In 1975, Harry McKibbin sat down for dinner with various colleagues from the International Rugby Board. McKibbin had toured with the British and Irish Lions to South Africa in 1938 and was now enjoying his term as president of the IRFU in their centenary year. As a young man, McKibbin had been an outstanding centre, winning four caps for his country, before active service in the second World War prematurely ended his international career.
By nature, McKibbin was quiet, happy to talk about his decorated playing career when asked, but far more content contributing to Irish rugby practically as a skilled administrator. His chosen career as a solicitor in Belfast suited his temperament; analytical, but with a high degree of emotional intelligence. Yet, deep in his heart, the war had left a mark on McKibbin.
He had miraculously escaped Dunkirk and ended the war fighting furiously in the humid jungles of Burma against the Japanese from 1942 until 1945. McKibbin had a deep Christian faith and very rarely spoke a bad word about anyone or anything, but he’d become uncharacteristically negative when Japan came up in conversation. Sitting beside him that night at the table was Shiggy Konno, the president of the Japanese Rugby Football Union, and an ex-pilot in the Imperial Japanese Army Air Force. The two men had never met and their lives would never be the same after this night.
McKibbin’s daughter Deborah remembers her father as a kind and thoughtful man who was quietly traumatised by what he had seen and experienced on the battlefield in Burma. “He was a man who didn’t talk too much. It was so difficult to deal with what he’d been through in the war. He lived the story of the war and he really needed someone to take him out of his trauma. It was that deep. Harry my brother said they talked about the war once as a young boy, and he’d started talking a little, then Harry asked him how many men he’d killed. He never mentioned another word after that about the war. I know he never talked about it with my mother. He just found the whole thing terribly sad.”
McKibbin is part of an esteemed Irish rugby family. Harry’s younger brother Desmond won eight caps and was part of the Ireland side that claimed the Five Nations Championship in 1951. Des also joined his brother as IRFU president, 10 years later in 1985. McKibbin had three sons, Roger, Harry junior and Alistair, with the latter two being capped at senior level for their country. Harry remembers his father’s thoughtful and loving nature, which did not sit naturally with his feelings about Japanese people.
“Talking about the Japanese was never a subject for discussion with my Dad. Dad was never a bitter man, but he was towards the Japanese. It was just totally against his character, he was never like that with anyone else. He spent the rest of the war fighting the Japanese, and for years he did not want anything to do with them.
“He didn’t even want a Japanese car. He was quite a religious man and it was very out of his character about how he felt about the Japanese. That meeting with Shiggy changed everything. You could see how he didn’t like the Japanese, because of what they’d done in the war from his experiences. Until that occasion, he’d never met someone who had been through it from the other side.”
Shiggy Konno had attended school near London and spoke perfect English with a cut-glass accent. He had trained as a kamikaze pilot, and Japan’s surrender in the war after the nuclear bombs in Hiroshima and Nagasaki saved his life. He once recounted the story to an interviewer. “The only reason I am still alive is that I wasn’t a very good pilot. That’s why my mission was to be the very last. Either that, or they didn’t want to damage the plane. My time for take-off was in early September 1945. Fortunately, the war ended in August. If I’d been a good pilot, I wouldn’t have been around to talk about it.”
Konno’s love of rugby had started in England as a young boy, and he was determined to grow the game in Japan as an administrator after the war. His personality was exuberant to McKibbin’s quiet, gentle nature, yet after polite and stilted conversation about their country’s respective plans in rugby administration, slowly, but surely, the conversation turned to war.
McKibbin had grievances about the Japanese, but he had never met anybody quite like Konno. Konno understood the brutality of war and wanted to listen to McKibbin’s experiences on the battlefield. They became engrossed in conversation throughout dinner, pausing briefly out of courtesy to the invited speakers, and then resuming without missing a beat. After the main course, Konno and McKibbin started drawing detailed war formations and landmarks on linen napkins, and it turned out that at the height of the conflict, they had been fighting each other just metres apart in the jungle.
Trevor Ringland toured Japan in 1985 with Ireland, scoring three tries in the first test against Japan in Osaka. He met Shiggy Konno and eventually heard the story of his friendship with McKibbin. Ringland was familiar with McKibbin as a noted administrator through his own playing career at Ulster and Ireland. Ringland is also a solicitor in Belfast and has spent his life after his playing career using sport to bring people together from areas of the world affected by conflict. The story of Konno and McKibbin still resonates with him.
“It’s a beautiful story about friendship from sport. Here you had two people involved in the most horrific of conflicts, initially brought together through a sport they like. They had to sit down and couldn’t avoid talking even if they didn’t want to. That talking eventually helped to bridge over a horrific conflict from the past.
“Harry and Shiggy had the ability to work together constructively to build a better future, which they did. They didn’t let their relationship become embittered. The effect it had on Harry was amazing and a friendship was built that others would have thought was impossible. I still use the story of Shiggy Konno and Harry McKibbin when talking to young people about the power of sport to change lives.”
