'I'm a private person' — Former Dubs star Diarmuid Connolly not missing GAA spotlight

The mercurial St Vincent's forward bowed out with a fistful of Celtic Crosses after a glittering career with Dublin.

FRIENDS REUNITED: BoyleSports ambassador and Dublin legend Diarmuid Connolly, right, came face-to-face with Mayo legend Lee Keegan on Clonliffe Road on Tuesday. Picture: Stephen McCarthy/Sportsfile

Diarmuid Connolly never had much time for the media when he was a Dublin player.

Once, when he sat down for a rare roundtable with journalists in 2016, he noted that he was only doing it to fulfil his obligations as St Vincent's captain.

He was glad to leave that side of the game behind when he announced his inter-county retirement in 2020.

"It's still following me around a little bit," the six-time All-Ireland winner says with a grimace.

How so?

"This!" he replies, gesturing to the recording device in front of him and the interview he is taking part in which has been organised by bookmakers BoyleSports.

"I'm a private person," he explains. "Sport is sport, it's a hobby at the end of the day. I try to keep my private stuff private. Mostly, that's been respected. Sometimes it hasn't been. And that pisses me off, to be honest with you. If someone did step out of line like that, they just wouldn't get access again. That's how it works.

"But no, I just...I'm a private person. I'm not mad about the media stuff. I think it has a place obviously but it wasn't really for me. Some lads really thrive on it but it never really interested me all that much."

A little like his playing colleague Stephen Cluxton, the lack of access to gifted attacker Connolly over the years only made him an even more compelling subject.

Much of what was written, said and speculated about the soon to be 36-year-old was in the context of his and Dublin's battles with Mayo. Half of Connolly's All-Ireland medals were earned following final wins over Mayo, between 2013 and 2017.

His rivalry with Lee Keegan - 'he's a sound lad, a good guy', says Connolly now, speaking at the same BoyleSports promotion that Keegan is attending - is well known but he has never gone into the turbulent buildup to the 2015 semi-final replay.

Sent off in the drawn game following a wrestling match with Keegan, Connolly went all the way to the Disputes Resolution Authority in a bid to clear his name for the replay the following Saturday evening. In the early hours of that Saturday morning at the Regency Hotel in Drumcondra, the DRA hearing was still going.

"I was told to go home, it was half three or a quarter to four in the morning, in the Regency," recalls Connolly of the DRA hearing that he attended with then Dublin manager Jim Gavin. "Jim just turned around and says, 'Look, you need to go home and get some sleep'. So I got home, got in the front door and Shane O'Hanlon rang me and told me, 'Look, you're ready to go the next day'.

"We sat down that morning, me and Jim, and he was like, 'Do you want to play? Do you want to start?' In the back of my head - of course I wanted to start - but in the back of my head I'm thinking, 'I'm f****d here'. I said it to Lee, we were just having a conversation there, and I said to Lee that, in hindsight, probably if he had played more of his game rather than focusing on me, he probably would have had a better game in that replay.

"I was wrecked, I came off after 50 minutes I think. I probably shouldn't have started really. There was just so much that week, all the energy was sapped out of me. We were there until stupid o'clock. I still give out to Shane O'Hanlon about this, he rang me at four o'clock in the morning with the result. But sure then I couldn't sleep for the next two hours because you were so excited! If he f***ing waited until the next morning, at least I might have got a bit of sleep."

Dublin beat Mayo in the end, won the All-Ireland and went on to complete six-in-a-row in 2020 with another final win over the westerners that year. It was only in 2021 that Mayo finally gained some revenge with an extra-time semi-final win, their first in the championship against Dublin since 2012.

Connolly, meanwhile, had retired at that stage. He'd told his family and friends he was gone after 2018 but was coaxed back by Gavin in 2019 and won another All-Ireland.

"When I came back in '19, I wasn't the same player that I was in '17 or '16, or the years previous when I was the one driving the standards. I'd been the one doing the extra stuff. I was the one getting up early in the morning. But I wasn't doing that. It's something that changed, do you know that sort of way? I just seen the bigger picture and yeah, I'd enough of it at that stage."

He swears he doesn't miss it and, between injuries and work, hasn't played club football in a year. Recently he agreed to make a hurling return with the St Vincent's seniors under Pat Gilroy.

As for Dublin and their latest date with Mayo, Connolly shrugs, acknowledging that they haven't been truly tested yet this year.

"It's an advantage in a sense that Mayo have played more top-level opposition in the last couple of weeks but, for Dublin, I think coming in fresh will suit them too," he says.

His hope is that Dublin can win the All-Ireland, for James McCarthy.

"I'd love to see James win one as captain, he has been the standout outfield player for me for the last 15 years for Dublin."