FAI...New Manager is Heimir Hallgrimsson

[Capt Pat]

It looks like Ireland got through the last weekend before the playoffs without any new injury worries.

[Baile Brigín 2]

From the airport to the maternity ward – where were you for Troy Parrott's goal?
Ireland's winner in Budapest was an explosion where the shrapnel came in the form of smiles and tears and hugs with strangers

Troy Parrott scores his third goal for the Republic of Ireland against Hungary, triggering celebrations among all kinds of people in all kinds of places. Photograph: Stephen McCarthy/Sportsfile
Troy Parrott scores his third goal for the Republic of Ireland against Hungary, triggering celebrations among all kinds of people in all kinds of places. Photograph: Stephen McCarthy/Sportsfile
Malachy Clerkin's picture
Malachy Clerkin
Sat Mar 21 2026 - 06:00
•
9 MIN READ

Zuzana Botikova sat down at the little airport booth with her little airport tray and unloaded her little airport meal. A bowl of soup, some potato wedges and a glass of Guinness. It had been a long weekend and she was drained.

Botikova was heading back to Bratislava after a few days in Dublin interviewing members of the Slovak community for RTVS, the public broadcaster back home. She had a little time before her flight, the first time in a few days where she felt she had any time at all. She knew Ireland were playing a big football match – she'd arrived in the city the previous Thursday in the middle of the Ronaldo carry-on – so she sat back and watched it. And watched the people watching it.

"Suddenly, you could feel the attendance rising around the TVs in this little airport restaurant," she says. "The game was interesting, there were many chances and people were reacting to everything that was happening. And not just Irish people. It was down near the Ryanair departure gates so it was random people from around Europe who were stopping to watch.

"You could feel that this was more than just people passing through an airport. Emotions were getting quite high because Ireland were chasing this goal. So I finished my soup and turned on the camera on my phone. I rested my arm on the bench beside me to get a stable view. I was thinking, 'You know, something might happen'."

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Four months on, her video has had more than 1.7 million views on X alone and multiples of that worldwide. It was used on TV news bulletins, on social media posts, on every content aggregator site imaginable. There were so many videos of so many scenes that day but hers was the one that caught fire. Why?

The people, that's why. The more times you watch it, the more of them you see.



The chap in the flat cap holding tight to the handle of his wheelie case.

The airport worker in the high-vis jacket mobbed by buck-lepping strangers.

The two teenage girls clapping in their seats, one of them stopping to check her handbag is secure before sitting up to clap even harder.

The big lad in the booth beyond them waving his heavily-tattooed arms aloft before sitting down and planting a tender kiss on the side of his partner's head.

The young fella foostering with his phone to try to capture the whole scene.

People from all walks of life. People who had never stood in the same room before and will never stand in the same room again but who, for just a few seconds, were one. A single, heaving, yahooing organism, bound in a moment of innocent joy.

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It happened in the airport but it happened everywhere else too. It happened in the pubs. It happened in livingrooms all across the country. It happened on phones being held steady on busses and on trains and in shopping centres and at matches. Troy Parrott strained to reach Liam Scales's knock-down in the 96th minute and for a glorious few minutes, the entire country lost its reason.

Together. Whoever you were. Wherever you were.

***
In the delivery room of the Rotunda Hospital, Séan Dowling was on to his third baby of the day. Dowling has been a midwife in the maternity hospital at the top of O'Connell Street in Dublin since 1998 but still he finds that new, mad things can happen and do happen.

On that particular Sunday, his first delivery had been for a couple who were return customers – he'd been on duty 12 years earlier for the arrival of their first child. This is not, by itself, unusual. What was remarkable on this day was that a couple of hours later in the afternoon, it happened again.

"A double-double," he laughs now. "Forget Troy's hat-trick – we could never remember it happening twice on the same day before. I should have pulled the jersey over my head and ran around the room."

The second one was happening while events in Budapest were coming to a head. In years gone by, the delivery ward of a maternity hospital would be a hermetically sealed box, cloistered off from the outside world, happily oblivious to anything happening beyond the end of the bed. In the smartphone age, not so much.


Troy Parrott delivering right on time for Ireland in Hungary. Photograph: Ryan Byrne/Inpho
Troy Parrott delivering right on time for Ireland in Hungary. Photograph: Ryan Byrne/Inpho
"It happens more than you'd think actually," Dowling says. "When big sporting events are going on, you'd often have the dad holding a screen with it on. We'd find the women don't actually mind that much – it's nearly a good distraction sometimes. Especially if it's a big Ireland match. They mightn't have the same attitude now if it was a Dubs playing a league match in Croker.

