Memory Man Read online

  I’m a regular church-goer; I’ll probably attend Mass about forty-five times a year. But while I can probably be described as religious, or spiritual, I’m not a pious preacher. But if there is a Hell—and I don’t believe for one moment that people burn for their sins—it will be exactly what my Paul went through in his last weeks of life. My version of Hell is the way Paul lost his voice and all movement. It was painful watching someone struggle with losing the power in their arms and fingers and then losing the power to communicate.

  I don’t know how he did it, but Paul did come to terms with it. He had an eternal peacefulness and a total acceptance of his destiny.

  I can still remember him lying in his bed, completely paralysed and unable to open his mouth, and I said to him, ‘I’d love to be able to have a conversation with you, Paul.’ The only thing he could do was smile: if you told him a funny story he would smile, and he would smile for ‘Yes’ when I’d ask a basic question, like ‘Did you get your dinner?’

  He had no response for ‘No’. On this particular day he was slightly grumpy, and I said, ‘Oh, I wish I could do something for you! What’s wrong with you? Are your knees sore?’

  It was a perfectly legitimate question, because he had operations on his legs from football injuries. ‘Is your back sore? Are you hungry? Did you lose all your money today on the horses?’

  I was running out of ideas, and then I asked, ‘Don’t tell me you want your head scratched!’ He beamed at me with his beguiling smile, and then I knew that he just wanted me to scratch his head—and that’s not much, is it? There he was lying there and he couldn’t even do that much for himself. I just couldn’t begin to imagine what it was like for him not to be able to rub his head to get rid of an irritating itch.

  I don’t really remember my last conversation with Paul, because towards the end he couldn’t speak, so it would have been a one-sided conversation. It was probably something flippant, like ‘You’re a bloody nuisance, wasting my time here talking to myself.’ And he would smile at me—a smile that said, ‘Ah, Da!’ He couldn’t talk, but sometimes he could just about mutter the word ‘Da,’ which would choke me up.

  Yet despite the lack of communication he knew everything that was happening to him, because your brain is the last thing to go. Surely that is Hell, don’t you think?—a capacity to know you can’t do something. I’ve often said to people that this is my definition of Hell, while Heaven for me is peace of mind and peace of spirit. We don’t often have that, do we? I don’t know when I had peace of mind really—true peace of mind. Perhaps as a child I had it before my father died, but I lost it and have been forever seeking it since.

  Even though we were counting the days, we were still devastated, almost inconsolable, when Paul passed away. The day he died I was doing a match in RTE and everybody posted at Paul’s bedside said they would keep in touch with me. No sooner had I finished the game and the full-time whistle went than my phone rang, and it was Mark. ‘You better hurry up and get here.’

  I said goodbye quickly to all my colleagues and dashed out of the studio and jumped into the car and drove as fast as I could to Paul’s house in Ardee. The journey was a blur; it was one of the few times that I don’t even remember driving there: it must have been a record time.

  ‘Hurry up. Paul is still alive. He’s just about alive.’

  I ran down the corridor, to be faced with what the nurses had told us beforehand would happen. There would be no last pain, there would be no last joke, nothing like those things that can happen in death: he would just turn on his side and die.

  He was trying to hang on until I got there; when I arrived he went quickly afterwards. In the background a television was switched on, and I could hear the sound of a race commentary.

  Paul watched horse racing and would have a flutter almost every day. He was so much into horses that in the late 1980s he cajoled me into getting involved in a horse syndicate. The horse was called Redundant Pal. I can’t remember how much the horse cost: maybe it cost €10,000, which is substantial money now and was much more back then. We were fortunate to get Paddy Mullins, who was one of the great horse trainers, on board.

  I wasn’t particularly into horses, but I did enjoy the experience of going to the races with the other four in the syndicate. I didn’t back very much, on the principle that if there is prize money for the race what’s the point in backing your own horse if there is a chance of losing it?—whereas if there is prize money it saves you losing money. We probably did make a bit off the horse, but I personally didn’t keep books.

