Spike O'Sullivan: In this age of influencers we don’t have enough real role models like Craig O'Brien
INSPIRING STORY: On Saturday night Craig O'Brien co-headlines the first major professional fight night in Dublin for years and one of the biggest since the Regency Hotel shooting in 2016. Pic: INPHO/Dan Sheridan
Never meet your heroes? I had one of mine sleeping in the spare room on Monday night.
I’ve met Craig O’Brien hundreds of times over the past eight years. And he’s still a hero, a real-life one who is making the world a better place.
Craig’s a teammate at Celtic Warriors Gym and was down in Cork for a couple of days ahead of a hell of a big weekend for him. On Saturday night he co-headlines the first major professional fight night in Dublin for years and one of the biggest since the Regency Hotel shooting in 2016.
Craig’s a naturally gifted middleweight, he’s fast and athletic, was a great football player and brings that footwork to his fighting too. He can be a joy to watch. I’ve been open with him that I think he’s probably underachieved in the ring so far: he’s 12-3 going into Saturday when he faces Pavel Albrecht, a Czech fighter. But he’s ravenous now to get the kind of consistency and momentum he has lacked.
But from when we first met in late 2014 to the man I know now, I just marvel at Craig’s journey. The short story, because no doubt once I let him speak he’ll give ye the long version, is that he went down a wrong road. Or a few of them. He was an addict and was in and out of prison, spent his 21st birthday behind bars in Mountjoy, and lost some friends to addiction issues too.
He’d been a gifted athlete as a young fella but kept finding himself down those roads. Something switched in him in 2014 and he came into Packie Collins’ gym and I always remember my first time sparring him thinking ‘who’s this skinny lad knocking the bollocks out of me?’ I didn’t know any of his previous issues at that stage.
He turned professional in 2015, won his first eight fights and picked up a couple of nice BUI belts along the way. Seeing him put his own life in order was impressive enough. But it’s what he’s done since that’s made him a real hero in my eyes. He got interested in social work, got a diploma, went on to UCD and is now finishing his degree.
All the while he’s thrown himself into helping young people from the same parts of inner-city Dublin where he found his wrong roads. He’s making a huge impact on so many lives and seeing as he’s never one for blowing his own trumpet, I’ll have to do it for him in a national newspaper. When he was down with me this week I asked him about turning it all around.
“I had an addiction in my late teenage years. I was on diazepam, sleeping tablets, any pills you had, give them to me and I’ll take them,” he says. “I was taking serious amounts of stuff every day. Smoked loads of weed, loads of blow and out running through the streets, robbing and getting involved in things we shouldn’t have.
“My own brother has a heavy drug addiction with heroin. I have a cousin who passed away after an addiction through alcohol when he was only 38. That was March 2018, I remember it so clearly. Wayne was in hospital in the Mater which is a stone’s throw from my house. I fought in the National Stadium on a Saturday night, woke up Sunday and said I’d go up to Wayne and bring the belts up. I went up and the nurses were saying ‘was that you last night fighting on TG4?’ People across in the other beds were yapping away too. We had a laugh and I took a photo with Wayne.
"I went to Orlando on the Tuesday and on the Thursday I got a call to say he was in a bad way. From the Sunday when I was with him and he was brand new to the Thursday, when he died… That was it. I said I’m going to get involved in addiction here.”
He got involved with a group called Urrús and did a Level 5 cert on addiction there, turned that into a diploma and now is in UCD getting his degree while working two days a week with young people with T.R.Y. which stands for Targeted Response for Youth and Solas in Dublin 8. I’ve joined him on some of his sessions and it’s inspirational to watch him inspire them. I’ve always said I’ll go talk to anyone or any group if it helps even one person. Craig is helping loads of them.
“I’d done work with hard-to-reach young people in the flats who are getting involved in crime, selling drugs,” he says. "We try to bridge the gaps. I love the work. It feels important when you’re connecting with them. They listen to me. Well, they listen to me a small bit! They know I’ve been there, I’ve done it, I’ve lived it and I’m not acting the bollocks with it.
“All four of us in T.R.Y. have lived experience and life stories that honestly you wouldn’t believe. That lived experience is key. We grew up in the flat complexes like they have and we found that trouble too. It makes it that much easier to connect.
“It’s good to have boxing in the background for me too. It gives me something to connect with them straight away. Some of them only know sports, you go in there talking about school with them and you get nothing. But talk Manchester United and football and it starts from there.”
I know that Craig’s a role model to his own four children. He was telling me how much he’s looking forward to his two eldest, Halle and Craig, carrying his belts into the National Stadium on Saturday. Darragh and Noah are too young for the fight nights but they’ll have some great videos to watch in a couple of years. But he’s a role model to young people across Dublin too. He’s smashing down boundaries, boxing live on DAZN and TG4 at the weekend and then studying at UCD on the Monday morning, having left school at 14 without a Junior Cert back in the day. Unreal.
In this age of influencers we don’t have enough real role models around the place. Which is why we should celebrate the ones we do have.
With everything else he has going on, Craig thought about hanging up the gloves in the past couple of years. “I was pissed off with it at times,” he whinges like a true Dub. But no, in seriousness and as much as I’d prefer I wasn’t the old fella in the gym, the younger lads come to me for advice. I told Craig in no uncertain terms to stick with it. Some of the best boxers have made it just as they were about to walk away.
“I remember saying to you ‘I might throw the towel in…I’m not getting the fights here’. You played a big part in me sticking with it,” he says, which means I now owe him a fiver for the compliment.
“I’m delighted to be co-headlining on Saturday night and I know from a promoters’ point of view, they’re keen to build. There should be no reason why I’m not getting three or four fights in the next 18 months.
“My last few fights have been everywhere but Ireland. I’m bringing a massive crowd to Dublin and it’s exciting. I was getting tired with it last week but I'm starting to get the buzz now and the butterflies. I’m looking forward to walking out there with the kids and then putting a show on. I couldn’t ask for any more than that.”
No better man.
Saturday’s card obviously has plenty of interest when it comes to our gym. It’s so great to see Ray Moylette get back in there for his first fight in quite a while. He’s such a talented boxer, I’ve all the time in the world for him. Daniel O’Sullivan is having his second pro fight too and he’s going places.
But I’m especially delighted to see the Cork connection find new energy. The first ever boxer who Packie took on was Billy Walsh from Cork, then myself and now it’s all come full circle. I brought a lad to the gym called Cathal Crowley. He lives about 100 metres from me as the crow flies in Togher and has a lot of potential. Let’s hope his debut is one to remember.