"She's in labour and we're doing our best to keep all the focus on her because she's the most important person in the room. He has the phone in his hand, with the match on. In between pushing, we're casting the odd look over at the screen.

"Labour goes on for a while, you know? We were one down and then we were all square and then it was 2-1 and we were coming back and all that. We definitely started talking about names at one point – how Troy was an unusual name and you don't see many of them around the place. I think it was a girl anyway so Troy didn't come into it.

"And then, with the last touch possible that could do it, he scored the winner. We were elated. There was a buzz in the whole place then. We cheered for the new baby and we cheered for Troy."

***
So where were you? You remember, don't you? Everybody does.

Kellie Harrington was in her kitchen, up around the corner from where Parrott grew up. She screamed the place down, same as everyone else. Niall Quinn was in a bar in Dubai and as he was jumping around the place, he found himself wrapped in a bear hug by a big guy with a beard. Turned out it was Shane Lowry.


Ruby Walsh was on duty for ITV Racing, providing booth analysis at the November Cheltenham meeting. He had his iPad beside him and was tuning in to Budapest in between races so he managed to catch pretty much all of the game. Pretty much, but not quite. "It was 2-2 when we came off air," he says. "By the time I jumped in the taxi and got the iPad back on, it was 3-2!"

That's the thing. It might have felt like the whole of Ireland was huddled around TV screens that Sunday afternoon but it's not quite the case. When the year ended and the television viewing figures were totted up, the Hungary game only ranked eighth on the list. Officially, more people watched The Traitors. Life went on. People had stuff to be at.

Ireland players revel in their exploits in Hungary. Some people preferred watching The Traitors to this. Photograph: Stephen Gormley/Inpho
Ireland players revel in their exploits in Hungary. Some people preferred watching The Traitors to this. Photograph: Stephen Gormley/Inpho
Down hurling manager Ronan Sheehan brought a crowd of underage hurlers from his club Newry Shamrocks to play a game in the morning and then on to the Ulster club hurling semi-final in the afternoon. Portaferry were half an hour into their game against Slaughtneil in the Athletic Grounds in Armagh when a commotion started up in the stand. People looked over and thought the young lads were maybe starting trouble.

"We were all just watching the match and chatting away. The kids were across from us. Next thing we heard the lads shouting and roaring and jumping out of their seats. And we were going, 'What? What happened?' And they were going mad. 'Troy Parrott's just scored!'

"And then you could feel this kind of ripple go through the stand. People were cheering, they were telling each other the news. You could hear everyone's mood lifting. It was one of those unique moments. The game was still in the melting pot in front of us but kids were going mental around us. The wonders of social media."


Across the country, 350km away in Sixmilebridge, Co Clare, the same scene was breaking out at the Munster club hurling final. By a wondrous turn of kismet, the spectators at Éire Óg v Loughmore-Castleiney were on a break between full-time and extra-time as the news came through, so everyone had time and space to digest it.


Kids ran in circles, holding their heads and their hurleys in their hands. Adults watched and rewatched the goal on the phones. The scene was caught in full by the TG4 crew, crisply and beautifully summed up by match commentator Mac Dara Mac Donncha: "Jab déanta amach i mBudapest ..."

All around the country, people got on with what they had to get on with, all the while trying to keep some way plugged in to what was happening. In Dublin, David Whelan was at a kids party in a play centre – five-year-olds as far as the eye could see, if the eyes weren't otherwise occupied.

"My daughter and three of her classmates were having a shared party for turning five. All the dads gathered around a tablet keeping an eye on the game. I thought it was loud with all the kids until the goal went in. The place went wild. The poor kids got a fright!"

Danny Cassidy is 11 years old from Prosperous, Co Kildare. In October 2024, he was diagnosed with a brain tumour and he comes up to Crumlin Hospital every Wednesday for chemo. It doesn't stop him from playing sport though. Nothing could.

He plays soccer and Gaelic and pitch and putt, he likes a bit of running too. Long distance rather than sprints, if he had to pick one. On that Sunday, Danny was watching the game in his cousins' house, with a load of them in the room as the goals flew in.

"After the first one, we were happy," Danny says. "Then after the second one, we were very happy. And for the third one, I didn't actually think it went in. But when it did, we all went mad. We went out and ran around the garden. The grass was all dirty afterwards from the knee slides."

