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Post by Ballyfireside on Jan 18, 2013 14:22:57 GMT
Ta Annascaultilidie, ur a star, and I'll call u Tom never no more, altho I thought ud be flatterred, moreover given that u look like him, u might also throw away the pipe, bad job altho did that Tom fella no harm, maybe The Kerry Ingrdeient was in it, conundrum solved? Ta again.
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Post by Mickmack on Feb 16, 2013 10:12:58 GMT
GAELIC GAMES: The 24th annual Paídí Ó Sé Comórtas Peile takes place in Ventry next weekend. The man behind the festival was a larger-than-life figure with an unwavering self-belief and roguish humour – his absence will be keenly felt,
writes DARRAGH O'SE
We’re all down in Ventry next weekend – the one weekend in the year that Páidí enjoyed above all others. The tournament was his own little project, and it turned into a big annual party, but there will be an empty chair this year, as there will be every year from now on.
It’s nine weeks since he died. Of course I miss him. What I miss most are the phone calls. I called him P Sé. With me living in Tralee and him living back west, we mightn’t meet up face to face more than a few times a month. But we’d talk on the phone three or four times a week, and when we did, it was always the lightest part of my day.
If I heard a story about a fella or saw something on the news that there might be a bit of messing in, I’d wait until I was in the car and I’d say, “right, I’ll give P Sé a call about that now and see what he makes of it”. It was always a treat I would set aside a bit of time for. It’s only since he died that I realise I took those phone calls for granted.
Paudie Lynch was his best friend. I ran into him one of the days there and we were talking for a while before he said: “You know, the one thing I miss is giving him a ring and listening to him go on the way he went on.” And there was me thinking I was special!
When it came to football, nobody had a bigger role in shaping me as a player. I went from being a minor to being an under-21 to being in the Kerry senior team all within the space of three months. Páidí was over West Kerry and the county under-21s at the time, so he was there each step of the way with me.
And though he was great fun, he took the game so seriously. He hammered into me some of the things that I tried to take with me for the rest of my career.
He was adamant about not getting into any verbals with your opponent. Not so much out of some big, high-minded motivation for sportsmanship and respect, more that an air of mystery was a great thing to have. If you get involved in a slagging match on the field, you’re giving up ground. You’re letting them pierce the skin.
Far better for them to be wondering what this madman from west Kerry has going on in his head.
Stand up for yourself if there’s a bit of pucking going on, but don’t ever open your mouth. Don’t ever let your guard down or give them an insight into what you’re thinking.
The way he would have seen it, getting involved would have been showing weakness. And he had no time for that. He’d regularly tell you not to go down unless you were really properly hurt. “Don’t give them the satisfaction; don’t let them know they hurt you.”
He saw it as a cop out, as giving them ammunition they didn’t need to have. He drilled that into all of us. I remember one time playing Cork in Killarney in 1998 when Stephen O’Brien came out and caught Maurice Fitzgerald a sweet one and winded him. Maurice got his free and hopped up off the ground, but straight away he looked over at me standing beside him.
Now, the year before in the All-Ireland final, I took a quick free at one stage and Maurice ate the head off me because the way he was playing that day he knew he would have stuck it over the bar. This was a far easier kick and yet Maurice just threw me the ball. He saw the quizzical look on my face and said out of the side of his mouth, “Kick that free there, I can hardly stand up.”
No way would he let the Cork lads see that he’d been hurt.
That was pure Páidí.
He saw playing in black and white terms. Do your job, don’t mind the other crowd. If they’re hopping off you, pulling out of you, that means they’re not focused. That means they’re showing weakness. Don’t do the same. Don’t showboat either. If you get a goal or score a big point, don’t be waving to the crowd. You’re only doing what you’re supposed to – it shouldn’t impact on you high up or low down. Go back and mark your man.
That’s why he loved the German soccer team. He often said he wanted Kerry to play with the flair of the All Blacks and the hardness of the Germans. He was always bringing them up in team talks.
“Look at the Germans, lads,” he’d say. “They’re there every year. No showboating, no messing. They always get to the final or thereabouts. They’re just a machine, lads, a well-oiled machine.”
Love of Kerry
Kerry football was the one thing in life Páidí never joked about.
Around the turn of the millennium, there was a big function in Tralee one night to pay tribute to Kerry footballers of bygone years. Somebody had put together a video and had gathered up old footage from different eras going way back to the 1930s and 1940s.
