Country Living with Francis Farragher

THERE’S a whole generation of people who have now grown up in a largely peaceful Ireland, but for those of us of a certain vintage, the mention of place names like Greysteele or Warrenpoint immediately brings back memories of shocking atrocities.

For those of who were around for the 1970s through to the 1990s, there was almost a sense of numbness in terms of what was happening across the border.

While most of the horrible  deeds did occur in the ‘Six Counties’ we shouldn’t forget either that the biggest single death toll occurred with the Dublin and Monaghan bombings by a Loyalist terrorist group which led to the death of 33 innocent people and injured 300 more in May, 1974.

For the most part though, here in the South we were largely insulated from what was happening just up the road from us. We could all go to sleep at night without any blasts going off; we could socialise in the local pubs without the fear of a gunman arriving and spraying the place with bullets; but yet here and there on our travels we would get little grim reminders of what life was like on the other side of the border.

Now and then though the early 1980s, I’d get the job of covering a match in Northern Ireland. Routine enough  work assignments but the border checkpoints would always put a little chill running through your veins.

For more, read this week’s Connacht Tribune.

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