  On the day Paul died it turned out that he had backed a horse in the five o’clock, and for once his horse was doing well. When it came to the final furlong his horse was nose to nose with another horse, but Paul died before the race was over.

  It was one of the most difficult moments in my life, standing at the end of my son’s bed, beside his wife, Michele, watching him slip away from this world. The room was full of family members weeping. It was hard to see such a big, tough man go in such a vulnerable way.

  I didn’t want to cry in front of everybody, so I walked out of the room after he died, because I knew that I had to be the strong person there. I had experience of this from when my dad died. My daughters and my other son had to have someone to look up to, so I couldn’t just break down.

  While they all obviously missed him dreadfully, I believe I was probably sadder than anybody else apart from his wife, because we had a very close bond. I had been through the mill with Paul, particularly with going to matches and going here and there, having discussions, bringing him to England to see his heroes playing, bringing him to football and hurling matches. We did it all together.

  Paul donated his brain to medical science, which I thought was a noble decision to make. At his request he was buried beside his mother, because they were very close.

  The day of his funeral was horrendous for us. I was told later that it was one of the biggest funerals ever seen in Stillorgan, which was a great tribute to him. Before his death Paul told us he didn’t want a lot of people saying things about him at his funeral. He said, ‘If anyone is going to say anything I want it to be Dad.’

  Father D’Arcy, who was the priest for his funeral, reminded me that it was Paul’s wish that I would speak but added, ‘It’s a big thing to do, but if you feel you are up to it, do try it.’

  I said, ‘I’ll be delighted to do it for Paul.’

  With great difficulty, I got up and gave the eulogy. I told how I remembered bringing Paul home as a baby, wrapped in a blanket, on the train to Greystones, and how I thought he was the most handsome baby I had ever seen. ‘This baby is now here in a box in front of us.’

  He was an astonishing man, because he did everything his own way. At the funeral I told a funny anecdote about his passion for sport as a teenager. He had said to me, ‘I might need your help for something.’

  ‘What’s that, Paul?’

  ‘You know I’m running in the Leinster colleges championship on Saturday.’

  ‘What can I do?’

  ‘You know I’m playing football for the college in the morning first, and it’s the Leinster semi-final and I have to play. So I have to get from the football to the running.’

  I told him, of course, that I would bring him; but then he added that he had to get to Ballyfermot after the running, where they were playing in the under-sixteen cup semi-final in soccer.

  I picked him up from the Gaelic, in which he scored two goals and five points to help his team win; then he went to the cross-country and got changed—without eating lunch or anything—and won the silver medal in the Leinster championship in a category that was four years ahead of his age; then he got back into the car and pulled off the running shoes and stuck on his football boots, and we arrived at his next destination just in time to play the other match, in which he scored four goals and his team won.

  It was an astonishing performance for one man for one day, and not a bite to eat an
d not a word of whingeing, like ‘I’m tired,’ or anything.

  I suppose he got his love of sport from me, but he wasn’t browbeaten into it. He had come to a lot of sports events with me over the years and had seen the players, and they knew him. He was always playing with the ball, and he also took up golf and bowling; he represented Ireland in the world championships five or six times.

  After Paul’s death RTE planted a tree outside the Radio Centre, half way up on the Donnybrook church side. The powers that be asked me if I would like them to do it, and they had a ceremony in his honour, which for me was both a nice and a sad occasion.

  During the writing of this book I parked my car near the ‘Fair City’ studio, which is near the spot, and I said a little prayer for him, though I wouldn’t do that regularly. It’s still very painful to think about it all; instead I try to dwell on the good memories.

  Chapter 20

  | MORE TRAVELS

  Again I looked to work to occupy my mind after Paul’s death. Happily, there was a Summer Olympics to help distract me.

