Tomás Ó Sé: The night Cork and Kerry squared up in the Courthouse

By Tony Leen

It was presumed to be one of the more apocryphal tales of the Cork-Kerry football rivalry.

A late night rutting session in a Cork city pub, with Rebel and Kingdom players squaring up to each other — Mick Galwey on one side, Dougie Howlett on the other and a bottle of whiskey in the middle.

Well it appears there was more than a grain of truth in it, if Tomás Ó Sé’s revelations in his soon to be published autobiography, ‘The White Heat’ can be taken as fact. Ó Sé dedicates an entire chapter of the book to his relationship with Cork, where he has lived for 15 years and retains relative anonymity — “half the Munster team lived in Douglas, sure why would they have paid attention to me?”

Mind you, there was one evening in 2008...

O Sé writes: “We beat Cork in the All-Ireland semi-final and the following night myself, Tom O’Sullivan, David Moran and Kieran Donaghy went back to Cork and had a few pints.

“When we walked into Reardons, the whole Cork panel were inside there after a day of it and Doug Howlett, the All Black signed by Munster, was with them.

“We went to a corner by ourselves, because we didn’t want to be raining on anyone’s parade.

“We came across Mick Galwey in there, had a bit of craic, a couple of pints. Grand,” reports Ó Sé.

“When we came out onto Washington Street, yours truly heard some noise coming from the Courthouse Bar over the road. I knew the barman so I suggested we go there.

“But the barman, Mike, said ‘Look, the Cork lads are in there’.

“I said ‘sure there’s no problem’.

“In we went. I knew straight away it was a mistake, though. I saw the bottle of whiskey up on the counter. Trouble.

“Between the jigs and the reels, myself and Derek Kavanagh got into some pulling and dragging. I had a lovely jumper and that was the major casualty from the evening.

“It was all handbags really. The funniest thing was that Doug Howlett jumped off the chair and was ready to get stuck into the ruck only for Mick Galwey to tell him to sit the fuck down or he’d have the head taken clear off his shoulders.”

The following day, things were sorted sharpish, says Ó Sé, who will line out for Nemo Rangers in Sunday’s Cork SFC final replay against Castlehaven.

“I was sorry because I’d have got on with Derek’s brother, Larry and all the Nemo lads. I got a buzz from Derek the following day and it was all sorted out straight away. No problem.

“The stories that went around Cork after were far better than the reality.”

‘The White Heat’ by Tomas Ó Sé will be launched on Sunday night in Killarney.

This story first appeared in the Irish Examiner.