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Post by Kingdomson on Dec 18, 2012 20:55:13 GMT
Michael Mac, A very nice video tribute. What is the music? The music is Mo Ghile Mear. Roughly translated it means, I think, my shining light/gallant darling etc. As far as I know Ireland- a princess/goddess - is lamenting the absence of Bonny Prince Charles who is not available to save her. This poem was written a couple hundred years ago and is one of the most beautiful pieces of music I have heard. There are several version, not sure who is singing on this clip. I am sure Gaelgeoirs on this forum will be able enlighten us further. The first time I heard this music it was performed by Comhar Cuil Aodha, who indeed performed at Paidi's mass today. Diarmuidin O'Shuilleabhain was a member of this choir and was a very close friend of Paidi. Sadly, Diarmuidin was killed in road traffic accident about twenty years ago. He was a news reader on Radio Na Gaeltachta. I think it was he who helped Paidi prepare his 1985 victory speech. Poignancy overflowing. Thank you Veteran.
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Post by Kingdomson on Dec 18, 2012 20:55:48 GMT
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lorr29
Senior Member
Consistency is the last refuge of the unimaginative
Posts: 647
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Post by lorr29 on Dec 18, 2012 23:21:31 GMT
I've just come in from my works Christmas party and all day long I've been thinking Paidi's funeral today and just no one over here (Plymouth) gets it...just how bloody special and unique a man he was...Since Saturday I've, like so many others, have felt so so sad and tearful...As I've looked over the clips of Paidi since Saturday I can't help but think of how absolutley amazing the O'Se clan have been and integral to all that is Kerry football! Tomas, my ultimate Kerry hero, looks so similar to Paidi in some ways and IMHO comes closet to him in terms of sheer genius.... I just hope, for completely selfish reasons, that he returns to the green and gold this year... Rest in peace Paidi, you will be sorely missed adn thank you for all the memories.
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Post by ruralgaa on Dec 19, 2012 10:26:04 GMT
Gravside oration for Paidi O'Se by Sean Walsh
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Post by delorean on Dec 19, 2012 10:31:00 GMT
Tomas, my ultimate Kerry hero, looks so similar to Paidi in some ways and IMHO comes closet to him in terms of sheer genius.... I just hope, for completely selfish reasons, that he returns to the green and gold this year... He has already committed.
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Post by jackiel on Dec 19, 2012 10:55:25 GMT
Reading all the tributes and stories this week has made me very emotional. I never met Paidi but his death has touched me, it is a mark of the man that so many people have such fond memories of him. My Dad was a proud Kerryman who sadly passed away last year, Paidi's death means another link to him is now gone, he was part of mine & Dads shared passion - Kerry football. My condolences go to his family,it's so sad that he has been taken so young. I hope they will take consolation from the fact that he was so loved by the whole country.
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Post by ballybunion on Dec 19, 2012 10:55:49 GMT
From the graveside oration, very apt.
"Twas thus I lived, skin to skin with the earth Elbowed by the hills, drenched by the billows, Watching the black geese making black wedges, By Skelligs far west and Annascaul of the willows. Their voices came on every little wind, Whispering across the half door of the mind, For always I am Kerry" Sigerson Clifford
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Post by Ballyfireside on Dec 19, 2012 11:55:45 GMT
I already posted the initial version of this work, and here is an updated version. The gush of inspiration is, well like the man himself, and anyone who every wrote poetry will know that I kid you not. For those with little time or patience for poetry, just go to the last verse or two, and I don't think you will be to disappointed
Nollaig shona dhaoibh go léir ó K Man
Ventry Sunset The king isn’t dead, long live the king never far away, he remains nigh He feared nothing or nobody looking danger in the eye
From the throne of The Kingdom of Kerry did he rise just took another seat in Kingdom Heavenly high There be no frontier beyond fear he didn’t have to say good bye
Fear go an-sásta ar fad i 1985 ag ardú An Chorn Somhairle Mag Uidhir Codladh samh a Páidí i Árd Neamh anois ó Árd a Bhóthair suas an staighre
Ár Ard Rí ó Ard a Bhóthair cradled his Kingdom always answering his call to arms Now tired, his soul shall lift spirit as he himself rests, rocked in another King’s arms
Just as he guarded crown jewels through dark night all he wishes for is that his subjects will carry on That they answer the Heavenly call for there be another battle to be fought and won
At the setting of the sun man's work for today be done Tomorrow be inspired of history another day, a new dawn
The sun now sets over Ventry harbour inspiration was the final test of leaders like Paddy Bawn Just as the sun did rise again, so did the spirit and so too will Páidí's protege the jersey don
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5sams
Junior Member
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Post by 5sams on Dec 19, 2012 12:13:30 GMT
I had the great pleasure of being in the man's company many times over the years. Full of great yarns....just lived and breathed football and especially Kerry football. Have a great memory of me, him and my father in law in the pub one Christmas Eve morning a couple of years ago. Just the 3 of us drinking whiskey and him telling us about the great players he played against. I'm heading back down to Ventry again on Saturday for Christmas. It simply won't be the same again. Legend.
