HEIMIR HALLGRIMSSON BRIEFLY called a whisht to his players in the Budapest dressing room and warned them to avoid false friends and instead take time to thank those who have been there at all points of their journeys.
The following day Hallgrimsson slipped away from the ongoing celebrations to leave us to our delirium and live by his own creed, catching a flight back home to take a hike in the mountains with those he knows best and those who know him best.
The Eldfell volcano, which erupted in 1973 on the island of Heimaey. Alamy Stock Photo
Alamy Stock Photo
That home is Heimaey, a tiny island that forms part of Vestmannaeyjar, also known as the Westman Islands, an archipelago off the south coast of Iceland.
Under the principle that we are all shaped by the place from which we come, Heimaey can tell us a lot about Heimir.
The islands’ titular “West men” were Irish slaves, who fled to the islands having killed their Norse captors in 874, only to be themselves pursued and murdered in vengeance. Hence why some locals call the place the Islands of the Irish: the name stuck long before their famous dentist found himself standing to attention for Amhrán na bhFiann.
Heimaey is the largest and only inhabited island across the archipelago, but size is relative. It has a population of 4,700 people – slightly below that of Cashel in Tipperary – and its 13 square kilometres makes it slightly larger than Athlone. Everybody knows everybody on Heimaey: locals leave their doors unlocked and the keys in the ignition of their cars; one local has been known to park his car at the airport, with a note on the steering wheel inviting anyone wishing to use the car to do so, provided they return it by the time he needs it.
It was from this island that a six-year-old Heimir Hallgrimsson fled during its defining event, a volcanic eruption during the early hours of 23 January, 1973. A crevice was ripped open on the east side of the island from which ash billowed and lava spewed, with the eruption eventually concentrating on the volcanic peak of Eldfell.
Locals knocked on doors to wake and warn their neighbours of the gravity of the situation, and any non-believers were quickly disabused of their scepticism as soon as they wiped their bleary eyes. Bad weather across the preceding days proved propitious, as it had restricted boats to the harbour, allowing for a speedy evacuation. The first boats to the Icelandic mainland set sail 30 minutes after the eruption, and the whole of the population was evacuated within six hours, bar the 500 or so who stayed behind to salvage the future.
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Pall Magnusson is a friend of Hallgrimsson’s – he attended his first game in charge of Ireland, against England in Dublin in September 2024 – and his father was the mayor of Heimaey at the time of the eruption.
“The main objective of the authorities was to convince the people to come back: don’t give up,” he tells me. “The most logical thing to do was to desert the island and never come back. Look at it worldwide: islands of this size which have faced eruptions of this magnitude. The obvious thing is not to come back.”
The eruption continued for months, and within a few weeks the biggest threat to the island’s future took a very definite shape. Thick rivers of lava, averaging more than 30 metres in height, set a malign course north and were thus at risk of destroying the island’s harbour. Given Heimaey is supported largely by its fishing industry, the destruction of the harbour would have meant the end.
“It was the only harbour in one of the richest fishing grounds in the world,” explains Pall. “If it had been closed then the island would certainly have been deserted. No harbour, no town.”
The island’s scientists thought up a rescue plan to divert the lava flow east and away from the harbour. They contacted the US military, who agreed to fly giant hoses and pumping equipment to the island from Hawaii, from which began another song of ice and fire.
The rescue operation pumped the freezing seawater and pointed it at the edges of the lava in order to cool parts which would, if things worked correctly, act a series of internal bulwarks which would slowly divert its course away from the harbour. It took weeks and 6.8 billion litres of seawater, but, remarkably, it worked.
The lava, when it finally cooled and hardened, narrowed the entrance to the harbour but did not block it. This actually improved the harbour, with the lava flow forming a kind of sea wall and shelter, while the diverted lava flow would eventually increase the island’s landmass by two kilometres.
Given the defining event of his homeland is a daring and rigorous kind of turnaround, perhaps we should have anticipated Hallgrimsson’s charting an improbable path to the World Cup play-offs from the ashes of the defeat away to Armenia. Call Seamus Coleman the chief firefighter.
The eruption was deemed to have officially ended in July, at which point the vast majority of locals returned, including Heimir. A third of the homes on the island were destroyed by the lava, while a massive excavation operation was underway to exhume homes and amenities beneath mountains of ash.
A house buried beneath the ash of the eruption, preserved and showcased Alamy Stock Photo
Alamy Stock Photo
Kata Laufey is co-founder of a newspaper in Heimaey, Tígul, and tells a story of a friend who, at the age of just 10, returned to the island a week after the eruption as his father stayed behind to maintain the fishing industry.
“There were no lights on the streets,” says Kata. “Everything was black. The ash was black. But as the weeks went by, my friend remembers seeing a light in a window, and then another, and then another: blink, blink, blink. It was the island slowly waking up.”
