Rory Carroll reunited with family

Freed Irish journalist Rory Carroll was reunited with his family in Ireland today after his kidnap ordeal in Iraq – and declared it was “fantastic” to be home.

The 33-year-old Guardian journalist admitted he had been in fear of his life, but had managed to keep his sense of humour during his captivity in a concrete cell in Baghdad.

“It’s been a real roller-coaster,” he said.

“I can’t believe it was only four or five days ago that it began; it seemed to end almost before it began.”

Mr Carroll was snatched by armed gunmen in Baghdad on Wednesday after he had been watching the opening of Saddam Hussein’s trial with an Iraqi family.

There were intense diplomatic efforts by both the Irish and British to secure his release, which came on Thursday evening; Irish Foreign Affairs Minister Dermot Ahern insisted no ransom had been paid for the award-winning journalist.

Mr Carroll, who believed he had been taken as a result of tensions between British forces and Shiite militia in the southern city of Basra, said he repeatedly told his captors he was Irish.

He said the men who had seized him were “underwhelmed” by his nationality.

He said he’d volunteered fragments of his identity from the IRA and U2 right down to Enya, and Fair City, and had even drawn a map of Western Europe with an exaggerated gap between Britain and Ireland.

Asked how he managed to maintain a sense of humour, he said: “Arguably I’m still in denial about it, it still hasn’t really sunk in.”

He said the dungeon-like passageway he had been held in was “pretty horrible”, but he still managed to see the funny side, whilst being held in a military leader’s family home.

“The children would run in and peek out and try and poke me,” he said.

He said he knew from the outcome of other hostage situations in the war-torn country, that being kidnapped as a westerner was not good news, and he feared being sold on to the highest bidder.

“We knew the outcome of other hostages taken before; so not only to be released alive, but so swiftly, was amazing,” he said.