Brothers in Sport

by Donal Keenan

  ‘The GAA has grown so much. Croke Park has made a huge difference. It’s a fantastic stadium and now it has been opened to other sports. We can be very proud of it. It is a fantastic time to be a GAA player. For a lot of the younger guys coming through they are getting a high profile and that is good for them.’

  He feels strongly that his friend Paul Galvin has been the victim of some unfair media coverage. He knows footballers are not saints. He has been in his fair share of scrapes during his long career and accepts without rancour the times he has been disciplined. But he feels the treatment of Galvin has been unjust. He explains: ‘A lot of our so-called broadsheets have a tabloid mentality. More and more the papers have focused on the private lives of our top players because they believe it sells papers. Paul Galvin sells papers. No one takes into account the effect it has on these lads as individuals, on their families and the communities in which they live. The way things are reported gives a false impression of what these people are really like.

  ‘Paul Galvin plays on the edge. That is what makes him so exciting to watch. But any incident in which he is involved is blown up, when most of them are innocuous. The coverage is not consistent. You are never told that he is always the first to training, that he puts in the hours and that he is so committed and dedicated. I read some of the stuff and get frustrated because I think “that is nothing like the guy I know”. I know that what I’m reading is misleading but some guy in another county might read it and you could forgive them for thinking “what’s this headbanger at now?” I would be afraid that there will be major problems down the line because this coverage has gone too far. The media is crucial in terms of creating a profile. That profile helps bring in funding which is important. And young guys can get jobs – even in this economic climate – because of their profile. But the media has to act responsibly and at times it doesn’t.’

  The Ó hAilpín Brothers

  From Fiji to Na Piarsaigh: Seán Óg, Setanta and Aisake Ó hAilpín celebrate Na Piarsaigh’s success in the Cork senior hurling championship in 2004. © Matt Browne/SPORTSFILE

  ‘Is fada an turas é ó Fiji go Corcaigh …’ The remainder of the opening line of Seán Óg Ó hAilpín’s victory speech on the steps of the Hogan Stand in Croke Park on 11 September 2005 was drowned out by the appreciative roar from the tens of thousands of Cork hurling supporters who had poured onto the hallowed surface to celebrate the county’s thirtieth All-Ireland Senior Hurling Championship success.

  With an eloquence few could muster in such a cauldron of emotion, the Cork captain spoke as Gaeilge for almost four minutes before raising the Liam McCarthy Cup to the skies in triumph. It had indeed been a long journey from his birthplace in the Fiji Islands to Cork and on to Croke Park, but in that moment all the pain, the sacrifice, the life adjustment and the hard work had been made worthwhile.

  Seán and Emile Ó hAilpín could never have imagined way back in 1987 when they decided the future for their young family lay in Ireland that their eldest son would become one of the country’s most popular sporting heroes and that the name Ó hAilpín would become synonymous with sporting achievement. The exotic looks, the equally exotic names – Teu, Setanta and Aisake being the other brothers – added to the aura, but it was their athleticism, dedication and modesty that endeared the boys to a nation.

  It could not have been foretold either that the eldest son would become involved in some of the greatest controversies in Irish sport; that he would find himself at the centre of a very public and acrimonious debate involving some of the most powerful figures in the GAA that would help define the future of the GAA and its players.

  In between the various controversies Setanta would enjoy a year of extraordinary adulation alongside his big brother before embarking on a professional football career back in the land of his birth, Australia. The youngest brother, Aisake, also wore the colours of Cork and tried a professional career, while the second oldest, Teu, would earn many awards at club level.

  The story of the Ó hAilpín brothers is packed with drama on and off the field. It is a story of survival, adventure, despair and ultimately triumph. Acted out on two sides of the world, it is heroic without any loss of humility. And it all began on a little island in the Pacific Ocean that few in Ireland had heard of until the very last decade of the twentieth century.