One person died because of the eruption, and in that instance, he was suffocated by the eruption’s poisonous gas while breaking into a pharmacy. Everyone else was quickly made safe.
The memory of the eruption is kept alive with an annual festival during the first week of July, which is partly a celebration of the fact that they are still there but also a means of keeping the legacy and the lessons of the eruption alive.
“People have to really stick together here,” says Kata. “If something goes wrong with someone, everyone is willing to help right away.” Most small communities describe themselves as tight-knit but few can point to such a dramatic example of needing to be so.
Pall describes Heimir as a “hardcore” Westman Islands man. “His family go way back.”
Heimir’s father worked in the fishing industry, making and repairing nets, while Pall remembers a young Heimir spending summers with his brothers collecting puffin eggs on the nearby islands.
“He was just a merry, happy man, often singing,” says Pall of Heimir, whom he has known since he was young. “I remember him as this good-natured, mild and humorous sort of guy.”
“He has a really big heart, he is always thinking about someone else,” says Kata when I ask her about Heimir. (She also confirms that, yes, he is her dentist.) “That is in his blood and he grew up with that. I think he is like his father. He always said ‘Hi’ to everyone, he always listened and always cared. Like Heimir, if something was wrong with me he’d sit down and say, ‘So, Kata, what’s happening?’. He was just a good friend. He was often walking in the mountains, and he would sometimes sit, overlooking the valley, and I would sit and speak with him.”
Pall says you’ll see traces of the island’s all-together-now character in Heimir’s attitude to football.
“I am not an expert in football,” he says, “but I am always talking to Heimir about this. Typically a good manager is the manager who gets more out of his team than you could expect from the quality of the players at his disposal. This is what Heimir has constantly done, he did with our local team, and he did it with the Iceland team.
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Heim Alamy Stock Photo
Alamy Stock Photo
“As you will probably realise when you communicate with Heimir, you always have this deeply-rooted honesty. He tells things as they are. I saw on YouTube, the speech in the dressing room after the game in Hungary. I would say this is vintage Heimir.”
For all that Heimir appears to be one of his people, Kata adds a kicker that he is unique. “You can see where he is now: he thinks outside the box.”
Kata says the people of Heimaey no longer live in fear of another eruption, and that modern technology will have all forewarned of any potential eruption.
Nonetheless, reminders of the need to lean on the nearest shoulder atop shifting ground is rarely far away.
On some days when the wind blows from the west, ash from the 2010 eruption of Eyjafjallajökull is carried across Heimaey.
That westward wind may yet carry Heimaey’s most famous son all the way to America and the 2026 World Cup.
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'People have to really stick together here': how the spectre of catastrophe shaped Hallgrimsson
HEIMIR HALLGRIMSSON BRIEFLY called a whisht to his players in the Budapest dressing room and warned them to avoid false friends and instead take time to thank those who have been there at all points of their journeys.
The following day Hallgrimsson slipped away from the ongoing celebrations to leave us to our delirium and live by his own creed, catching a flight back home to take a hike in the mountains with those he knows best and those who know him best.
That home is Heimaey, a tiny island that forms part of Vestmannaeyjar, also known as the Westman Islands, an archipelago off the south coast of Iceland.
Under the principle that we are all shaped by the place from which we come, Heimaey can tell us a lot about Heimir.
The islands’ titular “West men” were Irish slaves, who fled to the islands having killed their Norse captors in 874, only to be themselves pursued and murdered in vengeance. Hence why some locals call the place the Islands of the Irish: the name stuck long before their famous dentist found himself standing to attention for Amhrán na bhFiann.
Heimaey is the largest and only inhabited island across the archipelago, but size is relative. It has a population of 4,700 people – slightly below that of Cashel in Tipperary – and its 13 square kilometres makes it slightly larger than Athlone. Everybody knows everybody on Heimaey: locals leave their doors unlocked and the keys in the ignition of their cars; one local has been known to park his car at the airport, with a note on the steering wheel inviting anyone wishing to use the car to do so, provided they return it by the time he needs it.
It was from this island that a six-year-old Heimir Hallgrimsson fled during its defining event, a volcanic eruption during the early hours of 23 January, 1973. A crevice was ripped open on the east side of the island from which ash billowed and lava spewed, with the eruption eventually concentrating on the volcanic peak of Eldfell.
Locals knocked on doors to wake and warn their neighbours of the gravity of the situation, and any non-believers were quickly disabused of their scepticism as soon as they wiped their bleary eyes. Bad weather across the preceding days proved propitious, as it had restricted boats to the harbour, allowing for a speedy evacuation. The first boats to the Icelandic mainland set sail 30 minutes after the eruption, and the whole of the population was evacuated within six hours, bar the 500 or so who stayed behind to salvage the future.
Pall Magnusson is a friend of Hallgrimsson’s – he attended his first game in charge of Ireland, against England in Dublin in September 2024 – and his father was the mayor of Heimaey at the time of the eruption.
