Late Late Show GAA special: Five talking points, including a touching moment for Patrick Kielty
Patrick Kielty with Joe Brolly and Michael Darragh MacAuley
Opening the first GAA special, Patrick Kielty introduced Charlie Smyth, who spoke about how he went from a goalkeeper to an NFL kicker. Smyth is the first intercounty player to join the NFL, becoming part of the New Orleans Saints team last week.
“When the New Orleans Saints came looking it was hard to say no, to be honest,” he said.
“When you sign with an NFL team it’s just so surreal. The support from back home has just been incredible.” He described the sport as being quite similar to football, which he has played from a young age.
“It’s very similar to hitting a free in football, just like hitting 45s which is what I’ve done from no age,” he said, explaining how the NFL ball actually gets higher into the air than a Gaelic football.
The qualified teacher quipped that his NFL paycheck is “slightly more than the starting salary as a teacher”.
Among the guests on Friday night’s show were the women who played against each other in the first All-Ireland final for ladies’ football.
The players shared their experiences and thoughts on how women's football has evolved in Ireland over the past 50 years.
Speaking about the growing crowds at women’s matches today, Offaly captain Agnes O’Gorman said it was mostly family and friends in attendance in 1974.
“A good number turned up on the day alright but not to that extreme. We didn’t even have jerseys, we had to source our jerseys from the men’s team,” she recalled.
Their segment highlighted just how far ladies' football — and women’s sport in general — has come in recent years in terms of support and attendance.
Dublin footballer Michael Darragh MacAuley joined the programme to highlight his family’s battle with lung disease and his sister’s lung transplant.
MacAuley’s father died of lung fibrosis — the same condition his sister had and a disease that runs in his family. He said it brought back difficult memories when some of the nurses caring for his sister were the same people who cared for their father 10 years earlier.
“It's been a bit of a roller coaster. Luckily, we have Margaret here today, which is fantastic.” He said he was in the gym when he learned Margaret was getting a transplant and he became emotional.
“I got the phone call that she got it and I ended up just bursting into tears. I didn't even know I needed to do that but I suppose it's just been weighing so heavily on us for the last while. I think people just thought I couldn't lift the weights in the gym.”
He urged viewers to consider becoming organ donors.
“A lot of people don't understand the process. And the most important thing you can do is have that conversation with your next of kin and your loved ones that you would like to be an organ donor, you would like to save lives.”
GAA pundit Joe Brolly revealed when he came to believe the curse on Mayo footballers is real.
In 2017 Brolly says he was so convinced the county would win the All-Ireland, only for an unprecedented event that he is suspicious of.
Mayo County Board made a special jersey. I brought the jersey [to the studio] and I had it there. I told everybody that they were going to win. I'm telling you, it was the day that I realized there is a curse on Mayo. They scored two goals and there had never been one [before] — I checked this — there had never been one own goal in the entire history of Al Ireland finals.
Community spirit was very much the focus of many discussions on Friday night, from John Flynn from Co Waterford receiving the very first Late Late Show community spirit award for his work with his local team Mount Sion to Marty Morrissey holding fort at a pitch in Longford to give away two All-Ireland final tickets at a GAA club.
However, Kelty himself was caught unaware at the end of the show when the Sam Magure Cup was brought into the studio by his fellow All Ireland-winning teammates from the 1987 Down team — Kielty mentioned a few times during the show that he was a substitute goalkeeper.
The host was emotional at the surprise reunion, even excitedly pointing out his own brother standing behind him (“That’s our John!”). It was a sweet moment made all the more poignant when his teammate mentioned how proud Kilety’s father Jack was the year they won the All-Ireland.
“We were all talking earlier. We remembered the first person all of us saw when we came off the pitch that day in the tunnel was big Jack from a seat in the Hogan stand,” they recalled.
“Tears of joy tripping him, he was the happiest man in Ireland and he told each and every one of us how proud he was of all of us, not just you two boys but the whole lot. So we'll have a brandy for Jack later on tonight.”
