Sean Brown was identified as a target by locals says family

CONNLA YOUNG CRIME and SECURITY CORRESPONDENT, Irish News, April 4th, 2026

THE daughter of murdered GAA official Sean Brown has said her family believes he was identified as a loyalist murder target at a local level.

Clare Loughran revealed her family’s suspicions during a briefing with a delegation from the US branch of the Ancient Order of Hibernians on Monday.

Members of the order travelled to Bellaghy in Co Derry to meet the Brown family at the Wolf Tones GAA club yesterday.

Those in attendance included Mr Brown’s 88-year-old widow Bridie and his brother Chris, who is well known in GAA circles across Ireland.

A former Bellaghy GAC chairman, Mr Brown was attacked and beaten as he locked the gates at the club before being abducted and later shot dead by members of the Loyalist Volunteer Force near Randalstown, Co Antrim, on May 12, 1997.

It has long been suspected that the murder gang, which is believed to have included LVF members from outside the south Derry area, also had help from local loyalists.

It is known that an RUC surveillance operation on Mark ‘Swinger’ Fulton, a notorious Mid Ulster LVF member, was halted the night before the murder and picked up again the following morning.

AOH delegation from US

Addressing the 43-strong AOH delegation, Ms Loughran spoke of local involvement.

“We are quite a small rural community, we really keep ourselves to ourselves…. the people that did this are not from this local area directly, they are from quite far away,” she said.

“So, we think there has to have been somebody local here that identified him as a target because, why else would they have come to Bellaghy?”

Earlier yesterday, another of Mr Brown’s daughters, Siobhan Brown, accompanied the delegation along the route believed to have been used by the LVF murder squad after her father was abducted.

More than 25 people have been linked by intelligence to the murder, including several state agents.

A abandoned 2024 inquest revealed that a murder suspect was believed to be a serving member of the Royal Irish Regiment, while another held a personal protection weapon and was regularly visited by a police officer at his home.

To date, five high court judges, including one acting as a coroner, have supported calls by the Brown family for a public inquiry.

Secretary of State Hilary Benn has refused to grant a public inquiry and is challenging previous legal rulings at the Supreme Court in London.

AOH delegates, which included US legal figures, were joined by members of the GAA and political representatives as Ms Loughran told how one file provided by British authorities during the abandoned inquest contained 58 completely redacted pages.

“We are still left with the case of my mother, now in her 89th year, is going to be dragged to the Supreme Court,” she said.

“This case is crucial, not only because of the issue of legacy justice for all families is crucial, but if they can’t give a gist of the truth to the family of Sean Brown, a GAA official who was murdered because he is an outstanding representative of the Irish community in Bellaghy…then no-one is going to get the truth,” AOH spokesman Martin Galvin said.

“We are going to put as much pressure as we can to say that to the British, to say that in Congress, to say that across the country as many times as it takes.”

Alan Brecknell from the Pat Finucane Centre, which has supported the Brown family, also addressed the delegation along with Sinn Féin MP Cathal Mallaghan and SDLP councillor Denise Johnston.

Call for public inquiry into IRA murder of woman weeks before 1994 ceasefire

CONNLA YOUNG, Irish News, April 14th, 2026

Son of Caroline Moreland (34) issues plea to Secretary of State Hilary Benn to open new probe

THE son of a woman whose IRA murder was investigated by Operation Kenova has asked Secretary of State Hilary Benn to hold a public inquiry into her death.

The body of Caroline Moreland (34) was found near Roslea, Co Fermanagh, in July 1994 – just weeks before the IRA’s historic ceasefire in August that year.

She had been shot three times in the head and her body dumped on a roadside close to the border.

Her case was considered by Operation Kenova, which was set up in 2016 to investigate the activities of the British agent known as Stakeknife.

It produced a final report last year. In 2003, west Belfast man Freddie Scappaticci, a former commander of the IRA’s Internal Security Unit (ISU), was outed as Stakeknife, although his identity has not been officially acknowledged.

