Barry McGuigan - Coming Home

The lounge boy in Paddy Cole's place in Castleblayney is in no doubt. "Your off to Clones," he says. Clones is a small town with a small popu=ulation - 2,500 to 3,000. It has five churches, twenty-two licensed premises, three hotels, and one favouurite son. 'The Diamond' - the town square - is packed with cars. The Lennard Arms Hotel, owned by Barry's family, is booked out. There are glasses and drinkers all over the reception area. The staff haven't slept in two days. The bar hasn't been closed since Friday night. By Orla Guerin
The town is bedecked with messages of encouragement and congratulations. Everything from "We steak the lot on you Barry" to "It's a pizza-cake" - every shopkeeper, pub. owner and hotel proprietor in the town has got in on the act.

Clones is a quaint town by anybody's standards - and a depressed one. The charming narrow winding streets, and the many hostelries hardly compensate for the lack of in. dustry. There is high unemployment in this town where over forty per cent of the people are under the age of twenty-five.

Most of the workforce look to Tunney's meat factory on the outskirts of town for employment, which it provides for four to five months of the year. The Denim Trading Company recently came to a halt in Clones with the loss of over sixty jobs. The IDA have built two units on the Monaaghan road outside Clones, but these remain unoccupied. Locals tell you that the town has the highest percentage of pensioners and young children in the country.

It is a town with few amenities - just the Star Cinema and two dances at weekends. Industry has not flourished in Clones although many locals remember the good old days when Clones with its extensive railway works was a major centre in the area and a key point on the way to Belfast. Now the town which benefitted enormously from the border years ago is suffering because of it. But tonight none of this matters. Barry is coming home.

It's 4pm in Clones and things are beginning to hot up. The garda presence in the square begins to mushroom. Extra guards have been drafted from other stations in the country to supplement the staff of twenty-five at the Clones Garda Station. A cluster of Americans trek fruitlessly across 'The Diamond' looking for hotel rooms that are not to be had. Clones is booked out.

Inside the now jammed Lennard Arms, Danny McAdam is working hard behind the reception desk. He's hoarse from taking bookings and from the weekend's exertion.

He's related to Barry and proud of it. Tonight he'll be up there with him on the stand in the square. Danny says that all of Ireland is here for the homecoming. He looks around the bar and pronounces himself to be "almost the only Clones man in it."

The locals have watched him from his earliest days in the local Smithboro Boxing Club, and now he's made them proud. He's their boy. In the Lennard Arms Justin Elliot is relaxing with a pint looking exhausted and elated. He's just back from London. Justin went with two other busloads of Clones people to see Barry. It was a family job organised by Barry's brotherrin-law Sammy Mealiffe. "It cost me £153 to go, but I'd have paid £1,053 to see that fight," he says.

It's 5pm in Clones and Katie McGuigan is in the family grocery shop. "the food market". She's excited, flushed and proud. ITN cameeras hover in the background. Strangers walk up introducing themselves, and thanking her for what her son has done for Ireland.

Katie is still getting over the fire which destroyed the centre of the McGuigan family home. "We can rebuild the walls but we cannot rebuild the memories," she says. Those walls contained the video tapes which were thememories of her son's former triumphs. But Saturday night was Barry's particular triumph, and for the first time after commpeting in the ring Barry rang her after the fight. He wanted to know how she felt about the fight.

She hadn't watched it but she "knew from the screams outside that Barry had won." The whole town of Clones was demanding of her that she should be delighted and she was.

At 7pm in Clones the sky is grey and heavy, the rain persistent and 'The Diamond' full. The McGuigan anthem "Here we go, here we go, here we go", is chanted sporadiically in the square. Then local band 'New York Connection' blast us out of it with their version of the old Thin Lizzy classic 'The Boys Are Back In Town'. This time "Barry" replaces the boys. They get little response. By now the crowd is agitated, wet, expectant and unresponsive. They won't even sing the chorus.

It's Clones at 7.45pm. The Monaghan Community Brass Band march into 'The Diamond'. The shouting begins, arms rise into the air. Barryis coming, his motor cavalcade is in sight. Barry and his entourage arrive, gracing the top of an open double decker bus. In a navy suit with a pink tie, one arm around Sandra and the other clenched high in the air in a repeated gesture of victory.

The crowd becomes a surging mass of congratulation, and the Champion is delighted, his boyish smile flickering on and off his face. After shouting, cheering and pleading, Barry abandons the top deck of the bus in favour of the stand which is crowded with local TDs and County Counncillors.

"I love you. I love you Clones," he shouts. His voice fills the square. "Three cheers for Clones." Holding hands tightly with Sandra, Barry touches those reaching for him at the front of the crowd. The cheers begin again. "Well

Barry comes home. done Barry," and "Here we go." Flags, blue and white, red and blue, white and yellow, it doesn't matter what colour, are waved.

"The Diamond" is a mishmash of sounds, shouts, screams and embraces. These people are almost jumping in exciteement, making up for all the fervour which earlier was lackking. Clones is a town gone mad, and anything goes.

They sing "He's got the whole world in his hands," and tonight he has.

Stewards protest continually to the thronging crowd that children are being crushed at the front - they don't care. Barry asks them once to move and they almost run backwards. They are at his command.

Then Barry's father, Pat McGuigan, takes the mike and gives his rendition of 'Danny Boy'. The crowd join him, hands are held high, people sway to the music, strangers link arms without fear of their wallets being lifted.

Barry asks for a cheer for "the old man and the old doll, for the Lennard Arms, and for Clones." The response fills 'The Diamond'. "I'm intending to stay on top. Unite and God bless you. Now come out and enjoy yourselves." With these words the hero left the stand and withdrew to the family shop.

It's 8.20pm in Clones and the crowd shift position from the stand to the family shop. There's no singing this time" just dogged etermination to catch another glimpse. At 9.05 their patience is rewarded - he emerges. Briefly. Then he recedes into the comfort of his new red Lotus sports car (the registration is "Boxit") and leaves for his home via the Belturbet/Cavan road.

The crowd lingers persistently for almost an hour mannning the square where Barry had been but by lOpm every native and every traveller was in a pub, with a drink, and the sweet taste of success, in their mouths.

The house which Barry shares with his wife Sandra is about half a mile outside the town. It's a stylish white bunngalow, overlooking a small lake , with a large "Beware of the Guard Dog" sign. At 9.50 precisely Barry shows up at the house accompanied by two jeeps. He's home - he has done his bit for the night.

In Clones at 10.30 things are swinging. Barry is gone, so every man, in every lounge, in Clones has taken it upon himself to keep the celebration going. The Lennard Arms is packed, there's jostling and singing and vast amounts of alcohol being consumed. Almost everyone is drunk.

It's 11pm in Clones and the reveIiers are still revelling. Downstairs in the Creighton Hotel glasses are smashing and the crowd are singing. Many are outside in the streets, pints in hand, dancing. The hamburger and chip vans are doing a roaring trade.

Walking through the narrow streets of Clones at 3am a different picture emerges. Groups of drunken fans are at every corner. Lots of people are eating chips, some are vomiting the excesses of three days of alcohol out of their systems. Almost all sway as they try to walk. The late night drinking which was talked about all day did not materialise. The Lennard Arms voided itself of all but the residents, and by 4.30am Clones was a ghost town.