Dara Ó Cinnéide: Mícheál Ó Muircheartaigh gave listeners 'the wonder eye', he elevated the mundane

Mícheál Ó Muircheartaigh in the commentary box before the 2007 Munster SHC final. Picture: Brendan Moran/Sportsfile

• This article is part of our Best of 2024 collection. It was originally published in June. Find more stories like this here.

Dara Ó Cinnéide doesn't want to imagine what Mícheál Ó Muircheartaigh would have been like as a television commentator. He's not sure if it would have suited him. Ó Cinnéide views his fellow West Kerryman as an artist. The joy was in his interpretation of the game, the brush strokes which added depths of local colour.

Ó Cinneide, the former Kerry footballer and now broadcaster, was a close friend Ó Muircheartaigh, who died on Tuesday aged 93. 

"There's even a story of his brother Paddy Mo, Paddy Moriarty, the lord have mercy on him, I think he died in 1997," Ó Cinnéide said during a podcast with the Irish Examiner. 

"He was in Charlie Haughey's company and they were on the tear back west. Charlie's boat was anchored outside the pier in Baile na nGall. They were saying 'We've got to see the Kerry v Dublin game. Is the Kerry v Dublin game on?' 

"They should have been watching it, a Kerryman and a Dublin man. Paddy Mo, Mícheál's own brother said, 'Ah, don't worry, we'll see it better on the radio'. That's exactly it. That's Mícheál.

"He's just painting pictures and giving you what his relation and great friend John Moriarty called 'the wonder eye', the ability to look at something with wonder even if it's mundane. He had that. He elevated the mundane."

Ó Cinnéide believes Ó Muircheartaigh public persona, the one listeners heard on the radio and remember for such descriptive commentary, was very much rooted in the local. 

"The references that he drew forth always came from West Kerry; whether it be the Dingle Races or the top of Mount Brandon or the Pier in Baile na nGall," Ó Cinnéide said.

"That was the well from which he drew and the two personas weren't that far removed. It was a very public personality. He was a person that I never saw in a rush, for a man that couldn't have had much time. There countless incidents and encounters over the years where you thought, 'God, shouldn't you be somewhere else'.

"It's been said countless times since this morning, he was a consummate gentleman. He would not diminish anyone in their company. He was very much someone who was interested in people. He loved the games but he loved the games because of the people that played the games. He loved the yarns about them."

During a Kerry career in which he won three All-Ireland titles, Ó Cinnéide developed a superstition: He had to chat with Ó Muircheartaigh before a big game. 

"I wanted to have a conversation with Mícheál Ó Muircheartaigh in the dressing room before all the big games - even when the game got so bloody serious as it still is. 

"I remember in 1998 when we played Kildare in an All-Ireland semi-final and Niall Buckley was out and it was kept very much under wraps and he would have had that knowledge and he never imparted that knowledge as a Kerryman to Kerry people. He was a professional.

"I think you can go back over all his commentaries and listen to them. He was non-partisan, even though he was a proud Kerryman."

Though he never favoured Kerry in commentary, he did aid the cause in another way, by training the Dublin-based Kerry players during the Golden Years.

"By his own admission, he'd probably say that he couldn't kick snow off a rope but he trained them," said Ó Cinnéide.

"As a friend of his, Tomás Ó Flatharta, said to me earlier today, 'He was kind of a psychologist'. He used to say to Jacko, 'I've never seen you moving better' and then the following week he was even better again! He just knew innately what appealed to people's senses and sensibilities. That was his little contribution to his beloved Kerry, that he'd train the Kerry lads."

If you are tight on time: Gorgeous little 12 mins @ExaminerSport podcast with Dara Ó Cinnéide on his friend and neighbour Micheál O Muirceartaigh: https://t.co/ZAbesmiwEA

— Tony Leen (@tonyleen) June 25, 2024