Happy 90th Micheál. How we could do with your summer magic now
GAELTACHT ABÚ: Micheál Ó Muircheartaigh congratulates Dara Ó Cinnéide on Gaeltacht’s success in the 2017 Comórtas in Mayo.
The much loved Kerryman, Con Houlihan, was fond of Greek poet Constantine Cavafy and his immortal lines "in those streets and fields where you grew up, there you will live and there you will die."
Never did those words ring as true as when listening to Micheál Ó Muircheartaigh’s deeply personal interview with my colleague, Helen Ní Shé, on our programme earlier this week on Raidió na Gaeltachta.
It is almost ten years since Micheál said goodbye to sports commentary but his phenomenal contribution to Irish sporting summers didn’t just stop there at 80 years of age. Every summer Monday since 2010 Micheál and Helen have engaged listeners with reflections on the previous weekend’s GAA action and the conversation never disappoints.
So, with Covid restrictions in place, no summer games to reflect upon and Micheál a few days shy of his 90th birthday, Helen decided, this week, to take a socially distanced ramble down the bóithríní and fields of Dún Síon with Micheál as a willing and able guide to the realms of his youth.
Micheál described fields such as Páirc na Rós, Gort an Aitinn, Gort na Droinne, Páirc an tSiúicre and An Rúis (Russia), a rocky outcrop towards the cliffs of Dún Síon, named for its vastness and barrenness.
He then went on to speak of the five or six liosanna (forts) in the townland and of those on whose property these forts are to be found. On the borderlands between Dún Síon and Binn Bán is Lisín an Chomhraic (the small fort of the battle) where many years ago a great battle was fought between two tribes. You could sense the excitement in Micheál’s voice as he recited a verse in respect of that battle;
In Micheál’s description of how 200 Seáns and 200 Dónals waged war on a small patch of land east of Dingle there were echoes of Cavafy’s poem Thermopylae. It was easy to imagine the Seáns and Dónals becoming three or four hundred Spartans fighting the impossible battle against thousands of Persians. The same alchemy happened during a broadcasting career that spanned over 60 years from 1949 to 2010 as the small-scale and the local became epic and international under Micheál Ó Muircheartaigh’s gaze.
If actions and great deeds were romanticised, scaled up or exaggerated we sometimes sensed that Micheál was simply doing so to capture the truth of what was unfolding in front of his eyes.
Much of what can be said or written of Micheál’s commentary has already become cliché but the abiding memory that I have of his commentaries is that the further removed you were from the action, the more vivid, the more colourful and the more real the game became.
He had that rarest of gifts of painting astonishing pictures, lyricising in two languages, rhapsodising with pitch-perfect timing and above all, making you love the game and yearn in absentia for the arena.
As news of further restrictions around our games emerged this week and as we move further and further away from the GAA mantra of ‘nothing beats being there’, how we could do with some of the old magic from Micheál, magic that was much part of our summers as blackberries, barbecues and bites from midges.
The were clouds of midges (or corra mhíola) the first time I saw Micheál in action from the commentary box at Comórtas Peile na Gaeltachta in Naomh Pádraig an Fháirche over 25 years ago. As he followed the action out on the field, swaying left to right and occasionally rising to his feet to signal some great gaisce out on the field, he seemed entranced and entirely at one with the game.
I wondered at the time how a man of pension age could summon such energy for an hour-long performance of such exhausting intensity. Later, I learned that the wonder-eye Micheál brought to every game was born of a natural curiosity and a genuine interest in those playing the games.
Two years ago this week, a day before his 88th birthday, I had the great privilege of Micheál’s company as we watched Limerick end their 45-year wait for an All-Ireland hurling title. During a quiet moment, I asked him if he missed the commentating; missed the business of calling a game, of telling the story that captured the imagination and attention of people all over the world.
His answer was simple and direct.
It was, of course a typically pragmatic and humble sentiment but it deliberately missed the point of recognising a glorious and irreplaceable part of our sporting summers.
As he celebrates his 90th birthday today, I wish Micheál and his family continued good health and I am reminded once again of Cavafy’s words in his great poem, Ithaka, where he proposes that it is not the destination that enriches the traveller but the ‘marvelous journey’ itself.
We truly are wealthy with all we’ve gained along the way with Micheál.
Go maire tú an céad a Mhichíl!
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