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Post by tipp86 on Dec 19, 2012 13:50:05 GMT
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Jo90
Fanatical Member
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Post by Jo90 on Dec 19, 2012 17:04:08 GMT
Paidi at the back gate of Heaven It’s P’O I was told to come around by the side I’m sorry but I don’t see that name here It’s P Shea and Himself said to come this way Are you one of the Pinochets from Argentina No its Paidi as Ceann Trá. Gaibh mo leithscéal a mhic tá fáilte romhat Tar isteach a Ghaiscígh And make your way to the dressing room To the door marked home team.
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G_S_J
Senior Member
With greatness already assured, history now awaits.
Posts: 647
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Post by G_S_J on Dec 19, 2012 18:21:26 GMT
In a lot of ways it was he who ignited my love affair with Kerry football, It had only really entered the consciousness of my ten year old mind a year before Páidí took over. The county was at its lowest ebb in the midst of ten Sam'less years and in the last installment with Cork conceding a limp Munster Final in Fitzgerald Stadium. That remains still to this day the last time Kerry lost to their great rivals at the seat of football in the county. A sign of how Páidí blew on the dieing ambers and reignited a flame.
My first memory of the great man was watching him maraud the touchline for the Kerry U21's in their All Ireland winning year of 95. Ritualistically wearing it seems a pair beige slacks, perhaps the sideline alternative to the famous eight All Ireland winning togs he strode about in through Kerry's great golden years. Collar up, he paced back and forth, in his mind kicking and leaping for every ball, occasionally consulting his selectors on the bench, but looking at them more to reaffirm than council.
Páirc Uí Chaoimh 21/7/96. The day he made the breakthrough as manager, winning an U21 All Ireland is all well and good, but beating Cork in their back garden having not done so in five years is another thing entirely. This was back in the day when Munster championship was knockout, do or die. It cant be understated what beating Cork meant at that time, a lot of hurt in previous years had left us feeling inferior, dredging Kerrymen everywhere into an existential nightmare, who are we if we cant beat Cork? The rain fell hard, but it tasted sugery sweet as Kilian Burns cartwheeled his arm Pete Townsend style in celebration of his stoppage time insurance point and Pairc Ui Chaoimh shook to a changing of the guard. Kerry were back on top.
Its said that a sense of entitlement is a negative characteristic and in some quarters they would be right, but it is what fuels people like Páidí, bloodline and birthright the sense of entitlement that I must win, we must we. As Darragh, Tomás and Marc carried his coffin out of the tiny church in Ventry a scene despite its size not unlike a grandiose state funeral with the backdrop Id imagine bestowed to forgotten Celtic warriors, I was hit with a pang of sadness, but also a sense of deep pride, these men are the foundation of a great tradition, something honest and pure and I as a supporter had a piece of it and it would forever have a piece of me.
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Post by Ballyfireside on Dec 19, 2012 22:31:35 GMT
The businessman who turns a company around is better than the manager who just continues in a successful vein. History will be kind to Páidí in this respect.
That is a v nice line there Jo90, true poetic justice all round.
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Post by conor52 on Dec 19, 2012 23:32:20 GMT
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Post by glengael on Dec 20, 2012 12:58:51 GMT
From the graveside oration, very apt. "Twas thus I lived, skin to skin with the earth Elbowed by the hills, drenched by the billows, Watching the black geese making black wedges, By Skelligs far west and Annascaul of the willows. Their voices came on every little wind, Whispering across the half door of the mind, For always I am Kerry" Sigerson Clifford Does anyone have the full script of that Sigerson Clifford poem? Thanks.
