Lover and fighter who lived life to full

Hugh Farrelly charts the colourful career of Mick Doyle, one of Irish rugby’s greatest characters.

HE was a lover and a fighter, he liked a jar, a good yarn and a sing-song. When a great man dies, clichés litter the air like confetti at a wedding, or indeed snuff at a wake, but in Mick Doyle's case, the phrase "he lived life to the full" sums up the man perfectly.

He hailed from Currow, that remarkable village in Kerry which, although besieged on all sides by Gaelic football, still managed to provide Irish rugby with Doyle, his brother Tom and a pair of iconic second rows in Moss Keane and Mick Galwey.