The ISU was responsible for hunting down and killing informers.

It is believed Scappaticci’s involvement with the ISU ended around 1990 – four years before Ms Moreland was abducted and killed by the unit.

Lawyers acting for Ms Moreland’s son, Marc Moreland, have now written to Mr Benn asking for a public inquiry to be held.

Kevin Winters, of KRW Law, has requested a public inquiry compliant with Article Two of the European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR), which protects the right to life.

The case was the subject of a judicial review last year with Hilary Benn’s legal team and the court taking the view the matter could only be fully assessed after Operation Kenova was concluded.

Mr Winters now points out there has been no update about whether the matter has been reconsidered.

The solicitor references Supreme Court proceedings linked to the 1994 loyalist murder of Paul ‘Topper’ Thompson in west Belfast, saying the court “observed that where further investigations are required under Article 2 ECHR, a statutory inquiry employing closed procedures where appropriate is capable of meeting the state’s obligations”.

“It is our position that the state’s procedural obligations under Article 2 ECHR are not fulfilled by the publication of the Kenova report alone,” Mr Winters said.

Kenova faces Article 2 challenge

“While Kenova represents a significant investigative process, it cannot satisfy the requirements of an Article 2 compliant investigation where issues of state involvement and intelligence handling remain unresolved.

“These obligations require a process with the independence, scope and powers of a public inquiry.”

And he added: “It also remains the case that the individual known as ‘Stakeknife’ has not been formally identified, while it is accepted that Freddie Scappaticci had no involvement in the murder of Caroline Moreland,” Mr Winters said.

“This raises the fundamental question of why this case was included within the Kenova terms of reference and whether its inclusion diverted attention from other lines of inquiry.”

Mr Winters said the “outworkings of Kenova point to systemic penetration of the PIRA Internal Security Unit by multiple agents, not solely the individual known as Stakeknife, and grounds to suspect that additional agents may have had involvement in, or knowledge of, the circumstances surrounding Caroline Moreland’s murder.”

A spokesman for Operation Kenova said: “While there is no evidence Stakeknife was involved in the murder of Caroline Moreland murder, her death was brought into Operation Kenova’s terms of reference in 2018 due to other suspects identified as being involved in her murder also being linked to other murders already within the investigation’s terms of reference.”

A spokesman for the UK government said it is “committed to putting in place fully human rights compliant mechanisms for addressing legacy cases, including a reformed Legacy Commission, through the Troubles Bill”.

MoD planned to rebrand 'torture' as 'security measures' on IRA suspects

SAM McBRIDE, Belfast Telegraph, April 14th, 2026

BID AHEAD OF PROBE INTO INTERROGATION METHODS REVEALED IN DECLASSIFIED FILE

Senior military officials secretly agreed to claim that five extreme interrogation techniques — which if they happened today would legally be defined as torture — “were essentially security measures”, a declassified file has revealed.

The officials also agreed that the treatment, which would later be found to be “inhuman and degrading”, would partly be blamed on poor facilities, when in fact other material shows it was a conscious policy choice taken by Government ministers.

After the internment of IRA suspects — something based on deeply flawed intelligence, meaning that many of those lifted weren't in the IRA — some of those held were subjected to so-called 'deep interrogation'.

This involved five techniques — prolonged wall-standing, hooding, loud noise, sleep deprivation and the withholding of food and drink. Those subjected to this treatment became known as 'the hooded men'.

In 2021 the Supreme Court described the treatment of the men as “deplorable” and found that while “the boundary between torture and inhuman and degrading treatment is one of degree and is often difficult to draw”, if it was to happen today it would be viewed as torture.

A previously secret Ministry of Defence (MoD) file on the legal implications of internment has now been declassified at the National Archives in Kew.

It contains a record of a November 23 1971 meeting of 11 officials, among whom were the MoD permanent secretary, the intelligence coordinator, the vice-chief of the general staff, the secretary of the Joint Intelligence Committee and other senior security figures.