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Post by veteran on Dec 20, 2012 14:27:55 GMT
From the graveside oration, very apt. "Twas thus I lived, skin to skin with the earth Elbowed by the hills, drenched by the billows, Watching the black geese making black wedges, By Skelligs far west and Annascaul of the willows. Their voices came on every little wind, Whispering across the half door of the mind, For always I am Kerry" Sigerson Clifford Does anyone have the full script of that Sigerson Clifford poem? Thanks. You can Google that Glengael.
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timmy
Senior Member
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Post by timmy on Dec 20, 2012 14:30:05 GMT
am Kerry like my mother before me And my mother's mother and her man Now I sit on an office stool remembering And the memory of them like a fan Soothes the embers into flame. I am Kerry and proud of my name.
My heart is looped around the rutted hills That shoulder the stars out of the sky And about the wasp-yellow fields And the strands where the kelp streamers lie; Where soft as lovers' Gaelic the rain falls Sweeping into silver the lacy mountain walls.
My grandfather tended the turf fire And leaning backward into legend spoke Of doings old before quills inked history. I saw dark heroes fighting in the smoke, Diarmuid dead inside his Iveragh cave And Deirdre caoining upon Naoise's grave.
I see the wise face now with its hundred wrinkles And every wrinkle held a thousand tales Of Fionn and Oscar and Conán Maol And sea-proud Niall whose conquering sails Raiding France for slaves and wine Brought Patrick to mind Miolchú's swine.
Ah! I should have put a noose about the throat of time And choked the passing of the hobnailed years And stayed young always shouting in the hills Where life held only fairy fears. When I was young my feet were bare But I drove the cattle to the fair.
'Twas thus I lived skin to skin with the earth Elbowed by the hills, drenched by the billows, Watching the wild geese making black wedges By Skelligs far west and Annascaul of the willows. Their voices came on every little wind Whispering across the half-door of the mind For always I am Kerry . . .
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Post by delorean on Dec 20, 2012 16:20:12 GMT
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Post by mitchelsontour on Dec 20, 2012 21:03:47 GMT
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Post by Mickmack on Dec 20, 2012 21:05:25 GMT
Lovely one by Christy Riordan
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Post by ddtinexile on Dec 20, 2012 21:40:25 GMT
One of the nicest tributes to Paidi was by Tony Leen in the Examiner last monday. In it he made reference to an incident with Joe McNally. I suppose there are many versions of that story but this is the one as told to me. It was the AI final 84 or 85 and shortly after the game started McNally said to Paidi "well culchi how did yez come up was it by bus or by train" A short time later a high ball dropped in around the square and after a few monents Paidi came charging out through a crowd of players hoppin on his way, ball firmly clutched to his chest, earth and scraws flyin back as he charged out and cleared the ball down the field. On his way back to his position he spotted McNally stretched out on the ground. The bold Paidi looks down at him and says "what hit yoou ,was it a bus or a train "
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Post by glengael on Dec 20, 2012 22:54:13 GMT
am Kerry like my mother before me And my mother's mother and her man Now I sit on an office stool remembering And the memory of them like a fan Soothes the embers into flame. I am Kerry and proud of my name. My heart is looped around the rutted hills That shoulder the stars out of the sky And about the wasp-yellow fields And the strands where the kelp streamers lie; Where soft as lovers' Gaelic the rain falls Sweeping into silver the lacy mountain walls. My grandfather tended the turf fire And leaning backward into legend spoke Of doings old before quills inked history. I saw dark heroes fighting in the smoke, Diarmuid dead inside his Iveragh cave And Deirdre caoining upon Naoise's grave. I see the wise face now with its hundred wrinkles And every wrinkle held a thousand tales Of Fionn and Oscar and Conán Maol And sea-proud Niall whose conquering sails Raiding France for slaves and wine Brought Patrick to mind Miolchú's swine. Ah! I should have put a noose about the throat of time And choked the passing of the hobnailed years And stayed young always shouting in the hills Where life held only fairy fears. When I was young my feet were bare But I drove the cattle to the fair. 'Twas thus I lived skin to skin with the earth Elbowed by the hills, drenched by the billows, Watching the wild geese making black wedges By Skelligs far west and Annascaul of the willows. Their voices came on every little wind Whispering across the half-door of the mind For always I am Kerry . . . Thanks. sums it all up really. Ciarrai abu.