***
Botikova filmed the airport scene for about three minutes but knew she'd have to edit down to post it on social media. So she ran down to her gate and started clipping it back, eventually ending up with the 33-second bit she posted. Pretty much as soon as it went up, she was inundated with requests – people reposting it, news organisations asking her if they could use it.

She started replying to them and got buried in her phone. After a while, she looked up and wondered why her plane hadn't been called, only to realise that in the swirl of it all, she'd been sitting at the wrong gate the whole time.

She leapt up and sprinted over to the right one, with seconds to spare. She was the last one on before the door closed. When she landed in Bratislava three hours later, she had 16,000 notifications on her phone.

On the top floor of Dundrum shopping centre, the Sky store is just off to the side of one of the massive food courts. Or at least it was, until the drama gradually ramped up and sucked more and more people over to the television screens, all of which were tuned to the match. By the time the goal went in, the massive food court was very much off to the side of the Sky store, which was now a tangled mass of limbs and chaos and laughter and disbelief.

[ Ken Early: Hallgrímsson is staying until Euro 2028. But it isn't all good newsOpens in new window ]

That's what the moment was, really. An explosion where the shrapnel came in the form of smiles and tears and hugs with strangers. A release from the confines of daily life, from the social boundaries that keep us contained. A sudden flash of mass, free-form connection.

Parrott's hat-trick goal got Ireland into a World Cup playoff. But that's the least of what it did.

Would the Times allow a soccer or rugby correspondent tell the story of a major GAA moment via soccer or rugby? It's lazy.

[Ronnie]

Are we supporting Northern Ireland & the Republic of Ireland in their fixtures?

[laoislad]

Are we supporting Northern Ireland & the Republic of Ireland in their fixtures?

What's this we business paleface?

[Ronnie]

well we can't all be 'Indians'....

[Puckoon]

Is there anything to be said for Dearg Doom?

[An Watcher]

Big game lads.  I would take penalties now.  Really hope we have the portugal/hungary ireland team as opposed to the Armenia team.  Realistically, its a big ask to win any away game in international football but if we could sneak a lead or keep it 0'0 for long enough, im hoping the Czechs could panic a bit as this is a tie they would fancy themselves in.

[Baile Brigín 2]

The nordles are cooked. Will give them a rattle but ultimately they are in Italy.

Ireland should be in a position to get through tonight, especially if the rumours Souček is dropped are true. If he isn't we need a best game ever from whoever replaces Cullen.

[Captain Scarlet]

There has to be a bit of a mess in camp and then all the match-fixing craic thrown in too. Even if Soucke isn't flying the size of him defending corners and set plays means it's a big boost for us.

I think it'll be a Shane Duffy style header that wins it. Get anything on the ball and then see who comes to town on Tuesday.

We sing You'll Never Beat the Irish, but that Hungary match will have the players really believeing it's not over till it's over.

[seafoid]

https://www.irishtimes.com/sport/soccer/2026/03/26/ken-early-ireland-may-want-to-avoid-penalties-in-the-home-of-antonin-panenka/

Corruption aside, what disappoints Panenka about modern football is the lack of expressiveness in the game. "I still love football. I really like being part of it, not play football, but being around it. Unfortunately, the football itself is not as beautiful as it used to be. It's tactically rigid.
"There are no players who can give real joy to fans, technical skills, long-distance shots. It's what I really miss in today's football. So I'm still part of it, but the football itself, it's not what it used to be. I think we gave much more joy to fans than today's players."
He sounded hopeful, rather than confident, that the Czech team could nonetheless give some joy to its fans on Thursday night. "The result will be obviously what counts, not the style of play. We will see

[AustinPowers]

The nordles are cooked. Will give them a rattle but ultimately they are in Italy.

Ireland should be in a position to get through tonight, especially if the rumours Souček is dropped are true. If he isn't we need a best game ever from whoever replaces Cullen.

As long as Ireland qualify , I wouldn't mind if  Norn Iron qualified

Think Italy will win 1-0  though

It's going to be nerve wrecking but I think Ireland can do it. 2-1, Parrott and Ogbene to  score.

[seafoid]

https://www.rte.ie/news/ireland/2026/0326/1565365-troy-parrott-family/

[Blowitupref]

[Baile Brigín 2]

Taylor in ahead of Knight is ballsy. Otherwise it's his strongest XI.

Souček dropped which is lovely.

[Captain Obvious]

Task ahead of the Irish team

Czechia are unbeaten in their last 17 home qualifying matches for major tournaments (World Cup/European Championship), winning 13 and drawing four since a 2-1 defeat to Germany in September 2017 in World Cup qualifying.