A Late Late Show appearance
Marty Morrissey at the 1986 All-Ireland Inter-Firms Junior Football Final between Shannon side, Molex, against Leinster champions, Lapple of Carlow.
They say you know you have ‘made it’ in Ireland when you appear on the Late Late Show. Remember that iconic 1980s Irish film ‘The Commitments’? Remember how Jimmy Rabbitte, the manager of the band, conducts recurring imaginary interviews with himself? One such visualization takes place in Jimmy’s bath in a scene where he answers “I’m glad you asked me that question Gay,” before telling the nation of his dream to bring ‘soul’ to Dublin. If esteemed author Roddy Doyle reckoned appearing on the Late Late Show was ‘making it’ that’s good enough for me.
Well, my turn came last Friday night on the GAA special. Mind you, I don’t suppose the fact that that brief appearance came in the guise of a 40-year-old photograph could be considered having ‘made it’?!
Still, it affords your scribe an opportunity to wrap a few stories around the photograph in question which features legendary RTÉ Gaelic Games commentator Marty Morrissey on the back of a lorry ahead of one of his earliest ‘gigs, the photo prompting Late Late host Patrick Kielty to ask Marty was it a scene from ‘Only Fools and Horses’ .
Now, I can reveal that that photograph was taken on Saturday, December 6, 1986. I can further reveal that it was taken in Roslevan, on the outskirts of Ennis, County Clare. Roslevan was then the home of St Joseph’s Doora-Barefield, a club that later gifted the Holy Trinity of Seanie McMahon, Ollie Baker and Jamesie O’Connor to Clare’s glory days of the 1990s. Roslevan now, though, is the headquarters of Avenue United, an Ennis soccer club who contested the prestigious FAI Junior Cup final in 1990 and we will return to that Cup campaign towards the end of the column. First though let’s unveil the strong Carlow/Graiguecullen connection to the photograph.
The match at which Marty Morrissey was perched in the back of a lorry with local camera man Paschal Brooks alongside was the All-Ireland Inter-Firms Junior Football Final in which local Shannon side, Molex, were playing the Leinster champions, Lapple of Carlow.
That final was played the day before the Clare hurlers were hosting Galway in nearby Cusack Park in a West of the Shannon league derby so your scribe was ensconced in Ennis for the weekend. The then Nationalist Sports Editor Paul Donaghy rang to ask me to cover the football game on the Saturday. There were no programmes for those inter-firm games so when I arrived to Roslevan – via the liquid comforts of the very nearby Roslevan Arms (you could say the playing field was the Arms backgarden!) – my first job, having already been advised of the Lapple line-out, was to get the Molex team. Hence the man on the back of the lorry and myself exchanged information and obviously it was around that time the photo was taken. I had no idea who the man on the back of the lorry was nor did I know a photograph existed until its 2000 publication in the ‘Clare People’ and by then Marty Morrissey had become a household name.
To his dying day Marty Morrissey will probably best be remembered for his passionate and eloquent radio masterpiece as the Tipperary and Kilkenny teams paraded ahead of the 2016 All-Ireland hurling final. His “listen to a heartbeat of a nation” and “I have always maintained the All-Ireland hurling final should be a National holiday” were two stand-out lines before Marty focused for a finish on the Irish diaspora, telling them, “you are with us today in spirit and in mind, we are thinking of you.”
On a Late Late Show appearance a few years later Morrissey explained the inspiration for his 2016 ‘intro.’ He talked about spending his childhood in a small apartment in The Bronx in New York and his father, a native of rural County Clare, tuning in to listen to football and hurling finals commentated on by the great Michael O'Hehir. The smile would come to Morrissey’s father's face as his radio picked up a signal. “It was like being transported back home for 60 precious minutes.”
