Former Armagh captain Jarlath Burns admits he might have ended up in the IRA only for gaelic football.

The South Armagh Brigade of the Provisional Irish Republican Army was responsible for the deaths of 165 members of the British security forces between 1970 and 1997 and Burns was raised in the heart of this bitter conflict. But he got involved with the local Silverbridge GAA club and went on to enjoy a superb football career with club and county, which ended only last year when he togged out for the last time at the age of 48.

Now principal of St Paul's High School in Bessbrook and an active campaigner for peace and integration, the ex-Orchard County midfielder concedes that his life could have gone down a different path:

"My mother spent most of my childhood trying to keep me out of the IRA. Many of my friends got into it, I didn't. It was just the by the grace of God that I didn't. That's just the way it was in south Armagh. That's the world in which we lived," he told The Irish Times in an interview to mark the 20th anniversary of the IRA ceasefire.

He is confident that the dark days thart blighted south Armagh are over:

"There is no appetite for ever going back to violence, never, ever; there is absolutely no stomach for it, the war is over. I would always have argued that the people of south Armagh were a law-abiding people but they were just pulverised by successive British government policies, and now we see the true potential shining through as a people and as a community."

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