Farewell to a true legend

Cavanman's Diary

The first time Micheál Ó Muircheartaigh graced Croke Park was for the 1948 All-Ireland final between Cavan and Mayo. At the time, he was an 18-year-old student teacher and, raised in the football heartland of west Kerry, it was only natural he would wander down from Drumcondra to Croke Park to take in the game.

I’m not sure whether he met any of the players afterwards but, from what I have gathered about the great man, he had an extraordinary interest in people and, married with an innate charisma, it meant that he made friends wherever he went – and he went everywhere.

Ó Muircheartaigh was an artist of the microphone and his style, like all the great masters, had a profound influence on those who came after him, to the point where he has often been imitated but never equalled. How could he be? There is no faking what he had, a deep-seated and intimate knowledge of the games - the players, the coaches, officials and fans, an appreciation of history, longevity and, equally, an awesome command of the language and nimble brain.

Even at a time when GAA managers were growing suspicious of the media and access was beginning to become more limited, he was welcome into team dressing rooms before matches, where he would mingle with players, check the team details and so on.

In his Irish Times column last week, fellow west Kerryman Darragh Ó Sé stated that he “never, ever” had a bad word to say about anyone but he could make his point in other ways.

“There was one time he came into the dressing-room early in the league that came after we won the All-Ireland in 1997,” Ó Sé wrote.

“The league still had a few games before Christmas at the time so I’d say you’re talking about mid-November or so. We hadn’t been shy about celebrating the All-Ireland and we were struggling at just the wrong time – the league was going through one of its restructuring years and we were in danger of starting the following season in Division 2.

“We lost to Sligo and Offaly, and even though it was only the league, and even though we were All-Ireland champions, getting relegated after winning the league the previous year wouldn’t go down well. We’d be the first Kerry team to do it, as far as anybody knew.

“We were in Tullamore after losing to Offaly and Micheál came into the dressingroom afterwards. He saw Páidí Ó Sé, who was our manager at the time. ‘You’re still breaking records, Páidí,’ he said.

“It wasn’t until we were in the car on the way home that the penny dropped with Páidí. ‘Jesus,’ he said. ‘He meant that we might go down! He’s a right smart so-and-so, isn’t he?’ (He didn’t say so-and-so, for the record.)”

My colleague Arthur Sullivan interviewed him once and was struck by his knowledge, his warmth and modesty and, most of all, how deeply-acquainted he was with leading GAA figures who were prominent right back as far as the 1920s.

“Ah, he was amazing, really, really amazing,” Arthur told me. “For once, all of the eulogies and tributes to him are richly deserved. He is a national treasure.”

He wore his knowledge lightly. Arthur met him in the West County Hotel; Micheál told him it was the same hotel in which the Mayo footballers stayed before the 1936 All-Ireland final.

Arthur showed him the famous photograph of John Joe O’Reilly and other Cavan players and supporters on the street in Virginia in 1948, John Joe holding Sam aloft. Ó Muircheartaigh instantly recognised many in the black-and-white image.

In the 1970s, he became involved in the fledgling Gaelscoileanna movement. One of the factors which “helped considerably” was that Cavan’s John Wilson, a noted linguist, was Minister for Education during a key period in its development.

“Even though visits to government departments are meant to be confined to business, I could never let an opportunity to discuss sport pass by. Naturally, John and I found a few minutes to talk again about the All-Ireland football final of 1947 in the Polo Grounds in New York, with John on the field as part of the winning Cavan team.”

Anecdotes were his stock in trade; one would lead on to another seamlessly, just as with his commentary. The above tale was relayed in his memoir, From Dún Síon To Croke Park. He told another in the same passage.

“Once, I was at a meeting concerning Irish in Leitrim when a lady approached me in connection with the Gaelscoileanna movement. I mentioned the part played by John Wilson and she then told me this story about John and another fine Cavan character, Joe Stafford, a teammate of John’s in the Polo Grounds.

“‘Following a match somewhere in Meath long ago, I got a drive home in one of the Cavan cars,’ the lady told me. ‘I was in the back seat sitting between John Wilson and a very funny man called Joe Stafford. We were all very young and Wilson was holding my hand while we travelled a few miles of the journey. We were talking about the match when Stafford changed the subject.

“‘Wilson,’ said he, ‘we never played a match without changing over at half-time. For the sake of fair play, I think I should hold her hand for the rest of the journey.’”

He knew people everywhere. He had many friends in Cavan, including a fellow lover of greyhound racing in Mick Higgins, with whom he would visit regularly and whom he also mentions numerous times in his book.

In October, 1947, an annual retreat took place at St Patrick’s Teacher Training College. Cavan had won in New York a month earlier and the “strange missioners” didn’t waste a chance to show they were down with the kids.

Explaining how Cavan had beaten the mighty Kingdom, the preacher explained that it all made sense once he had seen a photo of Higgins scorching through the heart of the Kerry back-line.

“There he was,” the man of the cloth intoned, “tearing through the defence with his jersey in tatters torn by a Kerryman, but there, too, for all to see across his chest was a sacred scapular.”

A regular visitor to this county to catch up with friends and through his work with the Hospice Movement, Special Olympics and other causes. He also attended countless functions around the country and assisted clubs; in 2006, he officially opened Drumlane GFC’s new facilities at O’Connell Park in Milltown.

The last match he commentated on, after 62 years, was an International Rules test between Ireland and Australia in 2010.

After that game, Cavan’s own commentator Owen McConnon conducted an interview with him for these pages.

“The first team I ever saw coming out on to a field in Croke Park were the Tyrone minors in 1948,” he recalled, “and they won the All-Ireland and it was strange at this year’s All-Ireland final, my last football final, the Tyrone minors were there again.”

A lot of football and hurling was played in the decades in between and he saw, not it all, but a lot more than most. And, we suspect, loved every minute of a life well lived and a contribution to Irish life so rich as to be incalculable.