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Post by Ard Mhacha on Dec 21, 2012 1:02:41 GMT
One thing that struck me when I visited Paidi's pub a few years ago, was how popular, highly respected and well known he seemed to be. Not only with Kerry people, but people around the country, and beyond. I was amazed at the images on the walls of famous sports stars, politicians, musicians etc, that had visited the place. It really seemed like Paidi was the King of West Kerry.
Marc O'Se talked about Ryan's Daughter and how it had brought tourists to the area. I'd say Paidi has brought a serious amount too. He was one of the reasons that first brought me to the area.
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Post by fairplay2all on Dec 21, 2012 7:58:34 GMT
Padi o Shea is Kerry to me His breath is the Gael blown in off the sea His laughter the waves crashing in off the rocks His blood in his veins is streams to the loughs His body ls the mountains rugged and bold His heart is the jersey made of green and gold He is everything the sun and the sea Padi o Shea is Kerry to me
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G_S_J
Senior Member
With greatness already assured, history now awaits.
Posts: 647
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Post by G_S_J on Dec 21, 2012 18:09:15 GMT
Yup, Fungi as well and he'll probably out live the lot of us. One of the nicest tributes to Paidi was by Tony Leen in the Examiner last monday. In it he made reference to an incident with Joe McNally. I suppose there are many versions of that story but this is the one as told to me. It was the AI final 84 or 85 and shortly after the game started McNally said to Paidi "well culchi how did yez come up was it by bus or by train" A short time later a high ball dropped in around the square and after a few monents Paidi came charging out through a crowd of players hoppin on his way, ball firmly clutched to his chest, earth and scraws flyin back as he charged out and cleared the ball down the field. On his way back to his position he spotted McNally stretched out on the ground. The bold Paidi looks down at him and says "what hit yoou ,was it a bus or a train " I believe thats the version Joe McNally tells himself
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Post by Mickmack on Dec 22, 2012 13:36:27 GMT
By Seán Potts
Saturday December 22 2012
Be the first to comment In many ways the transience of life itself is personified by sport – passionate, physical, beautiful, irresistible, tragic and, above all, fleeting. Páidí Ó Sé's legacy as a player and manager may be unique and enduring, but the personal tragedy of his loss at 57 only serves to remind us of the stark momentary nature of glory and life.
It is, ironically for those of us who shared his extraordinary company, a most sobering thought.
His absence will be felt sharply within the GAA and, indeed, throughout the various worlds he inhabited since he moved away from county football; the extensive tributes testify to that.
However, the loss for his beautiful family, wonderful nephews, extended family and community is immense.
Páidí loved notoriety; loved the social life in Dublin ("I love the buzz in Dublin," his nephew Marc was fond of recounting with frighteningly adept mimicry), the politicians, successful business people, writers, musicians.
His respect and admiration for people who pushed boundaries and lived life to the full was as genuine as it was reciprocated. Behind the bon viveur and raconteur, however, was a man anchored, if at times persecuted, by football and place.
It might not be as fashionable today to quote Seán Ó Riordáin's patriotic invocation, but pulling away last Sunday night as darkness descended over Cnoc an Iolair having looked on Páidí's face for the last time, it was Ó Riordáin's words about the importance of place and language that resonated...
. . . Sin é do dhoras,
Dún Chaoin fé sholas an tráthnóna,
Buail is osclófar
D'intinn féin is do chló cheart
For all Páidí's frequent forays into the 'other' world of celebrity and power, he never abandoned the 'house' or 'tribe' at Ard an Bhóthair. He was a Kerry warrior. The county is synonymous with football; he, the embodiment of that bond. Eloquent testimony was paid to this bond by, above all, his neighbours in Ventry.
Páidí often spoke about the profound effect his friendship with singer and journalist Diarmuidín Maidhcí Ó Súilleabháin had on him. Diarmuidín, from Cúil Aodh in West Cork originally but living in West Kerry where he worked for Raidio na Gaeltachta, died tragically travelling home from Páidí's this month 21 years ago after celebrating the Gaeltacht's victory in the West Kerry Championship. The 'house and tribe' were close to Diarmuidín's heart; mórtas cine. "I told things to Diarmuidín that I wouldn't say to anyone else," Páidí recalled.
