TWO months ago, Fadi and Jumaa Assi were gathering firewood outside their tent in the Khan Younis camp. After it’s annihilation, almost all of Gaza’s population now live in tents. Their father Abu, who is paralysed and wheelchair bound, was waiting for them anxiously inside the tent when he heard neighbours screaming. An Israeli drone […]
CONOR ‘Sketches’ Moore has a skit where he mocks me as a name-dropper. I don’t know where he got that from. On the evening of the 2024 All-Ireland final between Armagh and Galway, I chatted with the Taoiseach, then took a phone call from President Biden. That night, I had a drink with the music […]
NORMAN Mailer wrote: “There is always a shock in seeing him again. Not live as in television but standing before you, looking his best. Women draw an audible breath. Men look down. They are reminded again of their lack of worth.” He was talking about Muhammad Ali, not David Clifford. Kerry’s opponents start with a […]
THE glamorous brunette was on the Late Late Show GAA special on Friday night. The Sam Maguire was in the middle of the foyer. She said everyone was walking up to it, touching it, getting photos. Then the Dingle boys came in and walked straight past it as if it wasn’t there. Every game I […]
IT all started with the Derry Board appointing Mickey Harte, which was like putting Vladimir Putin in charge of America. When Mickey took over we had just won two consecutive Ulster Championships and were beaten at the death by Kerry in the previous year’s All-Ireland semi-final. After Donegal humiliated us in the first round in […]
I WAS talking to a barrister from Warrenpoint on Monday morning. He watched the Ulster final in his local. He said the whole place was cheering on Scotstown. “You weren’t supporting Kilcoo?” “F*** them.” It was a vast relief for Scotstown after nine previous failed Ulster campaigns. The standard of football was middling on an atrocious […]
IT is hard to imagine a better game than Scotstown v Newbridge. When Scotstown were nine points up, they did not blow the lead. In fact, they scored a superb imaginative goal in the middle of the Newbridge comeback. Newbridge simply played extraordinarily well during that spell. The excitement in injury time was off the scale. […]
SINCE Rory Beggan, Conor McCarthy and others won their first Monaghan senior title in 2013, they have gone on to win it nine more times. Ten Monaghan titles in 13 years, before going on to lose all nine previous times in Ulster. Writing it down emphasises how extraordinary their losing streak is: 2013, 2015, 2016, 2017, […]
I DON’T watch soccer. It reminds me of a sporting Love Island, all meticulous hairstyles, ultrabrite teeth, tattoos and superficial sportsmanship. Give respect, get respect, except when you are diving to feign injury to get an opponent sent off. The end of it for me was when I heard that Cristiano Ronaldo had a clause […]
BEFORE the Ulster Championship matches at the weekend, I got a text from Ruaidhri Currie, a good Rossa man. “Going to have a flutter. Loughmacrory or Kilcoo? Newbridge or Madden?” I texted back, “Kilcoo and Newbridge. Winning the county championship was the other two’s wildest dreams fulfilled. Impossible for them to adjust their sights to […]