  * * *

  The volcanic island of Rotuma lies almost 400 miles north of Fiji’s capital Suva. It is a tiny, 24-square mile speck in the ocean that is home to about 2,000 people, with many more Rotumans spread throughout Fiji, Polynesia, Australia and New Zealand. It was there, on 22 May 1977, that Seán and Emile Ó hAilpín’s first son, Seán Óg, was born and would spend the first eighteen months of his life. His father was a native of Fermanagh who had met Emile while working for an oil company on the island.

  Emile bore four more children after the family moved to Sydney. Teu (pronounced Deo) was followed by the eldest girl Sarote, then Setanta and Aisake. The sixth and youngest of the clan, Étaoin, was born when the family moved to Cork. Seán Óg recalls a lifestyle in Sydney that was idyllic. His Irish heritage was acknowledged within the family but did not impinge on the life they lived.

  He did play a little Gaelic football and all the children attended the annual St Patrick’s Day parade in Sydney. Otherwise, they lived like Australians and places like Páirc Uí Chaoimh, Semple Stadium and Croke Park were alien to these sports-mad youngsters. But Seán Óg’s dreams of becoming a top rugby league player in Sydney were dashed without warning one evening in late 1987, when his parents informed the family that they were moving to Ireland.

  ‘It broke my heart leaving Sydney,’ Seán Óg recalls with candour. ‘I was eleven years old then and I already had a life out there. At primary school there was a huge emphasis on sport and I always had a football or a rugby league ball with me when I was on my way to and from school or just out playing. I loved the sunshine, the Australian way of life and I had lots of friends out there.

  ‘We knew there was an Irish connection in the family; that Dad was from Ireland. But Ireland could have been on Mars or Jupiter as far as we were concerned as kids. I used to go with my father to the Gaelic club in Sydney and played some Gaelic football with the other kids around there, but my sports were rugby league and cross-country running. The only time that we recognised the Irish thing really was on Paddy’s Day when we would dress up and join the parade in Sydney marching behind the Fermanagh banner. Apart from that we lived a pure Aussie lifestyle.

  ‘In 1987 when my parents announced we were moving to Ireland it ripped my heart. I was leaving behind my sport, the weather, my friends. I was being transported to this foreign place on the other side of the world and I really didn’t know what was happening.

  ‘Do I remember my first day? Of course I do. It was a wet miserable February day in 1988, landing in Dublin; we stayed in Dublin overnight and got a train down to Cork. Any rain we had experienced in Australia was a tropical downpour and a couple of hours later the rain had evaporated and the sun was beating down again. Then we came here and it was our first experience of the light drizzle that can go on for a day. And the cold. It was unreal.’

  There were other complexities for the children, as Seán Óg explains: ‘Cork was a different city then to what it is now. I mean this with the greatest respect, but Cork was a white city. The Ó hAilpín kids had inherited my mother’s Fijian features. We were different and it was very obvious to us that we were different in the early days. I don’t know how we would have integrated, if we would have been able to integrate, if it wasn’t for the GAA.’

  Seán and Emile initially set up home in Fair Hill on the north side of the city. Though they later moved to Blarney, the influence of Fair Hill and the GAA community in the area would be profound. The boys attended North Monastery school and joined the Na Piarsaigh GAA club; within both institutions they found a new family and a new sense of identity.

  ‘We are a close family,’ Seán Óg recalls. �
�When we left Sydney to come here we had no one but ourselves, no relatives or anything like that. We looked for support from each other. When you move a family of five children from one side of the world to the other it is not easy; mentally and emotionally it is a huge thing for young kids. It was hard and the first initial years were torture, getting used to the school system, new kids, a new culture. You felt straight away you were different. Our attitude was “what won’t break you will make you” and that was the life. We got used to it. Being different went by the wayside when we started playing for the GAA club and people began to accept us. After a few years we could walk down the street like every other Joe Soap. Only for sport I don’t know how we would have integrated as well as we did.’

  Sean Óg Ó hAilpín on championship duty for Cork. © Brendan Moran/ SPORTSFILE

  * * *

  ‘The Mon’, as the North Monastery school is popularly known on the north side of Cork city, was founded in the early part of the nineteenth century by the Christian Brothers. It encapsulated all the ideals of the CBS tradition, stoutly Catholic and nationalist, in which the playing of Gaelic games was central to the ethos. Through its history the North Monastery produced many of Cork’s greatest hurlers and footballers, most notably Jack Lynch. And it was a group of former pupils who decided during the 1940s to form a new GAA club in the area which they named Na Piarsaigh in honour of Pádraig Pearse.

