In the days following her winning goal against Scotland, Amber Barrett received messages from some of the relatives of those who died at the service station explosion in Creeslough, Co Donegal.
Barrett's memorable effort at Hampden Park sent the Republic of Ireland to the World Cup, but there was a poignancy to the moment, which the 26-year-old later dedicated to "those ten beautiful souls who unfortunately perished".
Creeslough is the village where Barrett's grandparents were born; a place she spent childhood summers and Christmases.
Sorrow hung like a cloud over her golden goal but it helped, she says, to put the achievement in perspective.
"It did take me a few days to get back to a lot of the messages," said Barrett, speaking to the press after the World Cup draw that pitted Ireland against co-hosts Australia, Canada and Nigeria.
"Speaking to the family at home, they were saying in Donegal there was a buzz around for what had happened on the Tuesday night but also the badness, of course, of Creeslough. Still the county is reeling from what happened.
"I got a message from Hughie Kelly's niece, he was one of the victims, and I got a message from Leona Harper’s father, who was also one of the victims, just to basically say congratulations.
"Those two messages kind of caught me off guard. Because you don’t expect when people are going through such a terrible time to take that moment to say, 'well done’, and congratulate us for what we achieved.
"I think that meant more to me than anything. We just hope that our result gave some uplift to the community. I’m told it did, but you know, as I said before, in terms of perspective, qualifying for the World Cup is great but it’s not the most important thing in the world."
With Ireland entering the uncharted waters of a seismic summer Down Under, the prospect of taking a swing at some of the best teams in the world is an intoxicating one.
An opening group match against the Aussies in Sydney isn't a bad way to kick off, yet it's the familiar thread of family, friends and ties to back home that make the journey extra special for Barrett.
"Two of my best friends have only recently gone out to Sydney so I'm really looking forward to seeing them.
"A lot of people who have been speaking to me over the past few days have been saying that regardless of where the games are, they’re going to be there. As much as Australia will have a lot of support, there will be a lot of Irish as well.
"Even going into the game against Scotland, the amount of people contacting me personally and other people in the squad and saying, 'look when you get to Australia, we'll be there to support you’. I think that was people talking about travelling over from Ireland, but I don’t think we realise the number of people who are in Australia as well.
"Honestly, I think first game against Australia, the tickets will be very difficult to get with playing the Aussies. But, typical Irish, we’ll definitely get our hands on a few."
"We can't be going into this World Cup saying, 'ah look, we're really happy to be here and it’s a holiday for us for four weeks.'"
Barrett is bullish about the challenge ahead for Girls in Green who will travel over 3,000km to Perth after their first game against the Matildas to take on reigning Olympic champions Canada, ranked seventh in the world. They will then come back to Brisbane for a clash with Nigeria, rated as the strongest team they could have drawn from Pot 4.
"We can't be going into this World Cup saying, 'ah look, we’re really happy to be here and it’s a holiday for us for four weeks,'" she said.
"The first thing is we back ourselves to get out of the group and we know it’s going to be really, really difficult.
"But if we don’t have that aim to at least get to the next round, why are we going there? As difficult as it will be, we know ourselves that we are definitely capable of getting out [of the group].
"Every group was going to be a difficult draw and to be honest with you, the majority of us didn’t mind who we got because we knew it was going to be a challenge, we know how lucky we are to have that foot in the door."
After the high of the Scotland win Barrett returned to her club Turbine Potsdam in Germany, where she slotted into right-back for a clash with Wolfsburg.
The magnitude of what's coming in July 2023 is only beginning to sink in.
"I think it was Aine O’Gorman who said this is the first time that it has actually felt real, that we’re going to the World Cup, what we’ve achieved, that we’ve qualified for the World Cup.
"I personally believe that we're going to get better and better. We have so many players playing in top level teams and professionally, the girls at home playing boys all the time.
"In the next nine months, there are so many changes and so much progress that can be made. I think as a team, we’re just going to collectively keep growing and growing."
