Casualty

Background: Heaney talked about O’Neill with DOD (214) Louis O’Neill was a regular customer in my father-in-law’s public house in Ardboe: a small farmer and eel fisherman. The kind of level-headed, low-key, humorous countryman I always feel at home with. Sometimes I’d be on the outside of the counter with him and his friends, as a customer, and sometimes, as the public saw, I’d be on the inside, doing barman. My friendship with Louis was special because of that unforgettable summer morning when I went out on Lough Neagh with him and another companion to lift the eel lines. So when he was killed in that explosion, I knew I would have to write something, but wasn’t sure how it […]