Uncle Mícheál's name will endure through the generations

Seventy years ago Mícheál’s commentaries were all ‘as Gaeilge’, as it wasn’t until two years later that he got his big break ‘as Béarla’ when being behind the microphone for the 1956 Munster football final between Kerry and Cork in Killarney.

That was the day Míchéal put aside his affection for the green and gold which endured all his life over the Fitzgerald Stadium wall into St Finan’s Hospital when glorying in the late winning point booted over the bar by Nially Fitzgerald from Macroom.

In that Oireachtas final two years earlier in Croke Park he was equally enthusiastic as his imagination ran free when Big Dan McInerney, whose building firm would construct the new Hogan Stand a few years later, became Dónal Mór Mac An Airchinnigh, Cúchulainn’s son Nicky Rackard became Nioclás Mór Mac Riocaird while Jimmy Smyth was Séamus Mac Gabhann.

On it went, with Wexford under the guise of 'Loch Garman' centre stage at every turn, it seemed.

And that secured Peter ‘Slavery’ Guilfoyle’s name in the hurling history of Ennis when he took to the streets after listening to the commentary and picked his man-of-the-match.

“It has to be Garman,” he gushed with authority. “He must be a great player because he was everywhere. He was heroic in defence and he was great in attack. He’s some player.” 

That was Mícheál. You didn’t have to be able to understand him to love him, while the fact that Peter ‘Slavery’ Guilfoyle’s enthusiasm echoes down 70 years shows you how Mícheál straddled generations by the breadth of his life in the GAA.

And he went back much further than 1954 as we found out in 2010 when he turned 80 and Raidió na Gaeltachta hosted a tribute night in his honour in the Galway Bay Hotel that brought everyone present on the journey of his broadcasting career.

It was back to where it all started. Dún Síon. His rock. His place. His default setting. It was thanks to an interview recorded by his great friend and fellow West Kerry man Mícheál Ó Sé in the earliest days of Raidió na Gaeltachta over 50 years ago.

He went to Dún Síon and recorded Míchéal’s father Thady – my grandfather – who had left the small townland east of Dingle in 1916 to march into Tralee with the Dingle Volunteers to play their part in the events of Easter Week.

Thady talked football, not the fight for freedom, in this excerpt from the interview, as he recalled the exploits of Paddy Casey – a granduncle of Brian Mullins, who played a few fields over with Lispole before going on to win an All-Ireland with Dublin in 1906.

Thady knew his football. He’d been on the Ghost Train as far back as the memorable Croke Cup Memorial final games between Kerry and Louth in 1913 that bagged the GAA enough cash to buy Jones’ Road and rename it Croke Park.

And it was the same fields that Thady worked and formed his outlook on life that were with Micheál all his life, even if he left as a 15-year-old in 1945 to travel the world with the GAA.

He left on a bus manned by Kerry football legend Bill Dillon, on his first leg of a journey with many stops as he put down roots in Coláiste Iosagáin in Baile Mhuirne for a few years.

Micheál would list Bill Dillon as one of his childhood heroes, just as he’d reel off names like Billy Casey, Paddy Bawn Brosnan and Tom ‘Gega’ O’Connor, because they were local boys made great on the All-Ireland stage.

They were all playing the day his imagination was fired for the first time and his ears were opened to the idea of being a commentator when along with Thady and his brothers he walked up the road from Dún Síon to listen to the 1938 All-Ireland football final.

They went to Sheehys in Ballintaggart and competed with everyone from miles around to get within earshot of the radio – the fact that there were 14 Sheehy children made it hard for interlopers, but Mícheál heard enough of the All-Ireland that day between Kerry and Galway to set him on his way.

“Nobody would go near the radio,” he remembered. “They were temperamental and delicate and if you had too many people messing with it, it could let you down. The only one who was allowed touch, turn up, down or sideways was Mickey Sheehy.

“He took his job very seriously. During the week leading up to an All-Ireland he’d carry the battery into Houlihan’s in Dingle to get it charged up, then the radio would be used very sparingly in the days leading up to the match,” he added.

This was a window into Mícheál’s lair and how Dún Síon shaped him, so much so that when he returned there for the last time this week, he passed the Sheehys house in Ballintaggart, while Fr Jim Sheehy who was reared in the same house is one of the chief celebrants at the funeral mass in St Mary’s Church in Dingle this Saturday.

Mícheál brought everyone into his lair with his words, but to have that family connections rooted in Dún Síon was somehow like having a golden ticket to pluck from your pocket at every turn.

I think of the cups of tea and the debates about games 70 and more years ago and many more in between now and then, but always looking ahead to games in the weeks ahead.

“Will Kerry do it against Derry?” “Is there anyone to stop Dublin?” “What about the Clare hurlers getting to a final?” I think of the days in Belfield during Kerry’s glory years when he put the Dublin based ex-pats through their paces. It was ok to arrive at training wearing Dublin blue, but not to just watch, but work.

It would be fetching balls for Jack O’Shea, Charlie Nelligan, Mick Spillane or Barry Walsh that were the mainstays of the group. A ball boy for Jacko – not so bad, only for it to reach the stuff of dreams one night leading up to the 1980 All-Ireland against Roscommon.

Jacko had a leg problem, so after Mícheál spotted my new racer bike he immediately requisitioned it and put Jacko on his way cycling around the Belfield campus for the night.

To mine eyes, I helped Jacko get fit and win the All-Ireland – of course Mícheál let me think it was all down to me.

It was the same gift he had with everyone – a trait described beautifully in Dingle this week as ‘bhí sé íseal uasal’, which is the Gaeilgeoir’s beautiful way of saying he could walk among kings but not lose the common touch.

It came through in his commentaries too, as he brought meaning and mystery and a colour that seduced so many during the ebb and flow of a hurling or football contest.

We all had our favourites – the Donegal man will speak of ’92 when the Annals of the Four Masters from 1616 were referenced.

“An Bráthair Bocht Mícheál Ó Cléirigh, his brother Conaire Ó Cléirigh, Cú Choigcríche Ó Cléirigh and Flaithrí Ó Maolchonair,” he said. “Wish they were here,” he added.

The Meathman will pick Kevin Foley’s goal that eventually broke Dublin hearts in Game 4 in 1991; the Downman will think of DJ Kane - or 'Lawrence of Arabia' as Míchéal called him - returning to battle with headgear like Peter O'Toole.

I go for the Clare hurlers and the 1995 All-Ireland final as Jamesie O’Connor fired over the last point and as Mícheál, with ‘Clare Shouts’ raining in on top of him, brought us back to 1914 by reeling off the names of Clare’s All-Ireland winning team 81 years previously.

Pa ‘Fowler’ McInerney, John Shalloo, The 'Dodger' Considine, John Fox who went straight from Croke Park to the Western Front but who lived to tell the tale, James Guerin who showed the way for Shane O’Donnell 99 years later and got three goals in the final but was a victim of the Great Flu epidemic a few years later, captain Amby Power and James ‘Sham’ Spellissy and more.

These names endure through the generations of the GAA, just like Mícheál Ó Muircheartaigh's name will endure too.

If Peter ‘Slavery’ Guilfoyle was still with us he’d take to the streets once more like a Town Crier and spread this gospel.