Michael ‘Gazzy’ Collins: From serving Hollywood stars to road trips with Davy Fitzgerald
Michael Collins about to leave home in Hurlers Cross, Co Clare, for Wexford this week. Picture: Eamon Ward
Michael “Gazzy” Collins is not 83 until next month but that hasn’t stopped some of his friends already adding on a year. “Davy would be introducing me as being 83 and I'd be correcting him. 'Excuse me,' I said, ‘You might be a tactician, you might be a manager, you might be a motivator but you certainly didn’t do honours maths - I'm only 82.'”
As we finish up the interview in a Wexford Park dressing room, Diarmuid O’Keeffe interjects to accuse the freshest octogenarian you are likely to meet of trying to wipe his eye. “He was chatting up my woman a few weeks ago, looking for her number and all,” he laughs.
“She’s a lovely girl,” Collins replies. “You can always admire beauty, you know.”
Collins inherited his nickname from his father whose party piece was laying his handkerchief on the ground while there was Irish music and dancing over and around it. “They would say, ‘That’s great gas.’”
But Collins’ charm and affability are as much distilled after 44 years working in Shannon Airport hospitality, mostly tending bar. Serving American tourists and the odd celebrity like Maureen O’Hara before he took early retirement in the early 1990s, his penchant for making an Irish coffee was made famous by an article in a New York newspaper in the 1980s.
“This lady was one there one day, she was in Duty Free and she was giving out to a colleague of mine. For the craic, he pointed her way and said, 'See that fella over there, he introduced Irish coffees.' She says to me, 'Can you make an Irish coffee?' I said, 'What do you mean? I invented Irish coffee.' Of course, Joe Sheridan did in Foynes in the 1940s but I told her I was the man to make her an Irish coffee.
“She said she had a problem with the cream but I talked her through it. Heated the glass. Spoon of brown sugar, shot of whiskey, nice strong coffee, and cream in the fridge nicely aerated. 'We've established this now,' I said. 'Stir the sugar, coffee, and whiskey and have it to within half an inch of the top of the glass. I know where your problem is,' I said. 'If you don't smile at the cream it will go sour.'
“She took that well and she happened to be a writer. She wrote a big article, I got a call from guys who I knew had bars out there and they were saying I was in the New York papers. They sent me the cuttings.”
The bar that never closed could serve 600 to 700 Irish coffees daily. Named after Sheridan who was employed by Shannon Airport visionary Brendan O’Regan, it was where the Irish welcome was honed.
“Brendan O'Regan always met the staff day and night. He was a brilliant, lovely man. He would walk around with his hands in the pockets and say ‘good morning’ to all the staff. No matter who was coming in, there was a reception of Irish coffees.”
Soon after leaving Shannon, Collins began working for The Food Emporium adjacent to Cusack Park. When Ger Loughnane was appointed as senior hurling manager, the company began catering for the team. The pair became friendly as a result and Collins’ son Derek was also impressing at under-age level for the county.
“I had the key for the stadium and would set up the food in the dressing room for the players and management. On cold nights, I had the heat on. I was involved in Wolfe Tones and my sons were playing and one of them was pretty good. He was on the Clare minor hurling and football team. He wasn't afraid of anything, a big 6ft-4in guy.
“I would be over in Feakle doing functions in Smyth’s Hotel. I wasn't a bad bartender, I could do the business. Ger was presenting medals for some club and I was pretty close to him, I did Santy for his kids. We were good friends but anyway Loughnane had my son in the U21 team and he was pretty okay but he would find it tough to go to training. Loughnane says to me that night, 'Don't blame me, his social scene is a high priority.' He was living the life. I had no problems with him, he was a great young lad.”
In late 2003, Collins received a phone call from Fr Harry Bohan. “'How's it going, Mick?' he said. 'Not too bad Harry, what have I done?' 'Nothing,' he said. 'Will I sit down?' I said. 'No,' he said. 'We're asking you to join the Clare backroom team.' Anthony Daly was manager, Alan Cunningham was selector and Harry was a selector. That's how it started for me with the Clare team. There were seven managers and I was there for 12 years.”
When his services were unexpectedly deemed surplus to requirements in Clare, Fitzgerald needed no invitation to step in.
