LAST UPDATE | 29 Jun
IN THEORY, ANYONE can be on radio. Aside from traditional broadcasting, we now all live in an age when the only tool you need to be heard is your phone. There is no barrier to entry into the digital world — podcasts, voice messages, social media, hot takes on every subject. Take your pick.
What is not so easy is the ability to paint pictures with your words. To entertain, to keep your listeners on the edge of their seats. Holding them in the palm of your hand and convincing them that every second counts. While holding court, your accent betrays a strong, solid identity, and you sound like you’re from somewhere. You speak with such a lyrical tone that it soothes the soul. So much so, that even your description of making a ham sandwich resonates with anyone who hears it.
That’s what Micheál Ó Muircheartaigh brought to the airwaves. That exceptional talent, that presence. And that longevity, speaking as the voice of the GAA for 60 years.
We might have all this media to hand now, but I grew up in a simpler era. One radio channel. Then two. One TV channel. Eventually two.
It would be decades before local and commercial radio took off.
By then, many would try to replicate what Micheál delivered week in and week out. None of them would even get close.
Not just on the radio, either. Micheál’s presence was felt in so many places. How many functions have you been at where a local impressionist tried to add some Micheál to the night?
Today, it can be hard to understand how things were in the past. On so many levels.
You have probably seen photos from a bygone era when communities gathered around radios to hear news of what was going on in the world and in sport.
Even with the explosion of radio in the 90s, Micheál was still Micheál.
He was the Michelangelo of radio. His words were the paint. His voice, the brush. Possessed with a lyricism that is unmatched.
David the shepherd who slayed Goliath.
How many times have we heard that comparison in sporting upsets? How many times did he see it happen? Could hurling’s ‘Revolution Years’ as they were known in the ‘90s have had a more fitting commentator?
The Banner Brigade who were no longer the ‘Whipping Boys of Munster’, the Faithful ‘going in the back door and going out the front door’, the dancing at the crossroads after Wexford’s success.
Micheál witnessing all this in real-time added to the romance of it all.
Our heroes. Who we might have met yesterday at the shop. Hanging onto Micheál’s every word. How did he know the corner forward was a mechanic? This was an era before the internet.
He had to find out that himself.
Micheál heroed the postmen. The Irish Army personnel. The farmers, the shepherds. Our neighbours. Our friends. Our homegrown idols.
I’m fortunate to have met many of those who came under Micheál’s gaze. I also consider myself fortunate to have heard Micheál’s real time take on what he was seeing. Knowing the ‘Biggest Rabbitte you will ever see chasing a Fox around Croke Park’. And knowing the Fox. Pat and Joe, further immortalised.
Repeating key elements of the commentaries in the school yard the following day.
As a fan, I listened.
The first time I met Micheál was in 1991. A good year for Tipp and the aforementioned sionnnach, as it turned out.
Former Tipperary GAA County Board Secretary, Tim Floyd asked Micheál to provide the voice-over for the Tipperary GAA Members Club Draw radio ad.
It was recorded at the studios of Tipperary Mid West Radio on St. Michael Street, Tipp Town where I was working in my first job after college at the University of Limerick.
After the recording session, we decamped to The Kickham Lounge on the town’s main street for tea and a toasted sandwich.
En route, we bumped into a neighbour of mine.
Mick O’Dwyer of Mohera, Annacarty, Co. Tipp. A man of few words, long since passed away.
I introduced the pair of them and Mick was in awe of the radio superstar. I advised Micheál that my neighbour kept a greyhound.
Micheál had his line of questioning. A sport that was another of his great loves, ‘Would she make it to Harold’s Cross or Shelbourne Park?’
Suddenly, it was like the pair of them had known each other since primary school, and before the conversation was exhausted I advised Micheál that the toasted sandwich and tea were calling as hunger pangs set in.
There are probably thousands of stories like this. That was Micheál the man. Utterly compelling but always warm, engaging and kind.
The first event I attended in Croke Park when I moved to the Big Smoke was thanks to The Star newspaper, who had Micheál to present their seasonal man of the match awards. He knew more about the players than the players themselves.
Then I met him at Ireland’s sporting Colosseums… Thurles, Fitzgerald Stadium, Clones, Croke Park. Supposedly a media colleague. I dare anyone in broadcasting to deny they had imposter syndrome sitting alongside the man from the Dingle Peninsula.
He had time for everyone. He was respectful to his own fans and fans of the players and most of all, to the players.
When he travelled abroad, which I was also fortunate to do on occasion with him, he was like Ireland’s cultural ambassador. Warmly welcomed across the world by the Irish communities and the communities the Irish found themselves in.
Australia. America. China. The Middle East. And always with a cúpla focal, triggering any Irish in the audience to think maybe we should have paid a bit more attention in Irish class.
The GAA World Games. North American Finals. In the Dubai desert.
If Micheál was on the mic, we may as well have been on home soil.
When he knew where you were from, he would be eager to find out how the club championship was going. Who are the players coming through or gone off the boil? Although he would never say a player was gone off the boil because he was too much of a gentleman for that.
Always a hello. Conas atá tú? Mar a dúirt sé.
A family mourns. A nation mourns. A broadcaster. An Icon. A Laoch.
Heartfelt sympathies to Micheál’s loving wife Helena, his children Éamonn, Niamh, Aonghus, Cormac, Neasa, Nuala, Éadaoin and Doireann, his grandchildren, his sisters Kathleen and Máire and all his relatives and friends.
Micheál may be gone. He was a notable part of Ireland’s cultural tapestry.
But memories of great days through which he is intertwined will never leave us.
Ar dheis Dé go raibh a anam.
Paul Collins is a broadcaster and founder of Ballywire Media.
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