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VETERAN SPORTS BROADCASTER Jimmy Magee has died after a long illness.
Magee, much-beloved for his avuncular ‘Memory Man’ persona, was 82 and one of the world’s longest-serving sports broadcasters.
Over a career spanning more than 60 years, he commentated on a wide variety of sports, including boxing, soccer, and gaelic games, most notably for his long-term employer RTÉ.
The announcement has led to an outpouring of tributes from those who knew him across the spectrum of Irish life.
“It was my pleasure to know him and work with him. I’ll miss him terribly,” said RTÉ Morning Ireland host Gavin Jennings earlier this morning.
“It’s an incredibly sad day,” RTÉ’s head of sport Ryle Nugent later told the same programme, adding that he was “in awe” of Magee’s abilities as a commentator.
“To travel with him, he was unbelievable craic,” said Sunday Game host and fellow RTÉ sport denizen Des Cahill.
He was a pure rogue for getting a laugh going with a group on a trip away.
President Michael D Higgins said that Magee’s contribution to sports broadcasting was “immense”.
He reported on some of the most iconic sporting moments in sport but also had a genuine interest in the human side of everyday sports.
“Sabina and I express our condolences to his daughters and son, his wider family and friends. He will be missed by all those who appreciate and care for the world of sports.”
Memory man
Born in New York in 1935, Magee and his three siblings grew up in Cooley, County Louth.
In an interview on The Late Late Show in 2012, Magee said it was during this time that he fell in love with the idea of broadcasting; legendary Gaelic games commentator Michael O’Hehir being a particular influence.
At the age of 11, he wrote to RTÉ looking for a job. They politely declined but told him they would keep his application on file.
When he did eventually enter the workforce, Magee worked first as a chemist and then in a full-time clerical role with British Rail.
However, when the latter ceased operations in the Republic of Ireland in 1951, the then 16-year-old saw it as an opportunity to fulfill his broadcasting dream.
“It was the beginning of my new life because I knew what I wanted to do,” he told the Irish Independent in 2015.
It took some time, and it wasn’t until 1956 that he landed his first gig reporting on a hockey game for the RTÉ Radio programme, Junior Sports Magazine.
Magee progressed through the ranks quickly, however and covered his first major international tournament for the state broadcaster at the 1966 World Cup.
Indeed, he commentated on every edition of football’s global showpiece up until 2010 in South Africa, and his commentary on Maradona’s solo goal against England in 1986 will live long in the memory.
Magee is also widely remembered for his role in RTÉ’s Olympic coverage, particularly boxing, and commentated on every Games between 1968 and 2016.
He was honoured by the International Olympic Committee for services to the Games in 2012, when he was presented with a specially commissioned replica of the Olympic torch.
Between 1987 and 1998, Magee co-hosted the quiz show Know Your Sport alongside George Hamilton where his legend as Ireland’s ‘Memory Man’ grew and was still broadcasting into his 80s, launching a series called Jimmy’s Heroes on Irish TV in 2015.
Magee is survived by his children Linda, Mark, June and Patricia. He was predeceased by his son Paul and wife Marie, who died in 1989.
With reporting from Cormac Fitzgerald and Cianan Brennan
“Considering” is a nice way of putting being railroaded into it. With looming combustion engine legislation and lack of options from manufacturers consumers have little to no choice in the matter, especially if they don’t have the personal capability to maintain an older car themselves, and all for minimal actual benefit to the environment. EVs are not a sustainable technology, nor are they an environmental solution to our transport issues. We need real investment in proper public transport infrastructure, not pissing money away on Ryan’s stop-gap battery trains and tokenistic EV and hybrid adoption.
@Brendan Gordon: I’ve heard it claimed before, that EVs are not much better than conventional ICE (petrol diesel) vehicles due to the CO2 emitted mining and making the battery, this is not true.
Studies show, that when the entire life cycle of an EV is considered, it still saves on emissions compares to a petrol / diesel car. In Europe, an EV bought today emits 66%–69% less CO2 than a petrol / diesel car over it full life-cycle:
“Results show that even for cars registered today, battery electric vehicles (BEVs) have by far the lowest life-cycle GHG emissions. As illustrated in the figure below, emissions over the lifetime of average medium-size BEVs registered today are already lower than comparable gasoline cars by 66%–69% in Europe, 60%–68% in the United States, 37%–45% in China, and 19%–34% in India.”