For one Lapple player back in 1986 his All-Ireland final didn’t last 60 precious minutes. He was sent off in the second half. When the Lapple squad were drowning their sorrows in the West County Hotel the dismissed player pleaded with me not to name and shame. Under the influence of Arthur G I promised him I wouldn’t. Under pressure of Paul D on Monday morning, I did! Now, though, forty years later I can honour that promise! Here we name the starting Lapple fifteen who were beaten 2-8 to 0-5 by Molex for whom Kerry’s John Kennedy was the main man. We will also name the subs who came on, the scorers and the fact that Frankie Donnelly of Clonmore via Cavan was the Lapple team manager. We will even tell you that Pat Lane of Limerick, who refereed the 1987 Meath v Cork All-Ireland final was the referee. But we will not name the man who was sent off!
Lapple: Lapple: Joe Broderick (Tinryland); Owen Roche (Kildavin) Captain, Pat Timmons (Graiguecullen), Steve Devereux (Graiguecullen); Joe Maher (Ballon), Paddy Kelly (O’Hanrhans). Francis Fitzpatrick (O'Hanrahans); Noel Kinsella (Ballinabranna) 0-1, Willie Brennan (Graiguecullen) 0-1; Seamus Dowling (Ballon), John Owens (Éire Óg) 0-1, Christy Maguire (Graiguecullen) 0-2; Alan Devereux (Graiguecullen), Seamie Doyle (Old Leighlin). Ronnie Ryan (Graiguecullen). Subs: Ger Lacey, Joe Tompkins (Two Mile House, Kildare).
Now one man who played the entire 60 minutes that day in Roslevan was back in the Banner County again four years later and on this occasion played the entire 90 minutes for St Pat’s Boys of Graiguecullen in the FAI Junior Cup quarter-final against the aforementioned Avenue United. That man was Pat Timmons. Avenue United drew their resources from the Marian Avenue housing estate and played their home games in the nearby Fairgreen. However for this national quarter-final the club moved the match to the Ennis Showgrounds, the home of the local rugby club but once, way back in time, the venue for big Clare hurling fixtures. Now the Clare hurlers happened to be playing that same Sunday, February 25, 1990 as St Pat’s Boys were in town, hosting Offaly in a league game in Cusack Park. Barely a mile separates the two venues. But here’s the thing, on a horrendous day of wind and rain, it is claimed the soccer match drew a bigger attendance than the hurling game! Yes, Clare and Offaly, who just five years later hurled in front of an All-Ireland final crowd of 65,092, played that day to damp empty terraces and a sparsely filled stand, the crowd said not to be much more than 1,000. Across in the Showgrounds where huge home support was swelled by a massive away contingent, an estimated 1,500 saw Avenue United win 2-nil, two breakaway goals securing the semi-final place after the following Pat’s Boys team had dominated most of the game but just couldn’t locate the net: Dinny Ryan, PJ O’Neill, Ger Cuddihy, Paddy Kenna, Pat Timmons, Philly Kehoe, David Cuddihy, Joe Nolan, Willie Quinlan, Pat Doogue, Aldo Marini. Reserves: Jimmy Doogue, Ben Dowling.
I know what you are thinking. I was at the hurling game? No, you’re wrong. Ok, because I knew a good few of the St Pat’s Boys team I opted, for once, to give the no-hands game precedence? Wrong again. I, in fact, was in Castletown Geoghegan, County Westmeath, where the Carlow hurlers were playing the home county in the league, your scribe on duty for both this newspaper and the then fledgling KCR (Kildare Carlow Radio). No, not a match commentary, nor indeed even match updates, I was simply asked to provide a short match report for the Sunday evening round up show. Simple? This was pre-mobile phones. This was pre-Brendan Hennessy days. Anyway I’d be fairly certain he was in Ennis at the soccer, his father Tom a founder member of St Pat’s Boys. I was travelling on the Carlow team bus. So en route to Mullingar for the after-match meal the bus pulled up on the side of the road on the outskirts of a small town so as I could ring in my report of a 0-9 to 0-2 defeat from a phone box! Dropping in the coins, pressing buttons A and B I get through to the office! As Bob Dylan might tell Patrick Kielty if he appeared on the ‘Late, Late Show’, “the times they are a changin’”.
PS: The star of the Carlow team that day was another Kielthy, Richie Kielthy, the St Mullins goalkeeper.