  It was this school, where the curriculum is taught in Irish, that the young Ó hAilpín boys attended when they arrived in Cork in the spring of 1988. From the school they were directed to the club, where a variety of teachers and coaches provided the guidance, encouragement and coaching that allowed Seán Óg and Teu to find their feet in this new land. Setanta and Aisake were six and seven years younger and their transition was less traumatic.

  Seán Óg felt comfortable playing Gaelic football. He was naturally athletic and had experienced the game before. His rugby league skills in terms of handling and running also helped. Hurling was much different. ‘I didn’t have the skills at all and I was embarrassed to take it up,’ he recalls. Although he was fully immersed with football, he was idle during the months when hurling was prominent. One of his first mentors and a man who became a father figure to the youngster, Abie Allen, was persistent. He quietly but effectively cajoled the kid for almost a year before eventually convincing him to give hurling a go.

  ‘Jesus, I was pretty raw at first,’ he laughs now in re-collection. ‘The lads still remind me to this day about when I started. I was hacking people, double swings and all that. Myself and the hurley didn’t go well together. But I was young and willing, and between the school and the club I was exposed to a lot of hurling, I played with a lot of good hurlers and I had a lot of good coaches.’

  People like Donal O’Grady, Nicky Barry, Gerry Kelly, Christy Kidney and Billy Clifford, along with Abie Allen, worked with the youngsters. ‘I suppose I was a project from the start. My football was flying but my hurling needed an awful lot of work and a lot of patience.’ Teu, a year younger, was also learning and in the evenings when they got home they would go straight out to the yard and start pucking the ball around – ‘hurling till the lights went out’.

  Soon they were fully assimilated into the GAA way of life. Cork football and hurling were the dominant subjects of conversation in the family home. They would watch Tony O’Sullivan from Na Piarsaigh play with Cork in front of 60,000 in Páirc Uí Chaoimh or 70,000 in Croke Park and meet him the following day at the club. It was inspiring. ‘It gave us our dreams watching the likes of Tony, Ger Cunningham, Denis Walsh, Jim Cashman and Teddy McCarthy.’

  Their father and mother recognised very quickly the value of the games and the GAA for their young family. ‘My parents altered their lives to accommodate our hurling. It must have been hard on the girls because our hurling was so important in the house. I don’t remember partying or girls from that time. It was all hurling.’

  Less than six years after arriving in Ireland Seán Óg was a member of the North Monastery team that won the Munster Colleges (Dr Harty Cup) title and the All-Ireland Colleges title in 1994. That brought him to the attention of the Cork minor selectors. Bringing home a Cork jersey was a very special occasion for the family. He won his first Munster inter-county title that year with the minors and played in Croke Park for the first time. Cork lost, but it was the start of something very big. A year later he won his first All-Ireland medal with the minors on a team that included Donal Óg Cusack, Timmy McCarthy, Mickey O’Connell and Joe Deane.

  Two summers later, in 1997, they were joined on the Cork under-21 team by Wayne Sherlock and Diarmuid O’Sullivan, and two consecutive Munster and All-Ireland titles were captured. Seán Óg had become a part of the Cork senior hurling team in 1996 and at the end of 1998 he was called into the Cork senior football squad. At the same time he was a student in Dublin City University, where he was involved in both the Fitzgibbon Cup and Sigerson Cup teams. It was a roller coaster ride and his brothers lent enthusiastic support. Teu was having an outstanding under-age career with Na Piarsaigh and made Cork minor and under-21 football squads. ‘He never got the breakthrough he deserved,’ says Seán Óg, ‘because he was as good as the rest of us.’ Teu continued to play football and hurling, and enjoyed playing in Clare with the Eire Óg club in Ennis and later in London.