McKibbin and Konno left the dinner table, and moved to the sofa to continue their conversation which lasted until three in the morning. McKibbin had found a friendship that ultimately would help him move on with his life and leave the bitterness of his wartime service behind. He came home to Belfast a changed man. Deborah immediately noticed a change in their father and noted how his life was never the same after meeting Konno.
“After this meeting with Shiggy, in the family we saw a total change in him. It was gentle at first, you couldn’t quite put your finger on it. The Japanese people became a lot more acceptable to him, they had changed to him. The friendship enriched Dad’s life when he needed it. As a Christian, he needed it as there was finally forgiveness. I don’t want to put word’s into Dad’s mouth, but I really think he found forgiveness. It was a friendship that he badly needed.”
McKibbin and Konno left that dinner and retained a close friendship that lasted for the rest of their lives, serving on the International Rugby Board together until 1987 and helping to organise the first Rugby World Cup in New Zealand. McKibbin and his wife went to visit Konno in Japan, and they were delighted to host Japanese visitors when Japan played Zimbabwe in a 1991 World Cup pool game in Belfast.
McKibbin passed away in 2001, aged 86. Four years later, his grandson and Ulster number eight Roger Wilson won his first and only cap for Ireland in 2005 against Japan in Osaka. Deborah was in the stadium to see it, and found out later that Shiggy Konno was in attendance and there might be an opportunity to meet him. Two years later, Konno died, and he was extremely frail that day when Wilson made his Ireland debut. There was a formal post-match function and Deborah didn’t want to enter the diningroom underdressed in a replica Ireland jersey. Word got to Konno that Harry McKibbin’s daughter and grandson were outside, and he insisted on seeing them both. Deborah remembers the moment clearly.
“We specifically had to meet Shiggy when Roger got his first cap and it was like a catharsis of history, trying to make things right. After the match, we were still in Irish jerseys, and they were dressed formally for this post-match function. This old man was walking with a stick to see us and I saw it was Shiggy Konno. In beautiful English, he said, ‘I believe you’re Harry’s daughter, I am so glad to see you.’ He couldn’t believe how big Roger was, saying how much the game had changed since he and Dad played. It was a very special moment for the family.
“We are still so happy that Roger’s cap was against Japan, it was really tear-jerking. When Shiggy walked back to the dinner, I knew that was the last time I’d see him. I broke down in tears, it was a full circle, from hatred to love.”
Wilson thinks back to the moment he met Konno with his Mum with some regret.
“I’ll be honest, at the time, I didn’t think it was such a big deal. I was young at 24, and then, you’re a bit immature with these sorts of things. I could see it in my Mum’s face, just how much it meant and how much of a big deal it was. Looking back now, 20 odd years on, you think just how important it was. I always remember Mum telling me the story about my Granddad and Shiggy years and years ago and again in your twenties and even early thirties, again, you’re that bit naive and immature, and you maybe don’t appreciate the story fully.
“It’s in recent years, when you think back on family, and the role they played in getting you to the level you got to in life and the sacrifices they made. I look back and just wish I had the maturity I do now, to sit down with my Granddad. If he was still alive now, I know I would be picking his brains nonstop, about the rugby, about playing for the Lions with these seven or eight-week tours and going to war. I would have loved to have heard about it all.”
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After his playing career, Ringland served on various IRFU committees and remembers seeing McKibbin sitting alone in a hotel in Dublin after a board meeting. McKibbin was there as a former president to add his input to strategic plans for the game. McKibbin was as ever, happy in his own company, not imposing himself on anyone. Ringland watched the Ireland rugby team slowly file past the old man, completely unaware of who he was, and what he had achieved.
“I remember Harry wasn’t very well, and it must have been near the end of his life just before he passed away, he was sitting in this hotel alone. All of the Irish rugby players walked past him and none of them knew him. I stood back watching this, and I just thought if only you all knew just what this man has done not only for the sport of rugby but far more importantly, what he achieved in life.”
Konno, like McKibbin was a tireless champion of amateurism in rugby. They would both barely recognise today’s modern game filled with detailed playbooks and agents. They operated in a different era, but played a vital role in the growth of the game they loved in Japan and Ireland. In 2019, Konno was posthumously inducted into the World Rugby Hall of Fame 12 years after he passed away at 85. He had finally achieved global recognition in the game far beyond Japan, but was never able to witness it.
A few metres separated Konno and McKibbin on the battlefield in Burma, and later in life, when they least suspected it, they were beside each other again as dinner companions. Life had changed greatly after the war, but McKibbin’s heart had not fully healed. The closest and most valuable friendships can sometimes come from the most unusual places, and so it was with McKibbin and Konno. Through his deep friendship with Konno, McKibbin was able to achieve his greatest feat, finding peace and happiness at last.
