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'I was walking out totally oblivious and just happened to look over, heard a gunshot, boom...'

It should have been the greatest night of his young life after landing a first Irish senior title, but instead Billy Walsh found himself being interviewed by the Guards after witnessing a murder outside the National Stadium. He tells Neil Loughran about that traumatic night, highs and lows in the ring, and the start of something special as the high performance unit was born…

Billy Walsh recently brought a USA team over to Ireland for a training camp in Jordanstown. Picture by Hugh Russell
Billy Walsh recently brought a USA team over to Ireland for a training camp in Jordanstown. Picture by Hugh Russell Billy Walsh recently brought a USA team over to Ireland for a training camp in Jordanstown. Picture by Hugh Russell

BILLY Walsh should remember his first Irish senior title for all the same reasons as anybody else lucky enough to have had their hand raised on finals night. The elation, the relief, the expressions on the faces of family and friends looking up from ringside.

Across three different weight classes, the Wexford man appeared in a senior final every year between 1983 and 1992, winning seven. He became accustomed to appearing on the big stage.

Ask any fighter, though, and they’ll tell you the first is always special.

Yet for Walsh the events of Friday, March 25 1983 evoke conflicting emotions.

On cloud nine after defeating Patsy Ormond and picking up the coveted best boxer award, the 19-year-old witnessed the shooting of Portlaoise man Brian Stack as he walked from the National Stadium that night to join his own victory party.

“I used to bring busloads to the stadium, all GAA players and friends I grew up with. I’ve a big family as well,” recalls Walsh.

“As soon as I was after winning, they were down the Headline Bar on the corner for a few beers.

I had to wait behind to be given my award for best boxer, so I was coming out after everybody else had already gone.

“I was walking out totally oblivious and just happened to look over, heard a gunshot, boom... a guy on a scrambler-type motorbike pulled up beside this guy and shoots him in the neck, then hops onto the back of the motorbike and takes off.

“I think they eventually found the bike in the canal.”

Brian Stack was a boxing referee from Portlaoise who had been at the Irish senior finals in the National Stadium that night. He was also chief prison officer at Portlaoise prison, which housed many IRA members at the time.

The 48-year-old died from his injuries 18 months later, but nobody has ever been charged or convicted in connection with the murder, and earlier this year the Stack family called for “a full state apology” over how investigations into the case had been carried out during the intervening decades.

“I had the cops coming to me down in Wexford taking statements after it, they were trying to figure out who was it, what they looked like,” says Walsh.

“I went back in [to the stadium] to tell somebody, but there’s that feeling you get… before that I was on the biggest high I was ever on, senior champion, going down to celebrate with my family and friends.

“I couldn’t believe it, couldn’t believe what I’d seen. I was just… in shock.”

All of a sudden, boxing seemed like the least important thing in the world. Involved with the Wexford minor football and hurling teams at the time, Walsh turned his attention to other pursuits before eventually making his ring return later in the year.

And it wasn’t long before he was back at the stadium, winning senior title number two.

“It was a dream come true [to box there],” he said.

“For anybody that plays GAA, it’s the Croke Park of boxing, the finals were shown live on national TV… it was an iconic place for me.”

Despite that win, though, Walsh was controversially overlooked for the 1984 Olympic Games in Los Angeles, and had to wait until Seoul ’88 to make his bow at the greatest show on earth, falling at the first hurdle against home favourite Kyung-sup Song .

He was in the frame again four years later too but, after a hastily-arranged box-off with eventual Olympic champion Michael Carruth, Walsh knew it was time to hang up the gloves.

“I had beaten Mick, then he beat me in ’91 and so they called a box off at the start of 1992.

“I wasn’t expecting a box-off. When that fight was over in ’91, I had sort of said goodbye to everybody at the stadium, it was to be my last time in the ring. A month after that I’m back home playing hurling and football, drinking pints with the boys and having a good time when I get a phone call from central council telling me they’ve decided to have a box-off.

“Mick and his dad knew. We were room-mates for five years, I used to live up there at weekends, so they knew I wasn’t going to be ready for it.

“When I heard about it I went down and trained, and when I got on the scales I was a stone overweight – that was after training!”

Although he lost, returning to the life away from boxing he had temporarily enjoyed, that was far from the end of Billy Walsh’s association with the National Stadium.

After being appointed as Irish head coach in 2003 Walsh, alongside Gary Keegan, helped galvanise the country’s ailing boxing fortunes. The establishment of a high performance unit was the jolt the sport, and the boxers, needed here.

A new set of guidelines were issued by high performance director Keegan as the new broom swept clean. Indeed, Walsh burst into laughter when asked how strict that accord was.

“Well,” he said, “put it this way; we lost half the team in the first year.”

Despite that rocky start, success soon followed, with those early years spent eating, training and sleeping at the stadium providing the foundation for the golden generation that followed as Olympic, World and European medals flowed.

“I was a milkman working for myself, and I was earning twice the wage that I went to work for in Dublin,” says Walsh, who is now head coach of the American boxing team following an acrimonious split with the Irish Athletic Boxing Association in 2015.

“I left my three young kids at home, they were eight, nine and 12 so it was a crucial time in their lives, to go to Dublin all week and only come home at weekends.

“Our base for work was there in the stadium - we weren’t getting paid expenses to get to Dublin, for accommodation… we later moved into a hotel, but that was years later.

“We converted the attics, we slept in the gym. We wanted to test the team, to see what it meant to them, so we bought blow up beds and sleeping bags and we slept there through the week – all the boxers, coaches.

“Some guys brought it up to central council that I was staying in the Ritz down the road – no man, I was staying there with them. Me, Zaur [Antia], Jim Moore, before that Cathal O’Grady.

“Some nights it was f**king freezing, you could see your breath. Guys like Kenny Egan, Paul McCloskey, they’ll tell you about it.

“That was the way for a long number of years and you know what? It worked. It solidified the team; everybody was in. Looking back, it was a fun time.”

Michael Conlan kisses Billy Walsh on the head after becoming the first Irishman to win a World Championship gold medal in 2015. Picture by Sportsfile
Michael Conlan kisses Billy Walsh on the head after becoming the first Irishman to win a World Championship gold medal in 2015. Picture by Sportsfile Michael Conlan kisses Billy Walsh on the head after becoming the first Irishman to win a World Championship gold medal in 2015. Picture by Sportsfile