Michael Darragh MacAuley: 'Mossy Quinn claims I wore long basketball shorts, down over my knees, at my first Dublin session'

Sat, 16 Jan, 2021 - 07:00

Michael Moynihan

The lazy view of Michael Darragh MacAuley is well established.

The Dublin midfielder is an outlier in the GAA, someone with a different outlook to most inter-county players: more interested in the NBA and hip-hop than Gaelic football, maybe.

Nonsense, of course. A player doesn’t dominate his position on the field for 10 years without committing fully to his sport.

What is he saying about American music entrepreneur Jimmy Iovine, then?

“I think Jimmy Iovine could play centre field for Dublin and have 20 All-Irelands if he wanted to, he’s a freak.

“He was so impressive in that documentary, The Defiant Ones. I got up after that thinking, ‘God, I need to achieve more things’, after watching it. What a character.”

How many county players would volunteer that view?

In a wide-ranging interview last week with Jim Carroll of Banter for the mental health charity First Fortnight, MacAuley was funny and candid in equal measure.

The interest in basketball is deep-rooted: he got obsessed with the game in primary school: “I was thinking, ‘I’m going to go to the NBA’. Little did I know I was six inches short and nowhere near good enough.

“That culture got engrained in me, though. It’s different to the GAA.

“It’s not like everyone on the Dublin football team goes around listening to The Dubliners or playing trad and dressing the same way — the lads listen to all sorts of music and dress in all sorts of ways.

“But with basketball everyone is a hip-hop head, everyone can name the back catalogue of Dre and the lads, everyone dresses a certain way.

“That urban culture had a huge influence on our group as I grew up and I tried to fit in, growing up.”

If that meant wearing a Michael Jordan tracksuit for years (“I don’t know how it fitted me for all that time”) so be it, but eventually football came calling. Or a white Hiace driven by his coach in Ballyboden St Enda’s, to be specific.

“From my bedroom I could see it coming down the road, registration 90 D, and I’d say, ‘oh balls’, so I’d go up to the attic and hide in a little boiler room up there. They’d all be screaming for me in the house, my Dad would check and say, ‘oh he must have gone out to a basketball match or something.’

“When they left I’d go back down to bed. So I had a bit of disturbed relationship with football for a while. Someone sent me photographs recently of me as a child playing, and I always had basketball shorts on playing Gaelic. I also wore a baseball cap for most of the games.”

Eventually, however, he fetched up at a Dublin senior training session.

“I wasn’t that big on the club scene, so people didn’t know me when I showed up. I don’t remember this but Mossy Quinn claims I wore long basketball shorts, down over my knees, at my first Dublin session and people were saying, ‘who’s this fella?’

“It’s funny in life, the little opportunities. Things could have gone badly that day and that might have been the end of it. Persevering with things is great but there are little moments, and so many of them have fallen in my favour.”

His determination helped, however.

“Younger players coming up should have a target on our backs, mine and Brian Fenton’s. They should be going out to murder people — in a nice, controlled manner, of course — but that’s it.

“Two of the big ones at the time (he started) were Eamonn Fennell and Ross McConnell, and at the time I was, ‘get out of my way’. Whenever Alan Brogan or whoever had the ball I was ‘whatever’, but whenever they had the ball I was ‘I’m coming after you’.

“I ended up having a bar with the two lads, and they’re two of my best mates now, so all’s well that ends well.”

His day job shows a different side to the player: MacAuley has been seconded from his primary teaching position to work for the Dublin North East Inner City (DNEIC) programme.

“They wanted someone to work in sporting engagement but that job’s gone beyond that since.

“It’s a really interesting project, when I do interviews I always harp on about it and maybe it loses meaning, but it’s a cool initiative, a different way of looking at things.

“There are a whole host of programmes trying to give people opportunities instead of going down the wrong paths, which are everywhere in Dublin and Ireland.”

The men who’ve steered his senior football career are among the biggest names in Gaelic games. Pat Gilroy, Jim Gavin, Dessie Farrell: who was the toughest coach?

“They all have vastly different styles. How do you define toughness? Who runs you the hardest? That was Pat.

“Sports science goes up every year and the GPS data means they’re always pulling you back, but those were the hardest training years.”

Favourite All-Ireland win?

“The first one is always pretty tasty, 2011 was fun with Stephen (Cluxton) doing his thing, putting the ball over the bar.

“I thought there were three or four minutes left so when the game ended I did that lunatic pirouette — and then Marty Morrissey caught me for that ridiculous interview, when I said ‘unbelievable’ half a dozen times.

“I see athletes now giving interviews and doing the same. I should have charged copyright on that.”

And the question that always lurks in the background when a player passes 30: will he play for Dublin next season?

“We’ll see, we’ll see. We’re not even thinking about the old GAA at the moment. It’s that time of the year to be thinking about things.”

On a lighter note, there’s that famous picture of himself and Stephen Cluxton . ..

“What’s going on in that? That was a bit of a celebration, and I have a box of costumes in my house.

“It’s always more fun if you’re dressed up, and for some reason I became a giant rabbit and Stephen (Cluxton) became a raccoon. It seemed a good idea at the time.”

Then comes a long and involved story in which MacAuley gets tickets for an LCD Soundsystem gig from Minister for Finance Paschal Donohue after mentioning his lack of same to the Minister’s family...

“I got a text which said there’d be tickets at the door. Cost, €124.50.

“At first I thought ‘he surely got freebies’ but then I was thinking, well, a Minister for Finance should charge you to the cent. I appreciated it, though. I was in the front row and when the beat dropped on ‘Dance Yourself Clean’... I nearly lost my mind. Much appreciated.”

Much appreciated indeed.