  I spent about five weeks in Beijing. I got off the plane jetlagged, but I thought Beijing was wonderful. They looked after us well, and we were put up in a nice hotel. We went to the Great Wall of China one day, the Forbidden City the day after, and then to the massive Tiananmen Square, which we found very poignant just thinking back to one man putting himself in front of a tank, which looked like a blip on the television screen at the time.

  It wasn’t a great Olympics for most of the Irish team, apart from the boxers. Countries of our size just don’t have big successes at Olympic Games. Since 1924 Ireland has won twenty-three medals, with twelve of them from boxers, three of which came from the 2008 Olympic Games.

  I covered all the boxing. There were five Irish boxers on the team, and each of them was beaten by the eventual gold-medallist. Kenneth Egan was very close: he was beaten by the Chinese champion, though he should have won, because of his record of having beaten the same opponent four times previously.

  ——

  During the qualification group games for the 2008 World Cup a South African television station rang me, through an agent in Dublin, to request an interview with me. I wasn’t too surprised, because South Africa was going to be the host country. I agreed to do it and went out to the Radisson Hotel, to be met by the television crew setting up their lights and cameras. It was a local crew—in fact I knew them all—so obviously the South African station was using a local freelance crew to keep costs down.

  I was introduced to the South African presenter, and after a few minutes’ chit-chat we got down to the task at hand.

  As the interview began, it was quickly discovered that the sound-man’s big boom microphone was picking up all the kitchen noise, and the whole crew began furiously giving out to him. They then decided that the best course was to put a mike on me. It was a complete mess. When he was putting on the mike this crazed sound-man was scratching his belly, and then he began having a running battle with the interviewer.

  The interviewer apologised and in fact told me they had had too many problems with the sound-man over the previous few days. He began telling him, ‘Do as you’re told! You’re dealing with a legend here.’

  ‘I’ll only be told that by the Ledge—right, Jimmy, right?’ the sound-man replied.

  He eventually got the mike on me, and we began again, when suddenly a mobile phone began to ring, and it turned out to be the sound-man’s. I was flabbergasted when he actually answered it. ‘No, I’m at work. No, I’m workin’! I’ll see yeh tonight . . . I’m with Jimmy Magee here—yeah, the legend.’

  After a bit more of this nonsense the comedian Jason Byrne came out and revealed that the sound-man was the one and only Brendan O’Carroll in disguise, and that the whole episode had been organised for the popular television show ‘Anonymous’.

  I think they were a bit disappointed that I wasn’t fuming. When I see it now I think it was bloody funny. All I did throughout the ordeal was simply sigh—but I did ask at one point who was in charge, and said we’d never get it done.

  I never twigged it was Brendan, even though I knew him quite well. He even asked me to appear in his film Sparrow’s Trap, which sadly never saw the light of day, because of funding problems half way through filming.

  My day’s filming was another hilarious event. When I arrived on set I was handed the script and was disappointed to discover that they wanted me to use the ‘f’ word on camera. When I refused, Gerry Browne, the film’s producer and one of its co-stars, said to me, ‘But it’s in the script.’

  ‘I know that.’

  ‘Then just say it.’

  ‘No. I won’t use bad language.’

  Years later Gerry Browne confessed to one of my colleagues, ‘Do you know what? Jimmy was dead right not to use that word, even though it was in the script.’

  ——

  Unfortunately, Ireland didn’t get to South Africa in 2010, because of the infamous double-handball episode by Thierry Henry during the soccer play-off with France in Paris. I was disappointed not only for the Irish team, who—let’s be fair—played France off the pitch that night, but with the bad example in sportsmanship Henry sent out to the youngsters watching that night. He was essentially saying, ‘It’s acceptable to cheat.’ No, it’s not.

  He maintains that he didn’t cheat by controlling the ball with his hand—not once but twice—but I can’t find any other word to describe his action, which led to France scoring the winner. But who is to say that Ireland would have won on penalties? Maybe we would have got to South Africa, maybe we wouldn’t. But France went over and made a holy show of themselves with their internal bickering, and couldn’t even get out of their group. Perhaps it was bad karma.