Also, I see the lifespan of the batter has increased, to 15-20 years.
“The hundreds of gently topped-up cells inside an EV battery mean that each battery pack is expected to retain its charging-discharging capacity from 100,000 to 200,000 miles.”
“Today, most EV batteries have a life expectancy of 15 to 20 years within the car – and a second life beyond.”
@David Jordan: True, but the rest of the materials in the car aren’t as recyclable, and most cars won’t be “gently topped up”. And unless there’s a colossal breakthrough in carbon or iron battery technology, we simply don’t have enough Lithium on the planet to meet the needs of mass EV adoption. It’s not all about carbon. On top of that, there’s huge issues with right to repair and the ability to properly maintain your own vehicle and not be tied to extortionate service and repair costs. Any environmental savings made through EVs are made tenfold by an effective public transport infrastructure, while also value adding to people’s quality of life in urban areas
@Brendan Gordon: Railroaded into it by uncomfortable facts such as Climate Change.
@David Jordan: battery last 15 to 20 years you having a laugh, don’t believe everything you read.
@David Jordan: the car with the lowest emissions and best for the environment is the car you’re already driving, and if one is really hung up on climate change, get a horse instead.
@Brendan Gordon: There’s a practically unlimited supply of lithium in seawater, 180 billion tons. Of course, also, batteries will be recycled or reused. They maybe no use for a car if they loose 20-30% of their capacity, but they can still be used for other purposes.
https://electrek.co/2021/06/04/scientists-have-cost-effectively-harvested-lithium-from-seawater/
Analysis shows that, if we stick with just mining, we will run low on lithium by c. 2035, before then we can develop alternative solutions, perhaps by then extracting lithium from seawater becomes technically feasible and economically viable.
https://www.edie.net/acute-lithium-shortages-forecast-by-2035-as-battery-supply-chains-expand/
That said, I agree with you on the over reliance on the car. We do need better public transportation. That said, they will often also need lithium, the vehicles themselves and large grid scale battery storage needed to store energy when there’s no sun or wind. One of the biggest predicted uses of lithium are grid scale battery storage. Do an emphasis on public transport may not reduce lithium use by much, so is not a solution for lithium.
@DERRY1973: My battery is 9 years old and still at 85% health.
@DERRY1973: a battery pack lasts 5-8 years in a car (c. 100,000 miles) and is useful for another 7-10 years if used for other electrical storage uses:
“This degradation is estimated to be happened after 5–8 years of usage or equivalent to 100,000 miles (160,000 km) of travelling. However, the retired EV batteries, even with lower SOH, could still be re-purposed in other applications such as residential households or power variance in grid-scale PV plants. As shown in Fig. 4, they are estimated to have another 7–10 years of the lifespan before reaching the End of Life (EOL) as SLB.”
That mean that at the end of useful life in a car, a battery pack, the cells within, are still useful. The battery pack will be worth money, bought from the EV owner, offsetting the original purchase cost, and used for other uses.
With the predicted squzee on lithium, lithium prices going up, a battery pack bought now, might be an investment when sold in 5-8 years time.
Haram, M.H.S.M., Lee, J.W., Ramasamy, G., Ngu, E.E., Thiagarajah, S.P. and Lee, Y.H., 2021. Feasibility of utilising second life EV batteries: Applications, lifespan, economics, environmental impact, assessment, and challenges. Alexandria Engineering Journal, 60(5), pp.4517-4536.
@DERRY1973: manufacturers are give 8years or 100,000mile warranty on battery’s, it wouldn’t be far fetched for users to get 15years, 20 could be a stretch though.
There are 3rd companies popping up who just replace the degraded cells in batteries for a fraction of the cost/waste replacing the full battery pack and I think manufacturers need to start doing this also, will they do it? Probably not.
@David Jordan: sounds like somebody just came up with the plot for Mad Max EV edition.