When Páidí delivered his famous speech after lifting the Sam Maguire in 1985, Diarmuidín had helped him prepare it. When the final whistle sounded, Páidí turned to find Diarmuidín on his shoulder reminding him of his duty to his language and to Corca Dhuibhne.
Páidí spoke a lot to me about Diarmuidín; he understood the connection. Diarmuidín's brothers Eoghainí and Danny sang with Peadar Ó Riada and the Cúil Aodh choir at Tuesday's funeral.
It was through music, not sport, I came to know Páidí Ó Sé. Playing the pipes (not Páidí's favourite instrument, I might add) one epic night in the pub at Ard an Bhóthair alongside James Begley and Steve Cooney, I got talking to him after the session and the conversation endured until the following morning. I was quite literally spellbound by the man.
Some years later, when I had started working as a journalist, we travelled the roads of Ireland watching games together for the Irish Independent with John Martin's steady hands on the wheel. Every journey with Páidí was an odyssey, nothing was conventional.
With a particular pressing deadline looming one evening I was in a mad hurry to get out of Clones after an Ulster final and back to Dublin to work. Faced with a five-mile tailback, Páidí instructed John to activate the hazard lights and drive as fast as possible in the opposite lane; "they'll think there's an emergency, no one will stop us." Oncoming traffic diverted into ditches and driveways; I was back in the capital in time for a bag of chips before work.
When the press box in Navan was full for a Leinster championship clash between Meath and Laois, we walked straight through the gate (the steward opened it for him) on to the sideline and watched from there. Half-way through a testing afternoon for Meath, Sean Boylan hunkered down and discussed the situation with Páidí. Orthodox journalism it wasn't.
Objectivity wasn't a particularly strong point in the partnership either. When Dublin won the All-Ireland in 1995, Páidí placed me on his shoulders for the presentation (ostensibly we were working). He remarked that though I mightn't have had the liathróidí to be much of a footballer, I was welcome to wrap them around his neck for this privilege of watching my county lift the Sam Maguire. Later that night, he stood beside me in Jurys Hotel as I proposed to my girlfriend; he counselled me quietly to make sure I knew what I was doing, All-Irelands were emotive times...
Public opinion, of course, was considerably harder to extract from him as soon as he was tasked with shaping a new future for football in Kerry. Nothing was more important and as Dara Ó Cinnéide and Darragh Ó Sé emerged from Páidí's U-21 All-Ireland-winning side in 1995, a new and glorious period in his already decorated life was about to commence.
The intensity of his commitment to the game and his county was a privilege to behold and he defied his critics by ending Kerry's famine in 1997. I mention critics because Páidí had his detractors; there were many who were uncomfortable because he didn't fit the mould, but, as one of his most gifted protégés Ó Cinnéide remarked so eloquently last weekend: "As a manager he looked after us, he looked out for us, he shaped the way we played and thought about football. He was an amazing, amazing manager."
Páidí's understanding of football was innate and it was an understanding naturally embellished by his phenomenal playing career.
His ability to lead and inspire was proven in the hard and often unpopular decisions he made as a manager. Yet he would never break ranks to justify his decisions. He despised losing, but did so with a magnanimity that was inspirational. When Dublin defeated Kerry to win last year's All-Ireland, the first person on the phone was Páidí. It didn't have to be.
After his second All-Ireland success as a manager in 2000, he asked me to write his biography. When it was published, one very prominent Kerry person commented that he had not enjoyed the book, that the language in the book was very rough, and that the man who wrote it shouldn't have written it. Páidí took great delight in telling me this.
Inferred in this delight and in a lot of the 'black magic' he was so fond of was a friendship; deep, passionate, enduring and, after the shock of last Saturday morning, profoundly humbling. It was a privilege to have written his book.
Needless to say, that task was anything but straightforward and included some very engaging if largely unproductive nights at our halfway point in Limerick or in the 'lab' with his old friend John Costello; listening to cassettes of the interviews on the train home and trying to determine the conversation from the constant laughter.
It was no ordinary biographical project; one 'review' session ended with the pair of us being choppered to Inis Mhicileáin for lunch with the Haughey family. The review session ended with the draft of the book being surrendered to Charlie. Choppers will always be part of our Páidí memories.
