‘I wanted to tell it like it is’
The wall to his right is festooned with promo pictures of players drinking from bottles of Club Energise, but the picture that catches the eye is the A4 sized newspaper cut-out held up with tape.
It's the pre-match Dublin team photo prior to the 1995 All-Ireland final and, for Farrell, it captures emotions far beyond the obvious elation and satisfaction.
He had long promised his girlfriend Noreen that he would ask her to marry him as soon as Dublin won the All-Ireland and he was as good as his word that evening. They were married a year later in Paris.
The irony of it all was that, winning one All-Ireland won him a wife and ultimately two kids. Chasing a second was to cost him his marriage and very nearly his life as well.
In his book, Dessie: Tangled Up In Blue, Farrell details how his ambition, his "obsession with chasing another elusive All-Ireland was to have serious ramifications off the field."
Domestic life became a distraction rather than a relief and, as his commitments to Na Fianna, Dublin and then the GPA multiplied, his marriage cracked under the strain. Soon, so did he. Depression consumed him and, at his lowest ebb, he admits to contemplating suicide.
It's a chapter Farrell recounts with painful honesty. But the question remains: Why do it? Why bear so much?
"Wuthering Heights is probably the last novel I read, but sports autobiographies are hugely interesting to me. You want to get into the mindset of whoever it might be, to see what made them tick, how they operated.
"They always tend to be heroic stories and you put them down feeling really invigorated. That's what I liked and that's what appealed to me. Originally, that was the intention but then I realised there's two type of books.
"There's the one that people read and say, 'yeah, that was so-so, a typical sports book' or it would be another type that says a lot more, that transcends sport. Slowly but surely it changed from one type to another."
He had things he wanted to get off his chest. There was a drink driving incident, the sacking of Tommy Carr, his difficulties with Tommy Lyons and his dealings with the controversial chairman John Bailey. All detailed to an illuminating degree.
Though unplanned, the opportunity to throw the spotlight on the issue of mental illness and suicide became a driving force in doing the book.
"I felt I'd be doing people who work tremendously hard in that area a great disservice if, like most other things in this society that are in any way uncomfortable for people to deal with or taboo, I buried it under the carpet.
"Generally, I was that sort of person. It would have been my philosophy to bury my head in the sand and hope things go away and sort themselves out.
"I said no, it was that prevailing mindset that got me into the bit of bother that I was in. I just wanted to tell it like it was."
As you'd hope, there are also fascinating vignettes from a man who spent 14 seasons togging out for Dublin and the recollection of secretary John Costello taking manager Mickey Whelan for a spin around the pitch in his new car during training is one which stands out.
So too does the story about how Jason Sherlock was apparently close to quitting the squad in the week before the 1995 final but best of all is how they were brought back down to earth after the open top bus tour through O'Connell Street to celebrate that win.
A teenager pulled up on his BMX, looked at them with disdain and exclaimed, 'Yiz f***in' gobshites!'.
Though he played under seven Dublin managers, Farrell devotes an inordinate amount of time to the two Tommys. The extent of his loyalty to Carr and his ire at how he was relieved of his position in 2001 is obvious by the fact he opens his book with a chapter he calls 'Night of the Long Knives'.
Though he gives credit to Lyons where he thinks it due, Farrell makes no bones about his spiky relationship with the former Offaly manager and defends his criticism of him as a "genuine issue that has an impact on Dublin football, on the team's performance over a period of time. They are serious, important issues that the public at large have opinions on."
If there is a defining thread running through the book and ultimately Farrell's life, it is one of ambition, bold or blind. While it cost him his marriage, it fuelled his career to such an extent that Kieran McGeeney one of the GAA's ultimate athletes is a paid up member of his fan club.
Where Farrell differed from most if playing colleagues was his refusal to accept his place in the scheme of things which, in the GAA, often meant at the bottom of the pile.
The machinations involved in jettisoning and appointing managers, for example, infuriated him and he was bold or stupid enough to say so and do something about it, as when he attended the county board meeting that saw Carr dismissed and again two years later when he attempted to orchestrate a mutiny to oust Lyons.
"What these officials don't realise is that they're wasting players' lives here. It's the players who have to train three and four times a week. It's the players who have to make the sacrifices.
"It's the players that have everything to lose and if, through the county board's ineptitude the wrong appointment is made, it's not their lives that are being put on hold. It's the players'," he asserts.
Whether it was his actions on and off the field with Dublin, his readiness to infuriate by bringing success to Na Fianna by importing outsiders or his ongoing activities with the GPA, Farrell has never shied away from the hard questions.
"If there's something not right. Get up off your arse and do something about it. As long as you're not going off on a solo run and you consult and take counsel by speaking to other players and people, then you can make a decision on what direction to take. Sometimes you see it and you see it wrong, but, ultimately, you have to trust your gut and go with your instinct."
Dessie Tangled up in Blue is published by Town House
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