“The main objective of the authorities was to convince the people to come back: don’t give up,” he tells me. “The most logical thing to do was to desert the island and never come back. Look at it worldwide: islands of this size which have faced eruptions of this magnitude. The obvious thing is not to come back.”
The eruption continued for months, and within a few weeks the biggest threat to the island’s future took a very definite shape. Thick rivers of lava, averaging more than 30 metres in height, set a malign course north and were thus at risk of destroying the island’s harbour. Given Heimaey is supported largely by its fishing industry, the destruction of the harbour would have meant the end.
“It was the only harbour in one of the richest fishing grounds in the world,” explains Pall. “If it had been closed then the island would certainly have been deserted. No harbour, no town.”
The island’s scientists thought up a rescue plan to divert the lava flow east and away from the harbour. They contacted the US military, who agreed to fly giant hoses and pumping equipment to the island from Hawaii, from which began another song of ice and fire.
The rescue operation pumped the freezing seawater and pointed it at the edges of the lava in order to cool parts which would, if things worked correctly, act a series of internal bulwarks which would slowly divert its course away from the harbour. It took weeks and 6.8 billion litres of seawater, but, remarkably, it worked.
The lava, when it finally cooled and hardened, narrowed the entrance to the harbour but did not block it. This actually improved the harbour, with the lava flow forming a kind of sea wall and shelter, while the diverted lava flow would eventually increase the island’s landmass by two kilometres.
Given the defining event of his homeland is a daring and rigorous kind of turnaround, perhaps we should have anticipated Hallgrimsson’s charting an improbable path to the World Cup play-offs from the ashes of the defeat away to Armenia. Call Seamus Coleman the chief firefighter.
The eruption was deemed to have officially ended in July, at which point the vast majority of locals returned, including Heimir. A third of the homes on the island were destroyed by the lava, while a massive excavation operation was underway to exhume homes and amenities beneath mountains of ash.
Kata Laufey is co-founder of a newspaper in Heimaey, Tígul, and tells a story of a friend who, at the age of just 10, returned to the island a week after the eruption as his father stayed behind to maintain the fishing industry.
“There were no lights on the streets,” says Kata. “Everything was black. The ash was black. But as the weeks went by, my friend remembers seeing a light in a window, and then another, and then another: blink, blink, blink. It was the island slowly waking up.”
One person died because of the eruption, and in that instance, he was suffocated by the eruption’s poisonous gas while breaking into a pharmacy. Everyone else was quickly made safe.
The memory of the eruption is kept alive with an annual festival during the first week of July, which is partly a celebration of the fact that they are still there but also a means of keeping the legacy and the lessons of the eruption alive.
“People have to really stick together here,” says Kata. “If something goes wrong with someone, everyone is willing to help right away.” Most small communities describe themselves as tight-knit but few can point to such a dramatic example of needing to be so.
Pall describes Heimir as a “hardcore” Westman Islands man. “His family go way back.”
Heimir’s father worked in the fishing industry, making and repairing nets, while Pall remembers a young Heimir spending summers with his brothers collecting puffin eggs on the nearby islands.
“He was just a merry, happy man, often singing,” says Pall of Heimir, whom he has known since he was young. “I remember him as this good-natured, mild and humorous sort of guy.”
“He has a really big heart, he is always thinking about someone else,” says Kata when I ask her about Heimir. (She also confirms that, yes, he is her dentist.) “That is in his blood and he grew up with that. I think he is like his father. He always said ‘Hi’ to everyone, he always listened and always cared. Like Heimir, if something was wrong with me he’d sit down and say, ‘So, Kata, what’s happening?’. He was just a good friend. He was often walking in the mountains, and he would sometimes sit, overlooking the valley, and I would sit and speak with him.”
Pall says you’ll see traces of the island’s all-together-now character in Heimir’s attitude to football.
“I am not an expert in football,” he says, “but I am always talking to Heimir about this. Typically a good manager is the manager who gets more out of his team than you could expect from the quality of the players at his disposal. This is what Heimir has constantly done, he did with our local team, and he did it with the Iceland team.
“As you will probably realise when you communicate with Heimir, you always have this deeply-rooted honesty. He tells things as they are. I saw on YouTube, the speech in the dressing room after the game in Hungary. I would say this is vintage Heimir.”
For all that Heimir appears to be one of his people, Kata adds a kicker that he is unique. “You can see where he is now: he thinks outside the box.”
Kata says the people of Heimaey no longer live in fear of another eruption, and that modern technology will have all forewarned of any potential eruption.
Nonetheless, reminders of the need to lean on the nearest shoulder atop shifting ground is rarely far away.
On some days when the wind blows from the west, ash from the 2010 eruption of Eyjafjallajökull is carried across Heimaey.
That westward wind may yet carry Heimaey’s most famous son all the way to America and the 2026 World Cup.
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2026 world cup playoff Heimir Hallgrímsson Island Living Republic Of Ireland