"Without peace, this wouldn't have happened."
As the 25th anniversary of the Good Friday Agreement approaches, there will be a lot of discussion and analysis of how the agreement changed the lives of people in Northern Ireland and the border counties.
This is a story about how communities in a small pocket of the region have been brought together by peace and sport.
It's a wet and windy night at the Peace Link sports campus in Clones, Co Monaghan, where clubs and sports people from across the border and across the community have come for training.
Kitted out in blue, Magheraveely FC is one of the teams playing football under the floodlights.
Magheraveely is a small village on the southern tip of Co Fermanagh in Northern Ireland and is right on the border and just a few miles from Clones.
"This is our home ground. This is where we play, where we train twice a week, with matches every Saturday for ten months of the year," said Rodney McVitty, the club's secretary.
But how did a football club in Northern Ireland make this their home?
It was a huge diplomatic effort, involving politicians, clergy and football associations north and south.
The "long, drawn out process" eventually ended with Magheraveely becoming the only club, playing in Northern Ireland football leagues, that plays their home games across the border in Co Monaghan.
Rodney said that the club got support from political parties, the churches, letters from people in the community, and a letter backing them from the FAI before making their case to the Irish Football Association in Belfast.
"We wrote to them to see if we could play in Clones, but still play in the Northern Ireland leagues. We were the first club to ever ask for that," he said.
The club eventually got permission, and Rodney said: "It has been the making of the club".
Before this, players would have had to travel up to 25 miles to Enniskillen for training and matches.
Rodney said he didn't believe the club would have survived without the Peace Link, which has helped it to grow.
"When we started off, we were predominantly from a Protestant background and all our players were from a Protestant background in the north. As time went on and we moved here, that has completely changed," he said.
"We have two senior teams playing every week. We have players from both sides of the tradition, British, Irish, Protestant, Catholic," he said.
There are also players of other backgrounds and nationalities, including Polish and Romanian.
Rodney grew up in Magheraveely and said the idea that the club from his village would be playing in Clones was once unimaginable.
"I grew up here. I remember the road was blew up between Magheraveely and Clones, two miles away, there was an army base on top of a hill less than a mile from here. When I grew up, I didn't go into Clones, it wasn't an option, because you couldn't physically get into it. Then Good Friday came about, the roads were open and Clones became natural hinterland," he said.
"With peace and that there, this facility getting built, it brought the whole community together. And without peace that wouldn’t have happened," he added.
The Peace Link
Magheraveely FC is one of the success stories brought to life at the Peace Link, which, in itself, is a success story of the Good Friday Agreement.
The sports facility received €8.3 million in peace funding.
The money was provided by The Special EU Programmes Body (SEUPB) - one of six cross-border bodies set up after the Good Friday Agreement.
Its Peace III programme was set up to "reinforce progress towards a peaceful and stable society and promote reconciliation in Northern Ireland and the border region".
SEUPB said that Peace Link was funded to create a genuine shared space in a border location and was founded on sporting principles that promote active participation in sport as a vehicle to rebuild contacts and relationships on a cross-community and cross-border basis.
General manager Fergal Corrigan says that its use is split 60/40 between people in Monaghan and people in Fermanagh.
"The whole ethos is bringing communities together. We are right on the border. If you go out on the athletics track and throw a javelin, it will land in Fermanagh in the north," he said.
He said it took a great community effort to get the Peace Link but that it was now an amazing facility used by hundreds of clubs.
He said the Peace Link would not exist without the funding from SEUPB.
"There is no way this facility would be here without that funding. If the Good Friday Agreement hadn't happened, this wouldn’t be here, this community wouldn't have it and it would be such a shame. We wouldn't be able to build them links – you see our name is the Peace Link -and that’s what we are about, building them links that have been broken down", he said.
On any day of the week, you could see GAA, rugby, athletics, cricket, basketball or even baseball being played, along with the many fitness classes available.
"The most important thing is that it is an open, welcome, friendly, inclusive facility. There are no barriers and everyone is welcome," he said.
"I grew up in Fermanagh. In the 80s and 90s there were a lot of tragedies. You were segregated. There is no way this would have been possible then. Clones would have been a republican town. Now you have people coming in from Magheraveely, that would have been a unionist area, and using this sport facility, shopping, going out in this area. There's no way any of this would have happened without the Good Friday Agreement," he added.
Fergal said that there is now a generation of young people who grew up in this area, who don’t know about the Troubles.
Ciara Quigley agrees with Fergal on this.
She has just arrived for training with Clones Athletic, despite the torrential downpours of rain.
Born and bred in Clones, she said that the Peace Link is a fantastic facility for Clones and for the neighbouring communities.
"It really has built bridges over the years," she said.
"Once you come through the gates of the Peace Link, it doesn’t matter what creed, colour or nationality you are. Everyone is united under sport", she said.
The club has about 190 members, about 60% are from Monaghan and 40% are from Fermanagh.
Ciara recalls going to visit her granny in Roslea in Co Fermanagh when she was growing up.
"That would mean travelling through checkpoints and it definitely was more intimidating at that stage," she said.
But she said that children now "have very little idea what it was like in those times" and have "very little interest or knowledge in differences in religion or culture".
"When you see them running around the track, they're busy talking about the next disco that's on!" she added.