The meeting was to discuss evidence to be put before the Parker Committee, a group of Privy Counsellors chaired by and chosen by the Government to investigate the 'enhanced interrogation' of prisoners in Northern Ireland.

The minute said: “The question was raised how far the five techniques… were in fact essential parts of the interrogation process.

“After considerable discussion it was agreed that the deprivation of sleep during the interrogation process itself, and the hard rations were all part of the interrogation process as such.

“It was suggested that other techniques viz hooding, wall standing and noise, were essentially security measures, although they did undoubtedly have the advantages that their use brought the prisoner under control and increased his sense of isolation”. As the officials tried to work out what they would tell the committee, the minutes said there was discussion as to “whether we should go as far as to say that these essentially security techniques were also used to some extent with the aim of bringing prisoners under control and increasing their isolation; or rather took the line that they were used essentially for security reasons but as a by-product had this effect.”

A matter of urgency

As those at the meeting debated how candid they should be with the investigators, the minutes recorded a decision that “if the Privy Councillors [sic] asked why there had been such intensive use of hooding, wall standing and noise at Ballykelly given that these were regarded as essentially techniques for security, it would have to be explained that this stemmed from the special circumstances at Ballykelly where the interrogation had to be carried out as a matter of urgency, as many as 12 people had to be interrogated at one go, and the facilities were not custom-built.”

It continued: “If the relationship of the five techniques to the actual interrogation process was explained to the Privy Councillors (sic) in the way proposed, this seemed to offer the best hopes of retaining rules which would allow successful interrogation to be carried out in future”.

It said that in legal terms “there was a clear advantage in maintaining a firm line… between techniques such as hooding, which could technically be regarded as an assault, and those such as rationing food and lack of sleep during the actual process of interrogation”.

On December 23 1971, a 'secret and personal' letter on behalf of the General Officer Commanding (GOC) told the Army's Brigadier General for intelligence that “we have examined and now consider that an intelligence requirement exists for the deployment and use of military interrogators in Northern Ireland”.

He said that current interrogation was “confined to normal police questioning of IRA suspects” under RUC Special Branch.

That questioning “produces most of the tactical intelligence available for the arrest of wanted men and the recovery of arms, ammunition and explosives”.

However, he said there was a lack of Special Branch manpower and a “lack of interrogation skills by many of the Special Branch personnel involved”.

That meant, he said, that “many arrested persons are not questioned in sufficient detail”.

Using some military interrogators would mean “a higher degree of professional skills”.

He said that “no 'Calaba' style techniques are applied” — a reference to the operation which saw the hooded men treated horrifically.

On December 29, an unnamed MoD official wrote that after “recent captures of high-ranking persons in the IRA… it has been suggested that interrogation in depth should be resumed in Northern Ireland in a few cases, saying that “if ministers approve this proposal, it is planned to use military interrogators and not the RUC.”

The official asked for legal advice on this, saying “it is not proposed to use the more controversial methods of interrogation… hooding, wall-standing and noise”.

However, he said “some deprivation of sleep and controlled diet may also be employed”.

Ultimately the Government accepted the findings of the Parker inquiry that what it had been doing was illegal.

After a case taken by the Irish Government to the European Commission of Human Rights in 1976, it ruled that the five techniques amounted to torture.

However, two years later the European Court of Human Rights found that while the treatment was “inhuman and degrading”, it did not amount to torture.

Fuel protest on Derry route postponed as DUP chief warns against roadblocks

ABDULLAH SABRI, Belfast Telegraph, April 14th, 2026

ROBINSON INSISTED THAT DISRUPTION WILL NOT BE HELPING PEOPLE WITH COSTS

Blocking roads in protest at rising fuel costs will do little to help people, it has been warned.

DUP leader Gavin Robinson was speaking amid fears that disruption seen in the Irish Republic could spread to Northern Ireland today.

A list of potential protests has been circulating online in recent days, with the PSNI confirming they are monitoring the situation.