“He rang me one day, told me he was going to Wexford and would I come with him. I asked for time to think about it but he said, 'No, you're the man I want.' I'd be very close to the family, Colm his son who I'd pick up from hurling training when he was young.”
Collins would also be a regular card-playing partner of Fitzgerald, his mother Nuala, and sister Helen. In their games of 45 in Fitzgerald’s house and The Bellsfort Inn, there are no prisoners.
“There used to be war. We’d play for a fiver but Davy would fight with his mother, he’d fight with everybody. They once made out I pulled out a card from the bottom. It’s not my style to do a thing like that. But Davy said, ‘Helen saw you, Mike Corry saw you, Bomber (James Hickey) saw you.’
“‘You’re ganging up on me guys,’ I said. ‘I’m the humblest guy you’ll meet.’
“‘You’re anything but f-ing humble,’ says Davy.”
Wexford and the group became a haven for Collins and his wife Patsy in 2018 when his son Ronan died. “My son was a captain (with Aer Lingus), a great guy, a very brilliant young man I don't mind saying and he committed suicide. In his book, Davy Fitz wrote about him and my family.
“My God, I'm a fierce Clare supporter and I know all the lads but this is different. Going through Gorey when they won Leinster in 2019, it took us two and a half hours. What Davy Fitz has done for me, I'm indebted to him. He has kept me going.
“I can go back to the 50s and could almost name the Wexford team that beat Cork in 1954. I can remember Clare playing Wexford in the Oireachtas. Jim Carney was a great friend of mine, a great hurler, a great Clare man, left over right. I shared the room with him in Shannon in the 50s but he went off to the States. When he passed away I went to his funeral there.”
Spending time in Wexford also allowed him to renew acquaintances with his old teammate Liam Griffin.
“My great pride was I won a junior football title with Liam Griffin. They brought him back from Germany to play the two county hurling finals but he also played football. I’d often meet him when I’m having lunch in the Ferrycarrig (Hotel) and he’d say it’s important that a Newmarket man is involved. I was O’Callaghan’s Mills but when I moved to Shannon it was in the Newmarket parish and before Wolfe Tones started up. I actually got to play in a team with one of my sons.”
Because of his shifts in Shannon, Collins was also able to work occasionally alongside his sister Angela, the famous steeplejack who prospered after cutting a swathe through the male-dominated industry in the 1960s. “I’d finish in the airport at 2pm and I’d go and help her. She bought a car and a couple of ladders and went out on her own.”
Now it’s Fitzgerald he assists. When they land in Ferns and Wexford Park it’s business but between there and Clare and back there is craic as was the case when on their way to training last Thursday week they were still discussing how Collins was dropped as an umpire last year.
As Collins explains, “A friend of Davy’s, Kevin Corry, I did four matches in Clare last year for him and Davy would do umpiring for him too. He got the county junior A final. I said to Davy, ‘The least I deserved was a phone call. He should have rang and said he wouldn’t be needing me.’
“Davy said, ‘Who the hell do you think you are?’ I said, ‘I’m a human being and I’ve feelings. I did a Munster final with 42,000 people and made no mistake. I did an All-Ireland college final in Croke Park. I’m the most experienced man around.’ I said, ‘Can you put a price on that?’’”
The last line is delivered with the same roguish smile he offered O’Keeffe across the dressing room. “These Wexford lads are unique. I’d be having the craic with them and saying before games, ‘You’re fit, you’re a great yoke, I expect you to score 1-2 today.’
“I enjoy it. At home now, I’m a mile from Shannon and every morning I cycle in and get the paper and a few bits and pieces and I’d meet somebody and I’d be saying, ‘Davy Fitz is keeping me going. He would never say no for an answer,’ and I’m meeting all sorts of people.
“My wife is a great woman, we’re married 55 years like and I’d be telling her when I meet up with somebody I’d be saying ‘I’m married 55 years but I could have done a lot better.’
“‘Hear me out,’ I’d be saying. ‘She was an old peeler’s daughter, she was an only child and I saw the bit of security. I had Duty Free, the beautiful woman of Ireland were working there. I could have done a lot better but I saw the bit of security!”
And with a chuckle off Collins goes to puck ball with the Wexford players before training. A heart ever so young.
CONNECT WITH US TODAY
Be the first to know the latest news and updates
