Mother of God, Effin Eddie Moroney makes commentary return for another Aherlow county final

This might be Eddie's biggest platform since he became Ireland's first viral sensation in 1993

The great Eddie Moroney

It will be a super Sunday now alright. No doubt there will still be some interest in the Little All-Ireland, Liverpool v Chelsea will attract its fair share, but you now have the big one to contend with: Aherlow v Galtee Rovers in the Tipp intermediate football final, with the great Eddie Moroney making a dramatic return to public life on commentary, for Clubber TV.

HE'S BACK... 🤣

Famed GAA Commentator Effin Eddie returns to the mic - for Clubber TV! 🎙️

🏆 @TipperaryGAA IFC County Final
🏐 @AherlowGaa vs @GalteeRoversGAA
📅 Sunday 2pm
🔗 https://t.co/8RTIDVIpju pic.twitter.com/8xJVOBVrLt

— Clubber (@clubber) October 17, 2024

Of course ‘Effin Eddie’ has done plenty of local commentaries since becoming Ireland’s first viral sensation in 1993. But this might be his biggest platform since he dominated the world of bootleg recording with that famous Aherlow v Nenagh county U21 football final, a match that was, as club stalwart Joe Donovan perfectly summed up, “definitely, probably, the… one of the, greatest days in the history of Aherlow, in GAA circumstances.” 

Even if there will probably be a small bit of a needle there again on Sunday, and it could well be, mother of God, another big night in the Glen, we can’t reasonably expect a repeat performance from Eddie.

But many will tune in regardless, just to be transported back to wherever they were when they saw and heard him first. At a house party in Limerick. Or at a bar in the Bronx. Or a clubhouse in Luton. Or having paid 50 pence into a screening in UCC.

In the lovely documentary by Mick Daniels, The Legend of Effin Eddie, Eddie explains the sad circumstances that left him a little bit worse for wear on that momentous day. His father in law Mickie Foxy O'Brien had been buried the day before, but a video of the final had been arranged and Eddie was a vital cog.

“You could nearly count me out because it was a heavy weekend, that’s the way it goes in the parish, you send them off well. But Gerard (Moroney) said, ‘you’re down to do it. I have Jim Gubbins paid to do it, and you’ve to do the commentary.' I said, 'I’ll be very seedy'.

“We weren’t too healthy at the start. We ate a good old bit of a breakfast and might have had one or two little whiskeys, but sure that’s part of the show, as the fella says.” 

What ensued made household names of Aherlow heroes like Lukey Leonard and The Bear. And the catchphrases echoed everywhere. 

"He’s given a penalty. The bollocks has given a penalty!

"And the referee is looking around and acting the mickey."

“The man with the swollen knee.” 

"There's no crut to that at all."

“Bollocks of a ref!”   

“What a relief. Tis like a tablet.”

"Mother of God, there's going to be a big night in the Glen."

When the video was screened that night, it brought the house down in Moroney’s pub in Lisvernane, in the heart of the Glen. And then it took off everywhere.

Joe Donovan said: "Twas in Cork city where it took root, it took off from there. It’s gone over the world after that, soccer teams and rugby teams and every kind of international team are entertained by it."

Gerard Moroney also traced Cork as a hotspot for viral outbreak. 

"I met Nicholas English, in their shop in Cullen, and he said that tape is really doing the rounds in Cork, have you got it? I had given my copy to The Bear and he had given it to someone else. It was gone around like a hot potato. I had to buy a copy back myself.

"USA 94, Ireland v Italy, the night of Ray Houghton’s famous goal in New York. Some guy in Lattin had a pub over there. My brother in law rang me and he says, ‘I’m over here in America and Eddie is on a big screen here, shouting'. I didn’t believe him, I said you’re halucinating. But that was it."

Not everyone was happy with the exposure Eddie and some of his fruitier language was getting.

Terence Coskeran, then Aherlow GAA secretary, said: “I was contacted by a very prominent member of the county board and he kind of said to me, ‘Jaysus, who done that commentary on that match? It’s a fucking disgrace,' he said. That thing is being played over and over at the Ploughing Championships in Wexford. We’re the laughing stock of the country. He suggested we wouldn’t be doing any more videos without prior permission."

Eddie’s brother Pat added: “There was a bit of controversy about it. Some people thought maybe it was bringing the game into disrepute. But all it was showing was the passion and the commitment and the involvement in a biased way about a game. It was like you were on the sideline. It wasn’t rehearsed, it was natural, it just happened.” 

Tom O’Shea, pivotal to Aherlow's rise over the years, knew the evening of the final that a terrible beauty had been born. “I said to Eddie, there will be people watching that when we are dead and gone.” 

And Eddie confirmed that after the video was played, and played again, there was indeed a big night in the Glen.

“A savage night, a ferocious night, a ferocious week.” 

The Galtee Rovers lads will be on high alert for a repeat.