A journey, and a day, that lives long in Martin O’Neill’s memory

In 2008, Martin O’Neill, the Irish soccer manager, was invited to Áras an Uachtarán by Mary McAleese to give a lecture on the meaning of being Irish.

His speech was a charming, thoughtful discussion of the great anomalies, ironies, paradoxes, and even downright contradictions which characterised his life.

He remembered in fine detail his upbringing in an Irish working-class family in County Derry and told of how his family — like most of the nationalist families in his area — paraded their strong GAA background like a great defining banner, all the while looking askance at soccer.