With Micko at the wheel all roads led to Laois, not through it

When he agreed to take over the O'Moore men, mouths fell open. The gifted Kerryman gave the players and people of Laois the days of their lives. 

HIGH SUMMERS: Mick O'Dwyer takes charge of Laois in the 2006 Bank of Ireland Leinster Senior Football Semi-Final against Dublin. Pic: Ray Lohan / SPORTSFILE

John Bruton wore a smile as wide as the motorway itself as he cut the ribbon on a new £48m Portlaoise bypass in the closing years of the last millennium. It was one of those days when it’s good to be Taoiseach. The frivolities continued as he climbed into a 1936 classic Bentley and embarked on a ceremonial tour of the 12-kilometre stretch that was now winding its way through what had been for centuries a largely undisturbed swath of the rural Midlands.

The new road would take a dozen minutes off the trip from Dublin to Cork or Limerick. Just as significant were the 24,000 vehicles diverted from the county town every single day. Bruton, though, took his eyes off the road and reached for the stars when putting the true value of the asphalt underneath his feet into perspective.