Francis Brennan on a cricket match that went wrong: 'I was speechless that a priest would use a bad word'

Hotelier, TV personality, and Age Friendly Ambassador for Kerry Francis Brennan tells Helen O’Callaghan how a single brush with cricket on a freezing March day in the 1960s confirmed for him he wasn’t — and never would be — sporty

Francis Brennan: 'So now I’m dangling two feet off the ground, Fr Matthews holding me up, he drops me down, pulls me back up. “You’re supposed to catch the f***ing ball”.'

I didn’t get on great with the Christian Brothers in primary school, Westland Row — they murdered me. In those days, you just got on with it; you didn’t tell your parents.

I went into first year at the Catholic University School, Leeson Street, around 1968, a Marist priest-run school at the time — it was like Butlin’s compared to Westland Row. The whole way they taught, developed you, was completely different. I got to love school.