@David Jordan: Use of batteries for public transport solutions is a false economy, battery rail and light rail has failed multiple times. Simply implementing effective public transport through conventional propulsion is more than worth it alone. All battery systems do is give an excuse to cheap out on infrastructure, and their long term costs and safety issues just aren’t worth it. The notion of fully integrated vehicle inclusive power storage and distribution grid is a wasteful fantasy and a gross underestimation of the infrastructure that would be required to keep mass adopted EVs charged and on the road. People keep looking to the future for sci fi solutions to problems we already have the answers for. It’s a problem of political will, not scientific or engineering capability.
@DERRY1973: A horse needs stables, food, a field to house it, grooming and vet bills. Nah…just buy a bike on the bike to work scheme. ;)
@Brendan Gordon: I think in 10 years EV’s will be looking the way of petrol/diesel cars are now. Shortage of Lithium and cobalt as well as the damage done to the environment from mining it (poisoning of the water table and strip mining the land) , without even mentioning that child labour accounts for the majority of labour mining it, (some as young as fours old), with zero protective equipment. EV’s aren’t the shining light and world savior that we are lead to believe. Hydrogen fuel will be the way of the future, will we see it in our lifetime though, who knows.
@Brendan Gordon: Don’t be wasting your time debating with David he’s a paid contributer on here espousing everything pro govt. Volvo did extensive research a few years back where they worked out that the payback on an eV car would be roughly 600000 to 700000 kilometers before it would be carbon neutral, obviously this didn’t sit well with environmentalists so they were made do it again and lo an behold the figure magically dropped to 40 to 60000 kilometers. Of course the extremely toxic environmental impact of lithium mining extraction, aside from carbon isn’t included in any survey, or the less than ethical cobalt mining in Africa. There’s a lot of inconvenient truths to quote Al Gore’s famous movie that electric car proponents don’t want you to know. Also there’s the cost how can an average family that most would need 2 cars afford 80 grand every 5 to 8 years with bugger all resale value due to battery life expectancy. And all this rubbish about 25 to 20 years battery life, when has this being tested seeing as 100% battery cars are less than 5 years on the road
@Michael McGrath: You are incorrect, perhaps an innocent mistake, or perhaps you were deliberately deceitful. I don’t know. You incorrectly claimed Vovlo says an EV would take 600000 to 700000 kilometers before it would be carbon neutral.
The correct figure for their C40 EVs in Ireland is c. 77,000 km, for a mix of wind and fossil fuel generated electricity (this based on the current average of EU28 electricity mix).
Here’s the report.
https://www.electrive.com/2021/11/04/volvo-reveals-the-co2-footprint-of-the-c40-recharge/
“For all three electricity mixes in the LCA, the breakeven occurs at 49,000, 77,000 and 110,000km respectively, all within the assumed life cycle of the vehicle (200,000km).”
@Alan Biddulph: My car is 14 years old and the petrol tank still fits 100% of it’s capacity.
All it takes is an accident on the M50 or a fall of snow. Biting you nails in a gridlock, bumper to bumper watching your power drain away. We simply don’t have the infrastructure in place. Our national grid is already stretched to the limit, they were talking about blackouts not so long ago. What’s going to happen when suddenly everyone plugs in to charge their vehicle? Meltdown?
@Noel Allan: You obviously have no clue how EVs work – if you’re stopped in traffic the power *isn’t* draining away, that’s the whole point.
@Noel Allan: Also, most EV charging is done at night, on night-rate electricity, when there is loads of capacity. This gets brought up (and explained) every time there is an article about EVs, does no one read the comments?
@Type17: where do heater and lights get their power from?
@Type17: it is if you have heating on
@Type17: if your heater is on its draining your battery
@DERRY1973: but not that much to completely drain your battery, you could say the same about petrol or diesel
@Fuji Hakayito: When I’m on the motorway in our EV, and I switch to EcoPlus mode (heating & aircon off), the range only goes up by about 15km (5% of max range), so it’s pretty negligible, unless you’re trying to scrape out every last km (only an issue if you’ve planned things very poorly).
@Type17: I seen a test were an EV owner heated a car in winter with it just parked. Lasted a couple of days or more.
