Carey is born in Dublin on February 23, 1919. As a schoolboy, he plays football for Home Farm F.C. As a youth, he also plays Gaelic football and is selected to represent Dublin GAA at minor level before he signs for St. James’s Gate F.C. at the start of the 1936–1937 season.
Carey is also the first non-UK player and the first Irishman to captain a winning team in both an FA Cup Final and the First Division. Like his contemporary Con Martin, he is an extremely versatile footballer and plays in nine different positions throughout his career. He even plays in goal for United on one occasion.
(Pictured: Manchester United captain Johnny Carey is carried on the shoulders of his teammates, after they win the FA Cup final of 1948 against Blackpool. Date: April 24, 1948)
About 24 people are gathered in The Heights Bar, also known as O’Toole’s Pub, watching the Republic of Ireland vs. Italy in the 1994 FIFA World Cup. It is thus sometimes referred to as the “World Cup massacre.”
At 10:10 PM, two UVF members wearing boilersuits and balaclavas walk into the bar. One shouts “Fenian bastards!” and opens fire on the crowd with a vz. 58 assault rifle, spraying the small room with more than sixty bullets. Six men are killed outright and five other people are wounded. Witnesses say the gunmen then run to a getaway car, “laughing.” One witness describes “bodies … lying piled on top of each other on the floor.” The dead were Adrian Rogan (34), Malcolm Jenkinson (52), Barney Green (87), Daniel McCreanor (59), Patrick O’Hare (35) and Eamon Byrne (39), all Catholic civilians. O’Hare is the brother-in-law of Eamon Byrne and Green is one of the oldest people to be killed during the Troubles.
The UVF claims responsibility within hours of the attack. It claims that an Irish republican meeting was being held in the pub and that the shooting was retaliation for the INLA attack. Police say there is no evidence the pub had links to republican paramilitary activity and say the attack is purely sectarian. JournalistPeter Taylor writes in his book Loyalists that the attack may not have been sanctioned by the UVF leadership. Police intelligence indicates that the order to retaliate came from the UVF leadership and that its ‘Military Commander’ had supplied the rifle used. Police believe the attack was carried out by a local UVF unit under the command of a senior member who reported to the leadership in Belfast.
The attack receives international media coverage and is widely condemned. Among those who send messages of sympathy are Pope John Paul II, Queen Elizabeth II and United States PresidentBill Clinton. Local Protestant families visit their wounded neighbours in the hospital, expressing their shock and disgust.
There have been allegations that police (Royal Ulster Constabulary) double agents or informants in the UVF were linked to the massacre and that police protected those informers by destroying evidence and failing to carry out a proper investigation. At the request of the victims’ families, the Police Ombudsman for Northern Ireland investigate the police. In 2011 the Ombudsman concludes that there were major failings in the police investigation, but no evidence that police colluded with the UVF. The Ombudsman does not investigate the role of informers and the report is branded a whitewash. The Ombudsman’s own investigators demand to be disassociated from it. The report is quashed, the Ombudsman replaced and a new inquiry ordered.
In 2016, a new Ombudsman report concludes that there had been collusion between the police and the UVF, and that the investigation was undermined by the wish to protect informers, but found no evidence police had foreknowledge of the attack. A documentary film about the massacre, No Stone Unturned, is released in 2017. It names the main suspects, one of whom is a member of the British Army, and claims that one of the killers was an informer.
Cantwell plays as a full-back for Western Rovers, Cork Athletic F.C., West Ham United F.C. and Manchester United F.C.. While at West Ham, he features in the London XI side that competes in the 1955–58 Inter-Cities Fairs Cup final on May 1, 1958. He captains the Hammers to winning the Division Two championship in the 1957–58 season and thereby leads the club into the top flight for the first time since 1932.
In November 1960, Cantwell joins Manchester United for £29,500 which at the time is a record for a full-back. He helps the club win the 1965 and 1967 league titles and captains United when winning the 1963 FA Cup Final, just as his fellow countryman Johnny Carey had done in United’s previous FA Cup win 15 years earlier. He also serves as Chairman of the Professional Footballers’ Association.
Cantwell wins 36 full International caps for the Republic of Ireland national football team, typically playing at left full-back and on several occasions at centre-forward. He makes his debut against Luxembourg in October 1953 with his final appearance coming away to Turkey in February 1967. He scores 14 goals including 5 from penalties and also captains the Republic on several occasions including a match against England at Wembley Stadium.
In his first managerial role at Coventry City F.C. he has the onerous task of following Jimmy Hill who had taken the club into the Football League First Division for the first time in their history. He narrowly keeps the Sky Blues in the top in his first two seasons before taking them to a sixth-place finish in 1969–70, earning them qualification for the Inter-Cities Fairs Cup, a year before it was replaced by the UEFA Cup.
Cantwell departs from Highfield Road on March 12, 1972 to take charge of the New England Tea Men in the United States, but within seven months is back in English football as manager of Peterborough United F.C.. He helps Peterborough win the Football League Fourth Division title in his first full season as manager, before leaving on May 10, 1977 for a second spell with the Tea Men. This time he spends a year in the United States.
