine Mayo hostelry utterly oblivious to the atrocity that had happened on the other side of this island.

In the small village of Loughinisland in County Down UVF gunmen decided that watching a Republic of Ireland soccer match was a capital offence in their “wee cuntry”.

Six men died:

Eamon Byrne (39), Barney Green (87), Malcolm Jenkinson (52), Daniel McCreanor (59), Patrick O’Hare (35) and Adrian Rogan (34).

O’Hare was the brother-in-law of Eamon Byrne and Green was one of the oldest people to be killed during the Troubles.

All of the men were Catholics with no Republican involvement.

It was a classic Kitsonian operation and very typical of Britain’s Dirty War in the Six Counties.

In the immediate aftermath of the slaughter, the role of the Crown Forces pointed to collusion.

Therefore, any investigation into the crime was stillborn and os it proved to be.

Twenty-five years on the families of the six men who were murdered that night still seek truth and justice.

Of course, a reasonable person might have concluded that the police would have “left no stone unturned” in the search for the killers.

That is the promise that was made to the families in the immediate aftermath of the slaughter.

Instead, it has been anything but that.

The makers of a documentary on the Loughinisland massacre used that empty promise as a title of their forensically accurate work.

Instead of renewed police action to bring the killers to justice, it brought a knock at their doors.

Trevor Birney and Barry McCaffrey have served the public interest with their work.

The response of the PSNI was to arrest them last year!

Trevor is a member of the NUJ and it was my honour to speak with him at a meeting of our Irish Executive Council in Dublin of which I am a member.

An attack in one is an attack on all.

With the support of the NUJ and an excellent legal team, the two journalists prevailed and the arrests were quashed earlier this month.

However, the families of the Loughinisland dead still seek justice.

Until then those happy memories of Ray Houghton celebrating his goal in New York will always dredge up for me another reason why British rule in Ireland still has a toxic legacy.