One protest due to take place in Londonderry on Monday morning was postponed after organisers opted to “wait and watch” how the government responds to the fuel price crisis.

Demonstrators were set to gather at the Vale Centre at 8am and block the A2, a main roadway en route to Derry city, according to a poster circulated online.

The protest was called off on Monday.

Other rallies have been listed for Tuesday in response to fuel prices which have skyrocketed off the back of the US-Israel war with Iran.

Speaking at Stormont on Monday, Mr Robinson acknowledged people's right to protest, but argued that “I don't think we would benefit from widespread disruption.”

The DUP leader said: “It is the Westminster Government that will be able to bring forward the significant changes that people wish to see.

“Whilst I understand and support people's right to protest, I think it is important to reflect at this stage that I don't think we would benefit from widespread disruption.

“I don't think anyone who is struggling with fuel costs would benefit from sitting in an idling queue with their engines turning over and their fuel being wasted.”

Sitting on fence

It came as First Minister Michelle O'Neill said the Executive was “carrying the can” for policy decisions made in London.

Asked if she supported the protests, Ms O'Neill said “people are angry”.

She added: “They are watching the global volatility, they are watching what the US are doing, what Israel is doing or what the British Government are doing.

“They are watching that people are choosing war over people, they are watching that governments are choosing a militarisation agenda over helping people to get through every day of the week.

“That to me is not a good political choice. I know that if you are sitting at home and you are angry and you want to have your voice heard then some people will choose to protest and I accept that is going to be the case in any democratic society.”

Lobby group Farmers For Action said organisations seeking to protest have collectively agreed to “wait and see” pending action from the government.

In a statement, they announced that the protests had been pushed forward but pledged to take action against the government's “current policies” which are “failing to address the pressures facing key sectors of the UK economy.”

William Taylor, Farmers For Action co-ordinator said: “Farmers For Action are privileged to be asked by farm organisations across the UK and accompanied by support from organisations across these islands to consider a UK-wide tax and fuel protest. Currently it has been agreed to wait and watch over the coming days with reference to fuel prices and governments reactions to the plight that family farmers, SMEs (small and medium-sized enterprises), the haulage industry and the UK's workforce finds themselves in.

“There is huge concern that current policies are failing to address the pressures facing key sectors of the UK economy.”

No clear date has been set for when demonstrations will proceed, however, health trusts are monitoring the situation.

The Northern Ireland Ambulance Service also said it was aware that protests are likely at a number of locations across Northern Ireland on Tuesday.

A spokesperson added: “NIAS would like to reassure the public that every effort is being made to maintain health and social care services as far as possible.

“The safety of both staff and patients remains our priority, and we would ask that emergency service vehicles are not impeded by any protests.”

The areas expecting to see disruption include the Westlink in Belfast, Nutts Corner in Antrim, the Ballygawley Roundabout in Tyrone and Larne Harbour.

The ‘breakfast- roll-atariat’ is a threat to Irish democracy

FINTAN O’TOOLE, Irish Times, April 14th, 2026

Welcome to the dictatorship of the breakfast-roll-atariat. All power to the HGV Soviets. James Geoghegan, one of the leaders of the fuel price blockades, declared on RTÉ’s Liveline the uprising “a revolution” that is “going to change Ireland forever”. Fair enough: this is arguably the most serious insurrection the State has experienced in a century.

But the rest of us are at least entitled to a little more information. A revolution against what? And what kind of permanent transformation does this truck-ulent vanguard intend to create in our lives?

There’s a point in any social upheaval when it shifts from being against the government to being against the state. The first is entirely healthy – a vigorous and disputatious citizenship is essential to a democracy.

The second – and we’ve been here before through the long history of militant Irish republicanism – attacks the legitimacy of democracy itself. It posits the existence of a superior group that is purer and more authentic than the rest of the citizenry and that therefore has the right to enforce its will. As Geoghegan crowed to The Irish Times, “It’s in our hands, we call the shots. Whatever we decide to do is what everyone else will do.”

