Regrets, remorse, pride, pain, loss: What being at a World Cup with Ireland is really like

Nigel Carr loved going to Dublin. If Northern Ireland in 1987 was reduced from the friendliest of communities into an angry parochial backwater, then Dublin was an escape from all that, Grafton Street with its bustle and noise, Baggot Street with its pubs.

Way back then Irish teams had a tradition, the backs meeting for an eve-of-match chat over tea, the forwards absconding to the pub. O’Donoghue’s was their preferred haunt, their pint sometimes interrupted by IRA sympathisers, out with the buckets, collecting for the cause. Subtly and quietly, the southern members of the team would protect men like Carr and the serving RUC officer, prop forward Jim McCoy, from seeing this, respectful of the sacrifices these Ulstermen were making to play for their country.