The fracture with Kerry in 2003 was extremely painful for Páidí and while his subsequent achievement with Westmeath was extraordinary – it was wonderful to see the respect paid to him this week by the Westmeath players and former chairman Seamus Ó Faoláin – he never fully came to terms with the transition from direct involvement with the green and gold.
He was immensely proud of Darragh, Tomás and Marc and outstanding individual displays by any one of the three were always followed by a phone call – I received many phone calls.
He quietly spoke about Pádraig Óg's development every step of the way; his understated and respectful accounts could not conceal his pride or his love. He adored his family.
Páidí's respect and love for my own family underpinned our friendship and he never spoke to me without asking for them. Our culture was planted, as Diarmuidín would have said, in the pit of his stomach. He was incredibly loyal to those who mattered to him.
From the birth of my son he counted the days with me until he could take him 'back west' to spend time with him, work in the bar, play football, speak our language and learn why football means what it does for him and his county.
Typical of the extraordinary people of Ventry, his lifelong friend Muiris Fenton consoled me last weekend that it can still happen.
Sadly, it won't happen the way we'd intended. Páidí Ó Sé is irreplaceable; he was unlike any other person I've ever encountered.
His legacy has been incredibly well documented over the past week by the practitioners who matter, those who soldiered with him, against him and for him. All I can add is the deep love I held for the man. He was difficult, I disagreed with him a lot and Jesus did you need to toughen at times in his company. In the 23 years I knew him we fell out of a lot of places, but never with each other.
However, away from the glory that marked his incredible achievements as a player, manager and iconic GAA man and the notoriety which his heroic personality attracted, it is the personal that will endure.
I've often fretted about the saying that one day your life will flash before you so make sure it's worth watching. Páidí needn't have worried on this account.
To Máire, Neasa, Siún, Pádraig Óg, Tom, Joan, Feargal, Darragh, Tomás and Marc, the people of Ventry and his extended family and friends, I offer my deepest, deepest sympathies.
Fill arís ar do chuid... Ní dual do neach a thigh ná a threabh a thréigean.
- Seán Potts
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Deleted
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Post by Deleted on Dec 22, 2012 15:09:35 GMT
I love this speech by Paidi after Westmeath won the Lenister,a great line at the end
"It takes a good man to take his beating,but it takes a better man whose a winner to keep it inside and hold his head"
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Post by Ballyfireside on Dec 22, 2012 21:15:29 GMT
Fair play to fairplay2all, that is really briill. This thread will be big and will go on. The words of Paidis brother Tomás at the mass are class, Paidi didn't lick anything off the ground. Go to at 1 hour 52 minutes, and be sure you are sitting down, up there with the best of 'em all. www.rte.ie/player/ie/show/10096528/One aspect I would challenge is that it was planned, Paiid made it happen, nobody planned Paidis schedule, well maybe The Bawn did but us minnows will leave that at that!
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Post by kerrystar on Dec 23, 2012 8:32:49 GMT
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Post by Mickmack on Dec 23, 2012 10:48:53 GMT
By Eamonn Sweeney
Sunday December 23 2012
Let's talk about football. Because more than anything else he was a footballer, first, last and always.
It's 1980 and the All-Ireland football final is poised on a knife edge. Roscommon have Kerry rocking and reeling on the ropes. All the challengers need is a KO punch.
The ball falls to Roscommon left half-forward Aidan Dooley around ten yards out. Charlie Nelligan is stranded so all Dooley has to do is stroke the ball into the empty net. And as he hits it you can practically see the net bulging already.
But here, coming from nowhere and diving full length across the goal-line is Páidí ó Sé and he gets his hands on the ball. Yet this is only the half of it; he also holds on to it and makes sure he keeps his arms off the ground so he doesn't concede a penalty. Páidí gets up, Kerry clear their lines and go on to make it three in a row by three points.
Aidan Dooley, a good player from the Pádraig Pearses club who could have ended up becoming the most famous man in Roscommon, never seems to recover from that moment and his inter-county career fizzles out. His nemesis, on the other hand, continues his voyage into legend.
Everything which made Páidí great was in that little cameo: his speed, his anticipation, his courage, his strength, his intelligence. Those qualities were perhaps most spectacularly demonstrated at that moment but it was the accumulation of hundreds of similar episodes of excellence which made him perhaps the greatest back in the history of Gaelic football. His only real rival is his nephew Tomás who exhibits the same virtues as his uncle.