The point at which a protest shifts from being a criticism of the government to being at attack on the democratic state is when the demonstrators declare themselves to be “the people”. They present themselves not as one interest group among many contending for public resources, but as the general will of the nation.

With the fuel price revolt, this point was passed very quickly. The protesters had every right to signal their distress forcefully and dramatically. And for two days they enjoyed a great deal of public sympathy because that distress is shared to one degree or another by most of us. Donald Trump’s violent insanity has inflicted pain not just in the Middle East but in most Irish households struggling to cope with the direct and indirect effects of an oil crisis.

But the key organisers were not content to have the sympathy of the people of Ireland – they forcibly and repeatedly insisted that they are “the people of Ireland”. And since the people are sovereign, this small group was effectively claiming sovereignty – or as one of its main spokesmen, Christopher Duffy, so delicately put it “we have the country by the balls”. Balls certainly come into it. For membership of this sovereign “people of Ireland” has two clear conditions. The first is the possession of male genitalia – this is a nation of blokes. (I’ve watched the blockades both in the west and in Dublin and I’ve yet to see a single woman in the driving seat, either literally or metaphorically.)

The second criterion for membership is the possession of at least one very big machine with wheels. This people’s democracy is tipped in favour of those few people who can pile heavy goods vehicles on their side of the scales.

And tipped against women on whom the bulk of the burden of care always falls.

Blokeocracy

This blokeocracy has no place for anyone who is trying to get a sick parent to a cancer treatment appointment or an autistic child to day care or for a home help trying to get to work – and most of the non-people who do these things are women.

So gender and class are very much in play in this revolution. The people’s chromosomes are all XY. The people’s advance guard is the men of property. Geoghegan boasts “I buy machines for €200,000”. If, like him, you have been the subject of Revenue judgments for more than €500,000, you have to have a very handsome taxable income in the first place. Even without Duffy’s history of inflammatory online statements (such as his attitude to the environmental activist Greta Thunberg: “I couldn’t care less if she got raped or beaten and I make no apologies for saying that”), anyone with a bit of sense would know where these revolts of the disaffected middling business class always go: to the far right.

Geoghegan’s rhetoric is that of endless grievance: “the people of Ireland are sick and tired of being bullied and robbed for years and it ends today”. This is the infinite self-pity that fills the tanks of all contemporary and historical far-right movements. “Bullied” means having to abide by laws made by people we freely elect. “Robbed” means paying taxes to sustain a decent society. But in this hysteria, democracy is intolerable oppression and the duty to pay for the common good is theft. It was astonishingly naive of the Government not to have anticipated some kind of large-scale revolt. And even more naive for some of those on the left of Irish politics to embrace the blockade as a harbinger of progressive change. Did nobody pay the slightest attention to what has happened even in the last few years in Europe, from the gilets jaunes in France to the BoerBurgerBeweging in the Netherlands?

Most of those who took part in the blockades will go home and return to normal life. But a significant number will have been radicalised by the intoxicating experience of power: taking control of the streets and motorways and ports, getting to say who comes and goes. How ya gonna keep ‘em down on the farm after they’ve felt the elation of having a country by the balls?

From these days, a serious far-right movement will at last emerge in Ireland. Trump’s war has doomed us all to a long period of high inflation and economic instability. The price of diesel will fuel a revolt against taxation, against environmental regulation and against immigrants. More people will acquire the taste for dictatorship.There is no excuse now for not knowing what this looks like: big wheels being driven over democratic norms. A complacent, lazy Government drifted into this crisis. If it has not woken up to the realisation that its fragile authority can vanish overnight, there will be many more to come.

Ulster Scots sign bids on Belfast streets that rejected Irish language

By Iain Gray, Belfast News Letter, April 14th, 2026

Four streets that rejected signs in Irish could now be in line to get them in Ulster Scots.