Obviously, football has changed a lot over the years and some of the old black-and-white footage had fellas kicking daft balls and making mad jumps after scores. Of course, we all thought this was hilarious.
But when Páidí saw us laughing, he got very cross with us. It was because he had this love of Kerry that just transcended everything. He believed in the tradition of all the All-Irelands that Kerry had won and that we were only passing on the baton that had been handed down to us by the fellas in this video.
It wasn’t bravado. Kerry football was the be-all and end-all to him.
He carried it with him and made a big deal out of never letting it down. He was always big into winning with humility and losing with dignity. If you got beaten and you wanted to cut loose, wait until you were back down in Kerry and cut loose there.
Act out all you like, just don’t do it in front of outsiders. Do it in Kerry, do it among your own. It might sound like the kind of thing that could be a charade in somebody else or that could be put on for the sake of looking like a proud countyman. But Páidí truly believed in that kind of thing. Kerry was Kerry and Páidí was Kerry.
Very young
A lot of that came from my grandmother. Beatrice nurtured it in him from a very young age. She saw that he wasn’t up to a whole lot academically, but that when it came to football he was always a step or two ahead of where he was supposed to be.
He was playing for the minors when he was 14, playing for the seniors when he was 15. He was that bit younger than his brothers, so he was indulged and encouraged that bit more.
Football became Beatrice’s passion as much as it was Páidí’s. When he started making the Kerry team, she used to put his football boots out on the wall in front of the shop on the Monday after a game. She’d want to make sure the neighbours saw that her boy had played for Kerry the previous day. She’d be nearly daring people to come into the shop and ask about the game.
In later years, when he went into management, people looking in from the outside had the wrong idea about him.
They thought he was wild and passionate and not a whole lot more. But I always thought that all the yarns about him hid a great intelligence for the game and for management in particular. He just instinctively knew how to get the best out of fellas.
One thing he used to do was gather up all the names and phone numbers of the mothers of all the players. He’d ring them up and chat to them, he’d send them cards at Christmas, all that sort of stuff. Get the mothers onside and the sons will follow.
He’d often ring up the day after a Munster final and ask if the boy was eating up well and feeling good after the game the day before.
The odd time, just for the laugh, he’d ring up knowing full well the boy was away off on the lash for the day with the rest of the team, just to see what sort of excuse the mother would come up with to cover for him.
He got a great kick out of that kind of messing.
I’m not the first or last to say it, but he really was unique. You often hear people say they don’t care what anybody thinks about them but it’s very rare that they mean it. I can honestly say that Páidí’s outstanding characteristic was that he genuinely did not give two hoots what anybody thought of him.
Now, there were positives and negatives to this. The positives came in the form of the self-belief that carried him through his life. As for the negatives, it often got him into situations that, let’s just say, the rest of us would have found hard to deal with.
Top of the queue
I remember one time we were driving to a challenge match on a summer’s evening and we were late to the ferry in Tarbert. The queue for that ferry in the summertime goes back for a half a mile, and if we didn’t get this one we were going to have to wait half an hour for the next one. That didn’t occur to Páidí at all. He just drove up to the top of the queue, ignoring every last beep of the horn or shout that came our way.
One woman chased us down to the gate and screamed at him in through the window, giving him an awful roasting. Páidí let her scream away and kept going, “It’s okay, it’s okay, the whole thing’s booked.”
She knew well that there wasn’t a bit of truth in this and she wasn’t buying it for a second. “Who do you think you are?!” she was shouting.
Myself and Dara Ó Cinnéide were in the car, staring straight ahead and afraid to say anything in case she started on us. And she kept roaring at him as he drove away on to the ferry, leaving her there in a rage.
“Jesus, lads,” said Páidí, “I got away lightly there.”
It was the most savage bollicking I ever saw anybody take, but when I reminded him of it a few days later, he’d forgotten all about it.
He just didn’t care. He had this unwavering self-belief that meant no matter what company he was in, there was nobody in the room better than him.
There was a neighbour of ours from Ventry who became a curate in Los Angeles, Fr James Kavanagh. In his time over there he became friendly with Gregory Peck, who had ancestors from west Kerry.
One day he took myself and Páidí up to Gregory Peck’s house, this mansion in LA. Fintan Ashe from Dingle was with us also, who was a distant cousin of Peck’s. Gregory gave us the grand tour, showed us around the place and was telling stories about how he bought the house.
He was halfway through some story about how he bought it when he was filming Moby Dick and he was reciting lines for us in character as Captain Ahab when, all of a sudden, Páidí stopped him in his tracks. “You have nothing like a bottle of Miller or something handy there, Gregory?” he asked.