The figure of one point from play conceded to direct opponents in ten All-Ireland finals is the famous one and says everything about Páidí's ability as a man marker. But even that incredible statistic doesn't capture quite how thoroughly the Ventry man dominated his opponents. Being put in on Páidí ó Sé was the football equivalent of being posted to the Russian Front. Nothing good was going to happen to you there.
It's ironic that a man who in his autobiography said he parted company with the Gardaí after being found asleep on a security duty turned out to be the most diligent bodyguard in the country. If Páidí was assigned to mind you, he'd always have your back, and your front, and any other convenient bits of you.
He played on the greatest team of all time and was as integral to its success as Jack O'Shea or Mikey Sheehy. When we think of O'Dwyer's Kerry, we think of great flowing moves cutting defences apart and Sheehy, Egan, Spillane, Liston and Power coming in at the end to finish. But the back-line on that team was every bit as great as the attack.
While winning four All-Ireland finals in a row between 1978 and 1981, Kerry conceded a scarcely believable average of barely over nine points a game. In the 1981 championship, they allowed a total of 1-23 in four games. Eight losing All-Ireland finalists in the last 40 years have failed to reach double figures, four of those teams were up against that Kerry defence between 1978 and 1984. The unit was a steel trap. It was full of truly great players, John O'Keeffe, Tim Kennelly, Paudie Lynch, Jimmy Deenihan, Charlie Nelligan, but Páidí was the greatest of them all.
Yet if Páidí's greatness as a player is inarguable, his achievements as a manager have been undervalued. We've become so used to Kerry winning All-Irelands that it doesn't seem all that difficult to steer the county to a Sam Maguire. How quickly we forget. Because when Páidí ó Sé took over as manager in 1996, Kerry hadn't won an All-Ireland title in a decade and were a distinct second best in Munster behind Cork who had won seven of the previous nine provincial titles. Kerry and Clare were at level pegging on one title apiece in the same period.
Manager after manager had tried to lift this malaise. And manager after manager had failed. Páidí didn't fail. In 1996, Kerry dethroned Cork in Munster and the year after they beat Mayo in the All-Ireland final to end the drought. Hindsight, and the resumption of normal service in the Kingdom, have tended to diminish the significance of Páidí's achievement but it was he who put the swagger back into Kerry. The job only looked routine after he'd done it. It's been said that his legacy is tarnished by the dropping of Maurice Fitzgerald in 2000. Yet at the end of that year Kerry were All-Ireland champions again and you can't second-guess a manager who's won the ultimate prize. That's the nature of the game – winning puts you in the right. Páidí's name was above the door, the buck stopped with him.
The tendency to under-rate Páidí as a manager may derive from the attitude he inherited from his mentor Mick O'Dwyer. Páidí, like Micko, didn't tend to shout the odds or play up his achievements. He preferred what we might scientifically term the Cute Kerry Hoor approach, the 'ah sure there's not much to this, we're just plodding along, don't mind us' number which masked the razor-sharp intelligence both men brought to bear on the game. But there is nothing more dangerous than a modest Kerryman. He's plotting something.
Páidí followed O'Dwyer's example as well when picking his next job after Kerry showed him the door in 2003. Except this time the pupil was trying to go one better than the master. Earlier that year, Micko had brought Laois their first Leinster title in 57 years. Páidí would be trying to win a provincial title with one of only three counties which had never managed the feat. If it wasn't quite Mission Impossible, it was Mission Not Fierce Likely.
Westmeath were far from a bad team when he took them over. But for all the improvements wrought by the excellent Luke Dempsey they still hadn't reached a provincial final since 1949 and had exited the previous year's championship after a first-round qualifier defeat to Monaghan.
Initially, the appointment looked like a match made in Hell. Westmeath struggled in the league, winning just one of seven games. Longford beat them in Mullingar, Tyrone stuck an 11-point trouncing on them, there were rumours of internal dissension and a loss of faith in the new boss.
They began the championship as underdogs against Offaly. Westmeath won that one by a point, a result which most observers agreed would do Páidí fine in his first year in the job. Then they played the Dubs in the provincial quarter-final and went several points down early on, looking severely out of their depth as they did so. Yet they rallied to win an extraordinary 0-14 to 0-12 victory which had Westmeath people beginning to dream all kinds of impossible things.