Three residential roads in heavily unionist parts of east Belfast and one in north Belfast were surveyed for Irish signs by the city council, which in some cases saw the body’s own officials warn that the very act of polling those areas could spark community tensions.

All four of them failed to meet the council’s threshold of 15% of residents in favour of the signs.

Separate requests for Ulster Scots were also filed, but they’ve had to wait as the council only deals with one dual language sign application at a time. At a meeting set to take place tonight, a council committee faces a vote that would kickstart processes on the Ulster Scots bids.

Belfast City Hall is tonight to be asked to kickstart a process surveying four streets to see if residents want signs in Ulster Scots.

One complicating wrinkle is that additional Irish sign applications for two of them – Isoline Street off Castlereagh Road and Lismain Street near Woodstock Road – came in before the Ulster Scots bids.

Council policy is to wait at least two years before considering a second request for a language that has already been defeated. In these cases, however, officials say that as Irish signs have already failed on both streets, the additional applications for that language should be thrown out so the Ulster Scots bids can get under way.

The other two areas, Victoria Road in the Sydenham area and Sunningdale Gardens in north Belfast’s Ballysillan district, don’t have any additional Irish applications, though both Isoline Street and Victoria Road received multiple requests for Ulster Scots signs.

If any of the four streets back Ulster Scots, it’ll be the first time Belfast Council has built dual language signs in anything other than Irish since the controversial 15% system was introduced.

Lismain Street close to Woodstock Road has already rejected Irish language signs, and now could be asked whether it wants Ulster Scots. Image: Google

It only takes a single request from a householder or area councillor to trigger a process that surveys residents’ opinions on dual language signs. Council policy is to build them if just 15% are in favour.

Two weeks ago that hit the headlines in a major way, as nationalists tried to push Irish signs onto an east Belfast street that cleared the threshold by less than 1%, despite two-thirds of its householders being dead against the move. At the time, the council’s SDLP group leader argued the overwhelming majority’s view should be discounted as the polling process is “not about a street by street referendum”.

Belfast Council used to have a much tougher system for adding other languages to city streets, but in 2022 it was massively relaxed. In March of the following year, the first signs were approved under the 15% threshold.

Over the three years since, dual language signs have been approved for 289 streets, all of them in Irish; just 33 areas failed to make the 15% threshold, and applications are still outstanding for more than 900 of the capital city’s roads.

When Isoline Street’s Irish signs bid came up a year ago, DUP councillor Ruth Brooks filed an objection as a neighbouring road is a regular band parade route.

“The introduction of street signs in Irish within this area will be interpreted as political and culturally insensitive, and antagonistic,” she stated, adding that only 8% of people there claim some ability in the language while 11% have ability in Ulster-Scots.

Calls for Rory McIlroy to be knighted after Masters magic

JESSICA RICE, Belfast Telegraph, April 14th, 2026

POLITICIANS WANT 'NORTHERN IRELAND'S GREATEST ATHLETE' TO BE RECOGNISED

The King has been urged to bestow a knighthood on Rory McIlroy after his Masters triumph cemented his status as one of Northern Ireland's greatest sporting heroes.

McIlroy became only the fourth man to win consecutive Masters titles, having first secured the green jacket — and career grand slam — last year.

As plaudits flowed for the Holywood-born star, with golfing greats and even US President Donald Trump sending messages of congratulations, there were calls for him to be made Sir Rory.

DUP MP Carla Lockhart said it would be a “fitting” way to honour McIlroy's achievements.

She told the Belfast Telegraph: “I think it would be very fitting for him to achieve that recognition, he is a superb sportsman and a source of pride for us here in Northern Ireland.”

A knighthood is one of the UK's highest honours, awarded by the monarch to recognise exceptional national-level contributions in fields like arts, science, and charity.

Ms Lockhart said McIlroy is fully deserving of the honour, calling him an inspiration to all.

“I think he's inspirational to so many young people, even the way in which he handles his fame and fortune,” she added.