  * * *

  Setanta Ó hAilpín was in his early teens when his big brother first played Senior Championship hurling for Cork on 26 May 1996. The nineteen-year-old Seán Óg came on as a substitute for Mark Mullins, a Na Piarsaigh team-mate, in the opening round against Limerick at Páirc Uí Chaoimh. Young Setanta was already a familiar figure around the Cork squad, always accompanying Seán Óg to training and placing himself behind the goal where he would spend the evening pucking sliotars back into play. The sixteen-point defeat suffered that day against Limerick was an indication of where Cork hurling existed in the inter-county rankings list. They had to wait until the 1998 Championship for a first taste of victory at senior level, when Cork beat Limerick, but exuberance triumphed over impatience and the rewards would be reaped in 1999.

  Two legendary figures in the history of hurling and football, Jimmy Barry-Murphy and Larry Tompkins, were managing the respective Cork senior teams for 1999. Seán Óg’s elevation to the Cork senior football team placed further demands on the time and energy of a young man with an already daunting schedule at club, colleges and county level. Respite came in the form of a first national senior title when Seán Óg lined out at full back on the football team that captured the National League in May 1999. Just two weeks later he made his Senior Football Championship debut in the opening round against Waterford and on June 13 officially became a dual Championship player when lining out for the hurlers against Waterford. With the cooperation of the two team managers, the player performed a delicate juggling act that lasted until the final day of competition in late September.

  ‘Cork had not won an All-Ireland senior title since 1990 and that was a famine for the county, especially in hurling,’ he remembers. Expectations were not high in either code at the start of the campaign, but by 4 July Cork had won its first Munster senior hurling title since 1992, when the young team with Seán Óg in the familiar number seven jersey beat Clare by 1–15 to 0–14. Two weeks later he lined out with the footballers as they beat Kerry in the provincial final by 2–10 to 2–4. The pressure was unrelenting. On 8 August, Cork played Offaly in the All-Ireland hurling semi-final, a game rated as one of the best of the modern era, which Cork won by three points. And on 22 August the footballers defeated Mayo to qualify for the All-Ireland football final.

  ‘The build-up to September was massive because of all the hype about me going for two Championships in the one year,’ recalls Seán. ‘It hadn’t been done since Teddy McCarthy had won hurling and football with Cork in 1990. The list of people who had won titles in both games at senior level was small and Teddy was the only one to do it in the one year. He had been
one of my early heroes so it was a huge thing to be in a position to emulate him.

  ‘This was my fourth year playing for the hurlers. The first three years were a process of development. When you start playing at that level you are always worrying. When the ball is coming to you, you worry that you will mess it up, you’re thinking about things a lot more than is necessary. And when you think too much about things you will mess it up. By 1999 I felt more comfortable in the team. Things began to happen naturally. I was so confident I wasn’t thinking about my hurling.’

  The hurling final between Cork and Kilkenny on 12 September began a rivalry between two sets of players that would see them dominate hurling in the new century and scrap almost annually for the right to claim the Liam McCarthy Cup. The 1999 final was a classic match-up – Kilkenny’s skilful forwards including D.J. Carey, John Power, Charlie Carter and a young kid named Henry Shefflin, and a powerful Cork defence with Donal Óg Cusack in goal, fronted by Fergal Ryan, Diarmuid O’Sullivan, John Browne, Wayne Sherlock, Brian Corcoran and Seán Óg, who was tasked with marking Carey for the first time at this level. Carey was held scoreless, Cork won by 0–13 to 0–12.

  There was no time to celebrate. Training resumed two nights later with the footballers who were due to play a vastly experienced Meath team on 26 September. ‘We came up short,’ Seán Óg recalls candidly. It was a close game won by Meath, 1–11 to 1–8. That Meath outscored Cork by 0–6 to 0–2 in the final half hour told the story.

  Nothing, however, would taint the joy. Eleven years after arriving in Ireland as a frightened young boy from the other side of the world, Seán Óg Ó hAilpín had proven himself one of the outstanding hurlers in the country. In the stands that day and back home on the north side of Cork city and in the Na Piarsaigh clubhouse some tears were shed. The project had been a huge success. Yet the story was only beginning and it had twists and turns to take.