Before the last Down home match in the GAA’s National Football League, a short and moving tribute was paid to two veteran members of the association who had died during the previous week.
It was an entirely appropriate gesture, involving a minute’s silence and a round of applause, after an announcement acknowledging the contribution made by Mary Kielty and Eamonn O’Toole to Gaelic Games over the decades.
However, many of the spectators at Páirc Esler in Newry were well aware that the personal histories of the two individuals, who were both aged 84, had a significance which went well beyond the sporting arena.
There was a certain symmetry to the key addresses in the life of Mrs Kielty, revolving around her home, which as her family notice confirmed was at 39 Main Street in Dundrum.
Patrick Kielty with his mother in 2012
Mary Kielty with her son Patrick, presenter of the Late Late Show(Danny Lawson/PA)
Sacred Heart Church, where her Requiem Mass took place, is three doors away at number 33, the primary school of the same name where she worked until retirement is at number 27, and the village’s GAA club is across the road at number 2.
A building which previously stood barely 100 yards away also had close connections as it was the site of the small office where her husband, Jack Kielty, aged 44, a prominent figure in south Down as chairman of Dundrum GAC, a building contractor, and a music promoter, who booked the likes of Roy Orbison and Tom Jones, was shot dead by the UVF in January 1988.
The brutal sectarian murder left Mrs Kielty, as a widow in her 40s, trying to raise three young sons in traumatic circumstances, and could have crushed a lesser person, but instead she committed herself fully to her family, her community and her GAA club.
Jack Kielty, aged 45, who was shot dead by UDA gunmen in Dundrum, Co Down on January 25 1988
Jack Kielty was shot dead by UDA gunmen in Dundrum, Co Down in 1988
She went on to succeed her husband as chair of Dundrum GAC, one of very few women to hold such a role anywhere in Ireland during the period, and was instrumental in expanding all its facilities.
It became a completely floodlit venue, and a landmark on the main road between Belfast and Newcastle, used for a range of sporting activities on a daily basis and named after the club’s lost mentor as Páirc Seán Ó Caoilte.
Her funeral service was told that she was hugely proud of the achievements of all her sons, and one of them, Patrick, dedicated the next episode of The Late Late Show on RTÉ television, which he hosts, to her memory.
Eamonn O’Toole, who was a father of six, lived in Loughinisland, a little over five miles from Mrs Kielty’s home, and, like her, devoted a large part of his life to the GAA.
Former Down County Board chairman Eamonn O'Toole
Former Down County Board chairman Eamonn O'Toole
He ran the Heights bar in the village for many years before transferring its ownership to his brother, Hugh, not long before the murder of six customers, all friends of his, in a savage gun attack there in June 1994.
It was an appalling outrage, closely linked to the assassination of Mr Kielty six years earlier and carried out by members of the same UVF unit, led by a person who was never brought to justice and still lives nearby.
The shocking aftermath to the Loughinisland carnage was set out in the book Shooting Crows (Merrion Press) by Trevor Birney, which I had the honour of launching in the Heights bar last October.
Interior of The Heights Bar in Loughinisland the morning after the UVF shot dead six people.
The Heights Bar in Loughinisland the morning after the UVF shot dead six people
Mr O’Toole held a range of offices in the GAA, at both club and county level, eventually serving a five-year term as Down chair during the stage when the association had to take a major decision on its attitude towards the police service.
He had many insights into the failure of the RUC to launch a proper investigation into the slaughter at his family business, and the overwhelming evidence of collusion with the perpetrators, but he was still able make a measured judgment on wider policing issues.
Mr O’Toole, someone I spoke to on many occasions and knew to be a deep thinker, guided Down through the highly pressurised debate over the GAA’s Rule 21 ban on northern police officers, which pre-dated partition, resulting in the county’s vote to remove the stipulation in 2001 and leading to its later deletion from the GAA’s official rulebook.
It was a pivotal moment, and both policing and indeed our overall political structures would be in a much more vulnerable position today if it had been allowed to remain in place.
Every killing throughout the Troubles was not just wrong but cruel and capable only of causing grief on an enormous scale, and the achievements of the political leaders on all sides who negotiated the eventual peace settlement have been justifiably well documented
It is equally important to remember the legacy of quiet heroes like Mary Kielty and Eamonn O’Toole, who faced personal adversity but still worked to make Ireland a better place.
n.doran@irishnews.com
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