{"id":677253,"date":"2026-01-06T08:08:14","date_gmt":"2026-01-06T08:08:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/677253\/"},"modified":"2026-01-06T08:08:14","modified_gmt":"2026-01-06T08:08:14","slug":"a-giant-of-a-man-tributes-paid-to-legendary-rally-driver-who-survived-ira-attacks","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/677253\/","title":{"rendered":"\u2018A giant of a man\u2019: Tributes paid to legendary rally driver who survived IRA attacks"},"content":{"rendered":"<p class=\"beltel-ebe0ecc6_root beltel-ebe0ecc6_paragraph beltel-91174671_secondary beltel-1d70522a_marginbottom4 beltel-1d70522a_marginleft0 beltel-1d70522a_marginright0 beltel-1d70522a_margintop4\" style=\"color:var(--color-primary-80)\" data-testid=\"title-summary\">Mervyn Johnston passed away on New Year\u2019s Day aged 86\n<\/p>\n<p><img decoding=\"async\" alt=\"Mervyn Johnston\" src=\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/01\/a072a085-72a7-4fd5-a079-a98655b7ddc3.jpg\" loading=\"eager\" width=\"100%\" data-testid=\"article-image\"  \/><\/p>\n<p class=\"beltel-ebe0ecc6_root beltel-ebe0ecc6_caption1 beltel-300db776_none beltel-91174671_secondary beltel-66f0fec7_regular beltel-1d70522a_marginbottom0 beltel-1d70522a_marginleft0 beltel-1d70522a_marginright0 beltel-1d70522a_margintop3 beltel-b48c4984_left\" style=\"color:var(--color-grey-60)\">Mervyn Johnston<\/p>\n<p class=\"beltel-ebe0ecc6_root beltel-ebe0ecc6_paragraph beltel-300db776_none beltel-91174671_primary beltel-1d70522a_marginbottom0 beltel-1d70522a_margintop0 beltel-b48c4984_inherit\" style=\"color:var(--color-primary-80)\">Tributes have been paid following the death of a former rally driver who survived attempts on his life by the IRA and was forced to seek refuge on the Isle of Man during the Troubles.<\/p>\n<p class=\"beltel-ebe0ecc6_root beltel-ebe0ecc6_paragraph beltel-300db776_none beltel-91174671_primary beltel-1d70522a_marginbottom0 beltel-1d70522a_margintop0 beltel-b48c4984_inherit\" style=\"color:var(--color-primary-80)\">Mervyn Johnston passed away last Thursday after a short illness and was one of Northern Ireland\u2019s most experienced rally drivers.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Mervyn Johnston passed away on New Year\u2019s Day aged 86 Mervyn Johnston Tributes have been paid following the&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":677254,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[5011],"tags":[1248,22306,1144,16,15],"class_list":["post-677253","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-northern-ireland","tag-fermanagh-news","tag-ira","tag-northern-ireland","tag-uk","tag-united-kingdom"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/115847135891944077","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/677253","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=677253"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/677253\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/677254"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=677253"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=677253"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=677253"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}