  I remember the South African World Cup for the wonderful football, particularly by Spain, the deserved winners. It’s rare that the team that is the most attractive on the eye wins these tournaments.

  I also did a few little side trips. I had been there twice before, and I knew where to go and see things I hadn’t seen before. Sadly, South Africa was one of the few places that Marie didn’t get to go with me.

  I enjoyed being in the thick of the action and soaking up the fabulous carnival-like atmosphere at that World Cup. I know many people had been talking before the tournament about the corruption and the worrying amount of crime in South Africa, but I have nothing but good memories of my time in Cape Town, which is just a gorgeous place and one of the world’s nicest places, with friendly—and honest—people, as I discovered one day.

  I wanted to eat in this particular place and I hadn’t got any South African money: I only had a couple of hundred euros. I couldn’t find anywhere to change it, so this waiter said she would get it changed, as there was a bureau de change up the street. I gave her €200, and off she went. She arrived back shortly later with the South African equivalent. Now, there are not a lot of places where you could do this and the person would come back.

  There was one fantastic day in March 2009 that will forever live on in my memory. It started with Ireland winning the Grand Slam in Rugby and ended that night with Bernard Dunne’s world title fight.

  In rugby, Ireland had previously only won one Grand Slam, in 1948, until that fateful day in 2009 when Brian O’Driscoll led them out to win it again. Later I sat at a dinner with Brendan Bowyer—a man who has seen all the rugby greats—when he was getting the freedom of Waterford. He said that night that Brian O’Driscoll is ‘morally, physically, mentally’ the toughest man on a rugby pitch, that nothing fazes him. I agree with him; but if you had to pick Ireland’s greatest sportsperson then you’d also have to put Seán Kelly and Stephen Roche into the mix for consideration.

  ——

  After the Grand Slam victory that night I headed down to the O2 Arena at the North Wall to do the commentary on the Dunne fight. I’ve been up close to Bernard throughout his career, so being there that night watching him win was very special for me.

&n
bsp; It was the night also when the woman boxer Katie Taylor got into the ring before the fight. As I said on commentary that night, she is the most spoken-about Irishwoman: everybody was talking about her, but nobody had ever seen her, and here she was on what turned out to be a momentous day in Irish sports history, in front of this big audience on live television. Whatever reputation she had before she now had a ‘live’ reputation, and people now knew who she was and how talented she really was. Last year (2011) Katie won the European title again—five in a row, and four world titles in a row. She is just unbeatable. In my opinion she is Ireland’s greatest contemporary sportsperson.

  ——

  Last year I was travelling through Castlebar when a boxing promoter named Michael Hennessy left a voice message on my mobile phone: ‘Jimmy, will you call me? It’s a matter of urgency.’

  I returned the call. He asked me if I was interested in doing commentary in Britain. I said, ‘The answer is yes; however, I’m tied into a contract . . . but tell me more.’

  He said he was going to get Mark Sharman, who used to be head of Channel 4 and was now putting together a boxing package for Channel 5, to give me a call with the details.

  When Mark eventually phoned me he said, ‘You’re the man I want for this. There’s no major terrestrial boxing in England any more, but Channel 5 is doing it, and the first big fight is Tyson Fury and Chisora.’

  I told him I couldn’t do it, because it was such short notice. He then admitted that they thought they would have someone else but couldn’t get them, and he was told, ‘There’s only man to get, and that’s Jimmy Magee.’

  ‘Anyway,’ I told him, ‘I’ll think about it.’ And I did. In fairness to them I must say that a few people in RTE said to me, ‘Go for it,’ but unfortunately the right person didn’t tell me to go for it, and I wasn’t going to have a situation similar to what occurred over my deal with UTV. After all, RTE is my bread and butter. So I had to say, ‘Thank you for thinking of me, but I can’t do it.’