All the same, Micko's Laois in the Leinster final looked a bridge too far. At the time Laois were being spoken of as potential All-Ireland champions yet they were lucky to get out of the first game with a draw, a late Chris Conway point denying Westmeath at the death. The chance, one presumed, had gone. Yet just six days later Westmeath won on a 0-12 to 0-10 scoreline which hugely flattered the losers and set off celebrations whose joyousness I've never seen equalled in the GAA. It was one of the greatest emotional moments in football history and one of the finest managerial achievements.
The week after that win I visited Ballinagore, the tiny club where Westmeath had trained through the winter and spring, and where Páidí had asked for a sand track to be put down. Club manager Liam McDaniel told me at the time, "The first time we met Páidí, he came along, ran up and down the track four or five times and said 'it's *ing brilliant' . . . Lads would go down four inches into it when they were running. The state of the lads coming off the pitch some nights, Jesus."
In its chutzpah, the notion of importing sand dunes to the Midlands was typical Páidí. He laid the foundation on the track in Ballinagore and built from there. A fly-on-the-wall documentary covering that campaign, Marooned, may capture the spirit of the man better than anything else.
The director, Pat Collins, was best known for films on the writers John McGahern and Michael Hartnett, but this made him an inspired choice, not least because Páidí, like McGahern and Hartnett, was a complex character from a rural background who was very much rooted in his locality while being somehow set apart from it by virtue of his gifts. Whatever you say about Páidí, you can't describe him as an average guy. He always seemed larger than the setting he inhabited, whether that setting was at home or away.
Two things, Pat Collins recalled, stood out that year. One, the inspirational nature of Páidí's team talks which made not just the team but everyone else within earshot believe that anything was possible and, two, his absolute faith that whatever happened in the league everything would be right come the championship. I'm sure RTE are working on a tribute programme to Páidí but it would be hard to beat Marooned, which Setanta Ireland screened again on Friday night. It captures the essence of the man during what may well have been his finest hour.
As a character, Páidí had more than a little in common with a couple of famous West Kerry publicans of an earlier vintage. Kruger Kavanagh, whose charisma caused people to flock from far and wide to his pub in Dún Chaoin, is an obvious spiritual ancestor. Tom Crean, who ran a pub in Annascaul after retiring from polar exploration, may not seem as immediately analogous. But reading Ernest Shackleton's descriptions of Crean's tough and dogged nature, and his willingness to keep up the spirits of his companions at the toughest of times, brings Páidí to my mind at least.
He came from a mythic territory, something best captured in the famous photo of him walking alongside another West Kerry football hero, Paddy Bawn Brosnan, with the Atlantic Ocean beside them. They look like two stony emanations from the wild landscape around them. There was something in Páidí too of the roguish high spirits described in Tomás ó Criomthain and Muiris ó Súilleabháin's great books about the Blaskets. And he could be a bit Peig Sayers when he felt the ref was doing him wrong.
There's no denying that there was a hell-raising element to Páidí's character and that sometimes this hell-raising is more fun for people to talk about or watch than it is for the man involved. Yet I recall, a few months back, talking to a former Cork footballer about the time he and his brother met Páidí on a train to Dublin and they shared a bottle of whiskey. "Such stories he had, such laughs as we had with him, you wouldn't believe what crack he was," said your man and beamed and shook with laughter at the memory of it all 20-odd years later. Páidí was a family man too. I remember meeting him in Dublin once when all he wanted to tell people about were the good exam results his daughter had achieved that day.
Do you know what he was above all? He was alive. And it was that vitality which made his funeral such an extraordinary occasion. The sense of loss and tragedy which had attended the funerals of his great peers, Dermot Earley and John Egan, was nowhere present.
Instead the memory of Páidí's indomitable spirit had turned the day into one of celebration. As if Death was one more opponent he'd held scoreless. As if this was one more scheme to get a crowd down to the pub and he'd pop up at the end of the evening and say, 'alright lads, same time next year'. But it is not so and we must face the fact that in the words of Walter Scott, that great chronicler of swashbuckling heroes from an earlier age, "He is gone on the mountain, he is lost to the forest."
It was a wonderful life.
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- Eamonn Sweeney
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