It is a town that became synonymous with the North’s 30-year conflict.
“We did ‘top cover’ over a stationary road patrol to suppress the threat of a sniper. When you did that you were flying over Slieve Gullion and Camlough mountain. Then you’d go, ‘Jesus, this place is stunning’. The people here work to improve things for themselves because they accept they’re not going to get anything from anybody elseThe British army sangar that loomed over the small town’s market square for decades was demolished as part of the so-called “normalisation” plan in 2007.
The idea of a Tourist Information office in the troubled Crossmaglen would have been almost unthinkable before the Belfast Agreement. Today Úna Walsh is an ambassador who leads walking tours in the village. Photograph: Stephen Davison “My dad would have shown people around if they’d asked to see the place years ago so I’m only paying back the generations before,” Walsh explains.
The post sparked a backlash and led to him ordering a report that found the station was “no longer fit for purpose”. “But at the same time that’s not the day-to-day experience of people living here. There’s a general feel-good factor that wasn’t there when I was growing up.” Off the pitch, McConville struggled with a gambling addiction that led to him entering a residential rehab programme at the height of his club and county glory days in the noughties. He is now a trained mental health counsellor and also manages the Wicklow GAA senior football team.
Úna Walsh and Oisín McConville outside the new secondary school in Crossmaglen. Photograph: Stephen Davison “As a young fellah, you’d kick the ball over the bar and if it went into the barracks they’d stick a knife in it and then throw it back over.“That might be your football for the evening and all of a sudden you had to go beg, borrow or steal to try and get a new one to continue on the training session.
Between 1971 and 1997, there were 123 British soldiers killed in south Armagh – about a fifth of British military Trouble-related deaths in the North – along with 41 Royal Ulster Constabulary police officers and 75 civilians.