Sport

The lost five-in-a-row: I was walking in west cork recently, in a remote part of the beautiful Beara peninsula. It was a magnificent day, one of those that if we had enough of them, you’d never want to leave the country. As I crested the top of a very stern hill, I met a man who had just climbed it from the other side and both of us looked like we needed a rest. The chat came easily, initially covering the beautiful weather, the gorgeous countryside etc. but before long count

Con, in pensive mode. What Con might have said:’ (this was written following the dramatic replayed All Ireland Hurling Final replay in 2013. Con Houlihan, my favourite sports writer, an immensely popular figure, had passed away a year before. The drawn game was magnificent and the replay was an epic. There is no doubt that Con would have been enthralled by the game and would have loved to have written about it. I tried to imagine what he would have said...) I don’t know if Da

Micheal in position in Thurles before a Munster Final. When you consider the icons of the GAA, the names that immediately come to mind would be Christy Ring, Mick Mackey, Eddie Keher, John Doyle, DJ Carey and Henry Shefflin in hurling; Mick O’Connell, Mick O’Dwyer, Kevin Heffernan and Sean Purcell in football. There are also many more modern-day great players who will in time take their place in the pantheon. But did any of them do as much as Micheal O’Muirecheartaigh to publ

Much of my writings recently are random and varied. This is because they stem from past experiences recounted to friends, who immediately said, ‘you should write that down.’ So here goes: It was the 21 st  of March 2015. Ireland were going reasonably well in the six nations rugby championship. We had won the previous year’s championship on points difference. In 2015, we weren’t setting the world on fire or anything like that but due to a combination of teams beating each othe