I’ve owned an EV now for nearly 4 years and although the benefits are great in terms of savings (free charging at work), toll road discounts, low yearly tax. I have to highlight the serious negatives. After coming from owning petrol and diesel cars before the EV purchase I can’t stress enough the joy of filling up at the pumps and gone again within 5 minutes. There is extremely poor infrastructure in place for charging your EV while on the road. Charge costs doubling in the past years to queuing at rapid chargers waiting your turn with no other options. It takes 30 minutes on average per car to charge up and at times you might have 2 other cars in front of you. So when you sum things up you really have to consider if its the right choice for you to invest in an EV at this moment in time
A lot of people in for a shock if that report is true, you could hardly tow a trailer with EV’S without the possibility of damaging the electrics, insurance company’s won’t pay out in a lot of cases of this happening! Also with the cost of electricity, who wants to pay to charge a car or even install a plug point in your home? Can’t see any advantages to EV at the moment. Car company’s don’t have a choice but to push the sales tho!!!
@et: There is no issue towing with an EV, they are a great tow vehicle. It would effect your range but unless you’re towing cross country (more than 200km) it’s not an issue.
There’s no issues with insurance either.
@Robert Conneely: I’ve yet to see how an EV could possibly tow a 7m Rib from Dublin to Kerry or Clare.
@Robert Conneely: Most EV’s run the risk of damaging the cars electrics by towing caravans/ heavy trailers..no garage will tell you this!
@ciaran enright: but you wouldn’t use a car to pull that either
@Conchuir: yes you would use a diesel car to pull a caravan/trailer, it’s a known fact that you CANNOT pull a caravan with an EV.
Price is the issue
@Michael Mulcahy: Simply stated.
Yes, I’m “contemplating” buying a EV :) and will do so for another 5 years or more at least. Too expensive (as is the insurance), real life range is risible and charging prices on the road are a ripoff.
As long as there’s no cold spells!!
EV’s love the cold ….
Cost of charging EVs gone up by 50% .An absolute f@#%#@g rip off.Costs me 7 euro to fully charge my hybrid and that gets me approx 45 km and takes over 3 hours to charge .Paying for petrol virtually the same. Look before you leap I say.
Help the environment and look after the car you have !!!! It’s so simple ! Stop upgrading your SUV every 3 to 5 years just for a school run .. it’s ridiculous and pure vanity .
@Aunties: Revenue.
Government should do more to incentivise purchasing electric cars, making the option attractive, giving people “guts” to tackle range anxiety and the challenge of changing driving habits to adapt to EV ownership, such as:
conserving power
taking breaks on longer journeys (and recharging)
planning the journey ahead
Norway did all this, as well as getting businesses on board with improving the electricity infrastructure to meet the increasing number of EVs in society.
It’s a textbook example lots of countries should learn from, particularly Ireland, which has roughly the same population, and only a fifth of the land area to deal with.
I know we have some incentives, but there are talks of removing some too, like the SEAI grant (which currently is up to €3500) already — too early!
Ev’s are only worthwhile if traveling a reasonably long distance to work and back every day with the ability to recharge using a cheap source such as solar panels at home.I see plenty of lunatics spending 50 to 60 thousand on Ev’s when they only travel about 10 to 20 miles a day but just like all the glass fronted mansions being built..They have to keep up with the neighbors even if it means they can barely afford to eat.
When the annual car tax is normalised for EV’s in a couple of years it will be interesting to see what it will cost. I currently pay over €600 for 15yo ICE car and probably a lot more tax annually on the fuel. Add into that the VAT on servicing consumables such as oil, brake pads, man power costs etc. I suppose they could put some extortionate carbon tax on the batteries themselves, the tyres maybe or introduce an actual road tax akin to the RTE tax and make everyone pay.
Quite the difference from our near neighbours. I just can’t believe its 70% here sorry.
Can’t understand how anyone would buy a new standard car that is not an EV.
@Donal McCarthy: can’t believe the people who pretend they care about the environment and buy a new EV or hybrid SUV every three to 5 years !?!?!
Like just look after the Vehicle you already have !!! They can run to 300k +.
It’s just vanity
@Donal McCarthy: If you live in a house that doesn’t have a driveway so can have a charger going from house to street.
@Donal McCarthy: Why??
I wonder what the second hand market will be like in years to come. Considering longevity of batteries will people want to buy second hand EV’s?
have your say