Boxing hero Barry McGuigan at Bar Sport in Cannock

The Irishman's accomplishments and impact on his era ranged far further than the WBA featherweight belt he won in the ring.

'The Clones Cyclone' laid bare his fight against discrimination and his stubborn battle to stand for something else during his visit to the Premier Suite.

It came at the time of the Troubles, a war in his homeland which began in the 1960s when he was a child and raged on until the Good Friday agreement of peace in 1998.

McGuigan's entire boxing career came and went during the conflict and he first saw the disturbing cost of bloodshed when he was barely a teenager.

The strife caused him to leave Wattlebridge Boxing Club, in the Northern Irish county of Fermanagh, and join Smithborough of the Republic.

There his success began with the All Ireland Championship and 1978 Commonwealth Games gold before he was 18, which caused him to drop out of higher education.

He recalls: "The railway stopped in Clones, that was the centre of the town and it connected the regions of Ireland.

"I grew up on the border, where my parents had a grocery business. My father Pat was also a professional musician.

"I first went to my local boxing club, which was in a school.

"There were two ways of getting there, the longest being a cycle ride for nine miles.

"You could take the short route and that was half the distance, which me and my friends would inevitably take.

"One night, we were coming home and we saw a guy who had been tarred and feathered and was dead at the side of the road. The police and army were there.

"It was a dreadful ordeal for us and, by the time we arrived back 30 minutes later, it was all over the news. My mother made me find another club.

"I was the first one to box, but my father had five brothers and they were all tough guys. They boxed at the Clones club, but never actually had contests.

"I was always a decent middle distance runner and a decent hurler and soccer player. My dad first took me to the boxing club aged 12 and it just took over.

"I knew that was going to be my profession, but I studied for as long as I could. I did the equivalent of A-Levels, before I got too busy boxing at international level.

"They didn't make allowances for you to miss your books, in those days, so I had to make a decision. I hadn't done enough of my work, anyway, and I was going to have to repeat a year.

"My father told me that was fine, as long as I read extensively and build up my vocabulary. I read and write to a good standard."

He turned pro in 1981 and first

claimed the British and European titles and defending his crowns, usually to packed houses at either Ulster Hall or King's Hall in Belfast.

He had already courted controversy by becoming a British citizen so he could win the British title but it, ultimately, didn't deter from his drawing power.

Eyebrows were raised further when he married a protestant, Sandra, despite being a Roman Catholic. They remain wed today.

His chance at a world title came in 1985, against long-reigning WBA and Lineal champion Eusebio Pedroza, at Queens Park Rangers' Loftus Road football stadium.

People from England, who had been dragged into the hostilities, Northern Ireland and the Republic famously packed into the ground declaring, as one, "tonight we leave the fighting to McGuigan."

He decked the defending title holder in the seventh on route to a unanimous 15-round points victory to claim the honours.

He returned to Ireland for a hero's welcome, with him and his wife hailed by a public reception in the streets of Belfast that attracted over 100,000 people.

He was named BBC Sports Personality of the Year, as a result, becoming the first person not born in the UK to win the award.

His rise to fame would come at a price, though, as fears McGuigan could be made a martyr for the Troubles also heightened.

Even his crowning glory turned out to be a double-edged sword, after mother Kate and aunty Brid were caught up in a fire at the family home the same evening.

He said: "

It was incredible, I came home on the Monday after the Saturday and there was 75,000 gathered in one hour after hearing I was going there.

"I was going to stay in England until the middle of the following week but, the night I won the title, my mother's house burned down because of an electrical fault.

"My mother and Aunty smelled the smoke and got out. In the grand scheme of things, no one got hurt.

"I just wanted to bring people together through boxing but, for a while, there were guys in plain clothes 50m behind me everywhere I went.

"I was given a gun and it was a serious threat, both in the north and the south of Ireland. Thankfully, nothing happened."