Seán Walsh: We will always be looking up to Paddy Curtin
The GAA club had asked the parish priest for a special Mass to pray for Paddy Curtin and like a doleful church bell, everyone around dropped what they were doing, sat into the car and made for Moyvane church.
That’s the recurring thing of the last, soul-destroying, eight or nine hours around here. The love that everyone seemed to have for Paddy. More than that. His football colleagues in Moyvane idolised him.
In every rural GAA club, we all look out for The One, and we hope quietly, and not so quietly, that he will bring honour and glory on his family and community. From a very young age, it was obvious to everyone in our club and around North Kerry that Paddy Curtin was something exceptional. A Kerry footballer we would be looking at for a long number of years in the green and gold of club and county.
Leaving his heartbroken family home yesterday, an afternoon in Killarney 15 years ago came to life. A summer Sunday, a Munster final day, Paddy was on the Primary Game team. They formed a guard of honour waiting for the Cork and Kerry senior teams to run out onto Fitzgerald Stadium. He was the first in line, nearest the dressing room. I caught him by the shoulder. “You’ll be running out here someday.” He did.
Paddy had everything a forward required in Gaelic football — power, pace and skill. When he was Under-12, he was centre-half-forward coming out towards midfield, but if we could have afforded to play him there, he was at his lethal best in the full-forward line. He was so big and powerful, he’d come well out the field, win the ball, take it on. And that was it then. It was all over for the defenders. That was Paddy.
In my last year as Kerry chairman, he was a Kerry minor. I was desperate for him to win an All-Ireland, and Kerry were in the final at Croke Park against Roscommon. He had the chance to win the game in the final minutes. If you’d asked me to give the ball to any young fella in the entire country in that moment, I’d have picked Paddy, but he hit the butt of an upright.
His sporting prowess paints only a corner of the picture. What really endeared him to anyone who got to know Paddy was that he was a tough, lovable rogue. He always wanted to live life to the full. And he did.
Paddy had the traits of all good North Kerry footballers — he could mix it and he could play it any way he was asked. You choose, he could take care of himself on the field and if there was a scut misbehaving against any of his players, he could take care of that one too. Being utterly fearless brought adoration from those around him, those who wanted to be protected by him.
At Monday morning’s Mass, they all sat together, his friends and colleagues in Moyvane colours, praying for a miracle. The club mobolised itself because that’s what we do, and all we knew to do this week was pray for him. It’s impossible so I won’t try to put into words the despair, the desolation, and total devastation that has befallen Moyvane and North Kerry. But whatever hurt we are feeling is multiplied a thousand times for John and Eileen, Linda and Evelyn.
His mother Eileen is broken, like any mother would be for her darling son. John will be home from Florida tomorrow and they will close ranks like good families do. Our GAA club will meet in the next couple of days with the unwavering intention of doing everything that is right for Paddy Curtin and his family, from the moment he lands in Shannon Airport until he is buried. Anything short of that and we are failing in our duty of care and love for Paddy.
My brother Micheal is secretary of the club, Johnny Stack a good chairman. Men who know the importance of Paddy Curtin in Moyvane’s past and its future.
Going back to Johnny Mulvihill and before that, to Bernard O’Callaghan, we would say that Moyvane has produced some good ones. I would say Paddy Mulvihill was an absolutely brilliant club footballer too, though he didn’t play much with the county. But Paddy Curtin was as good and better than those folk heroes. That he is gone from us at 26 is unbelievable.
His meteoric progress was halted by a cruciate injury but he was back in Kerry colours at senior level in 2012, doing all the things we knew he would. In Jim McGuinness’s recently published autobiography, he mentions the moment Paddy almost scuppered Donegal’s All-Ireland dream. Last minute of the All-Ireland quarter-final, Kerry a point down, but Paddy probably rushed the moment.
He went overseas working with Liebherr, and I’ve chatted with him about his time in Brazil. He loved it there. The buzz, the vibrancy of the place. Guatemala the same. We knew he wouldn’t be back for this year’s North Kerry Championship but we were building plans around him for 2016. Everything revolved around Paddy.
Moyvane hasn’t had the greatest of times in recent seasons, but we had one of our best days and nights on September 12 last. A North Kerry league final against Asdee, we played some superb football and Paddy got two awesome goals. We won well.
We had one great night. Things stick in your head — and after what’s happened, it will be seared on my brain now. Above in the pub that night, there he was, the centre of attention and his mother and father looking up into his eyes for an hour. I pictured it. They were near me.
We will all be looking up at him now.
Always.
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