“He never forgets his roots and he values his family, I just think he is a superb role model for any young person in Northern Ireland.

“[The win] was for everyone in Northern Ireland, we all got behind him.”

Ms Lockhart tabled an Early Day Motion in Parliament recognising 'the outstanding achievements of Rory McIlroy.'

More calls for knighthood

UUP leader Jon Burrows also backed calls for McIlroy to be knighted.

“There is only one Rory McIlroy. What he has achieved over the course of his career — and now with back-to-back victories at Augusta — is the stuff of legend,” he said.

“Rory McIlroy is one of the greatest golfers of all time, but more than that, he is quite simply the greatest athlete Northern Ireland has ever produced.”

Mr Burrows said Northern Ireland and the rest of the UK is hugely proud of McIlroy's success.

“We are living in an era of a true sporting icon, a living legend,” he added.

“Rory transcends golf. He is an ambassador for Northern Ireland and for the United Kingdom, representing us across the world with humility, professionalism and class.”

He added: “A knighthood is the highest honour our nation can bestow. In Rory McIlroy, we have a figure whose achievements, character and contribution make the case overwhelming.

“It is time for King Charles III to recognise one of the greatest sportsmen these islands have ever produced.”

McIlroy was overlooked in the New Year Honours, reportedly after an intervention by tax officials. It was unclear on Monday whether the issues behind the rebuff had been resolved.

Asked about the issue by the Daily Telegraph, the Prime Minister's official spokesman made clear any decision over a knighthood was a matter for honours committees made up of panels of independent experts.

Asked whether McIlroy would become Sir Rory if any tax issues remained unresolved, he replied: “We never comment on honours, and that is a question for the committee not for me.”

In a gripping Masters, McIlroy had been six clear on Friday night, but it looked to have fallen apart on Saturday.

The final round was typical McIlroy, who looked to be playing himself out of it on the front nine before rallying with a series of birdies, eventually winning by one shot.

On the green, he hugged his best friend and caddie, Harry Diamond, before sharing another hug off the green with his daughter, Poppy.

After kissing his wife Erica, he embraced his parents, Rosie and Gerry.

Minutes after winning, McIlroy said: “I just can't believe I waited 17 years to get one green jacket and I get two in a row.”

He added: “I was a little kid with a dream and the support that I had from my family, friends and everyone back at home — some people probably thought it was outlandish to dream the things that I wanted to do, but I had amazing support back home, and I can't thank them all enough for that continued support.”

The praise flowed from far beyond Northern Ireland, with President Trump calling McIlroy a legend.

Trump, who has played golf with McIlroy in the past, posted on his Truth Social platform: “Congratulations to Rory McIlroy on another Great Championship, The Masters!

“He performed tremendously under intense pressure, something which few people would be able to even think about doing. With each year, Rory is becoming more and more a LEGEND!”

The royal family recognised McIlroy's success, sharing a video of his win to social media with the caption, “Congratulations on your extraordinary back-to-back win.”

Sir Nick Faldo, who also won back-to-back Masters in 1989 and 1990, praised McIlroy.

“All credit to him. Incredible. He's got another major to his name,” he told Sky Sports.

“All he needs now is to win another US Open and another Open Championship and then he'll be a two-time grand slam champion.”

McIlroy's beloved Manchester United's official account posted: “So nice he had to do it twice.”

Closer to McIlroy's home, Holywood councillor and Mayor of Ards and North Down, Gillian McCollum, said she would like to table a motion welcoming the star home.

“This time last year, I brought a motion forward congratulating him, but we, as a borough, want to do more to honour him.

“We would like to create something lasting and meaningful, something to show how much the area appreciates him and lift the spirits of everyone.”

McIlroy's former school, Upper Sullivan School, congratulated him in their alumni group.

In a message to their former pupil, they said: “Your dedication, resilience, and world-class talent continue to inspire not only aspiring athletes, but our entire Sullivan community. We are immensely proud to call you one of our own.”