Cantwell returns to Peterborough on November 19, 1986 for a second spell as manager, remaining in this role until he becomes general manager on July 12, 1988. He is general manager at London Road for a year until he quits football to become licensee of the New Inn at Peterborough, where he remains for 10 years until he retires in 1999. He also is landlord of the Bull and Swan in Stamford, Lincolnshire.
Cantwell also plays cricket for Cork Bohemians Cricket Club and Ireland as a left-handed batsman and a right-arm medium bowler. He plays five times for Ireland making his debut in what is his sole first-class match versus Scotland at Edinburgh in 1956, scoring 31 and 17. His last match for Ireland is against Lancashire in July 1959.
Cantwell dies on September 8, 2005 from cancer at the age of 73, leaving a widow and two children. His former teams each hold a minute of silence for him before their next matches.
On May 14, 2009, Byrne is a substitute for a Liverpool F.C. Legends XI that plays against an All Star XI in a Hillsborough Memorial match to mark the 20th anniversary of the Hillsborough disaster. He represented the Republic of Ireland at U15, U16 and U18 levels.
In June 1998, Byrne attends an audition for new Irish boyband, where Boyzone manager Louis Walsh approaches him to join his new venture, Westlife. He joins Westlife along with Kian Egan, Mark Feehily, Shane Filan and Brian McFadden. With Westlife, he has had 25 top ten UK singles, fourteen of which are number one, seven number one albums and has sold in excess of over 45 million records worldwide. He also has a number one single in Ireland in 2002, alongside the Republic of Ireland national football team and Dustin the Turkey, with the Irish 2002 FIFA World Cup anthem, “Here Come The Good Times (Ireland).” He also co-writes many of Westlife’s songs.
On September 7, 2012, it is announced that Byrne will be a contestant for the tenth series of Strictly Come Dancing. He is the ninth contestant to be eliminated. He is ranked number two on Ireland’s Sexiest Man of 2014.
In early January 2016, it is rumored that RTÉ had internally chosen Byrne to represent Ireland in the Eurovision Song Contest 2016. On January 13, he is confirmed to be the Irish singer for the 2016 contest in Stockholm with the song, “Sunlight.” He performs it in the second semi-final but fails to advance to the final.
Byrne’s wife Georgina is the daughter of former TaoiseachBertie Ahern and they have twin sons, Rocco Bertie Byrne and Jay Nicky Byrne, and a daughter, Gia.
Whelan is signed for Liverpool F.C. by Bob Paisley for a bargain £35,000 on September 19, 1979, a few days before his 18th birthday, and makes his debut eighteen months later, on April 3, 1981. He goes on to become an integral part of the dominant Liverpool team of the 1980s. He remains with the club until 1994. In 100 Players Who Shook The Kop, a poll of 110,000 Liverpool fans conducted by the official Liverpool F.C. website, Whelan is in 30th position.
Since retirement Whelan has begun a media career and is a regular contributor to RTÉ Sport in Ireland. He is also Patron of the Myasthenia Gravis Association in Ireland where he is an active fundraiser and works to raise awareness for this rare autoimmune disease.
After winning an FA Cup winner’s medal under Matt Busby at Manchester United F.C., Giles moves to Leeds in 1963 where he plays in midfield alongside captainBilly Bremner. The duo goes on to form a central midfield partnership which is one of the best in English club football. Their pairing helps yield several major trophies in the most successful era in Leeds’ history. By a strange coincidence, Giles and Bremner both score exactly 115 goals for the club.
In his later years in football, Giles pursues a managerial career which sees him installed as player-manager and manager of, among others, West Bromwich Albion F.C., the Republic of Ireland national football team, Vancouver Whitecaps F.C. and Shamrock Rovers F.C. Despite having an outstanding knowledge of the game, Giles personally never likes being a manager. He becomes disillusioned with aspects of the job, such as suffering at the hands of non-committal boardrooms, and leaves management permanently in 1985. He later declares that he has no regrets about quitting managerial life.
Subsequently, after repeated encouragement from childhood friend Eamon Dunphy, Giles inadvertently enters the world of football punditry in 1986. He goes on to establish himself as the highly respected senior analyst on RTÉ Sport. In addition, he writes two columns per week for the Irish Evening Herald newspaper, and offers his opinions about the game on radio station, Newstalk 106.
Giles resides in the Harborne area of the city of Birmingham, England. To coincide with his 70th birthday, Giles compiles a first ever autobiography chronicling his life in and outside of football which is released in November 2010. The autobiography, titled A Football Man, becomes the best selling book in the Republic of Ireland.
Dunne is the first Irishman to figure prominently in the English Football League scoring records. In the 1930–1931 season he scores 41 league goals for Sheffield United. This becomes a club record and remains the most league goals scored by an Irishman during a single English League season.
In the 1931–1932 season, he scores in twelve consecutive matches. This is the all-time record of consecutive goals scored at the elite level of English football. Dunne also scores 30 or more First Division goals in three consecutive seasons between 1930 and 1933. He excels at either centre forward or inside forward and is outstanding with his head. On September 27, 1930 he scores a hat-trick of headers against Portsmouth F.C.. He is a fringe member of the great Arsenal F.C. side of the 1930s before finishing his career at Shamrock Rovers F.C.
John Joseph “Johnny” Carey, professional footballer, manager and one of Manchester United F.C.’s great captains, dies in Macclesfield, Cheshire, England on August 22, 1995.
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