Basically, Páidí was getting bored of this man and his stories and it was a hot day in LA – if there was a cold beer going, well Páidí would be better off having it than being bored.
Myself and Fr James were mortified but Páidí wasn’t a bit annoyed. I asked him at one point did he want his picture taken with Gregory’s Oscar and he said, “Not at all, I’m grand. Sure haven’t I the All Stars at home?” You’d be embarrassed by him at times but it wouldn’t turn a hair on his head.
For all his passion, I never got the sense that he really missed the football all that much in recent years. He was happy running the bar and he loved organising his tournament each year. The intercounty scene was a young man’s game and he realised that the role of an intercounty manager had changed a bit even since he’d been involved.
He still had a great interest and he loved going to games, but he would have felt that he had done his bit and that he’d made his peace with it. He wouldn’t have fancied being like Mick O’Dwyer, still plugging away in his 70s.
I miss him plenty. There are days when I’d run into fellas who knew him and we’d chat away about whatever was going on and all you’d be able to say would be: “Our man would have some spin on that, wouldn’t he?” And in the end, you’d just tell another story about him and get on with your day. I could spend two days sitting in a room telling yarns about him and still not get to the end of them. One thing is for certain – it was never dull.
In his element
About a fortnight before he died, four choppers landed in the field behind the pub. They were a group of lads home from London who had been playing golf in Waterville, and they came in and had a few drinks and headed away again.
Páidí was in his element with them, delighted to have them, delighted to welcome them and chat away to them. But what he was most delighted about was that now all the people in the locality would have to ask him what was the story with the lads in the choppers.
In Páidí’s mind, this was just fuel for whatever fire he chose to get going. So for days, he told anyone and everyone that he was after getting an offer to go back managing. A big county, now. A serious offer. How serious? Sure didn’t they send four choppers down to make it!
Not many people could get away with that sort of yarn-spinning but Páidí could because most of the stories he told were told against himself.
Like the time Martin Sheen came into the bar for a drink. Now Páidí wouldn’t have had much of a clue who Martin Sheen was until one of the punters told him, but once he knew, he was full of chat for him. He showed him around the place, showed him all the photographs he had on the wall of himself with various famous faces, including, of course, Tom Cruise. It was only as Martin walked out the door that one of the punters said to Páidí that Martin Sheen was Tom Cruise’s godfather.
Well, Páidí wasn’t going to let that one go without comment so he hurried out to the front of the pub, where Martin was getting into his car.
“Martin!” shouts Páidí. “Martin! Tell Tom I was asking for him, won’t you?”
How could you not miss a man like that?
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Post by Ard Mhacha on Feb 16, 2013 12:35:10 GMT
Nice piece. Some great stories. Love the one about the Oscar. Paidi was quite a character.
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Post by glengael on Feb 17, 2013 17:52:55 GMT
My favourite story is the one about Maurice in the 1998 semi-final against Cork. Very instructive indeed.
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falveyb2k
Fanatical Member
"The way this man played today, if there was a flood he'd walk on water. Jack O Shea"
Posts: 1,920
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Post by falveyb2k on Feb 18, 2013 1:23:38 GMT
You'll have to fill us in on that one!!!!!
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Post by Ballyfireside on Feb 18, 2013 22:28:46 GMT
I think we should create an all time library of these tales, and where better to do it than right here, and now.
From a practical perspective I suggest we just remind of each of them by way of summary and key words, and then when we get exhausted we will tell each story in full, in the order they happened. There is a similar list of Micheal O'Muireartaigh lines, so lets step up to the plate here.
Here’s a few for starters, and lets all spread the word; Was it on his first game vs Cork when Dinny Allen on scoring two early points said to Páidí that O'Dwyer should take him off. Apparently Páidí said that 'if I am going you are coming with me' and with that he drew that famous swipe on Dinny.
Himself and 'Horse' Kennelly once made it from Dublin in an Ice Cream van, let's add the detail later.
Over to you all now and let's knock the back out of it b4 the season hots up and we get busy with the harvest!
I also believe the best ones are not still documented, adn we will also get these! I know of two absolute classics that I will save 'till later.
Maybe Control might help us with bringing this project to the attention of all contributors to the forum?
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Jo90
Fanatical Member
Posts: 2,685
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Post by Jo90 on Feb 19, 2013 10:40:11 GMT
You'll have to fill us in on that one!!!!! It's in the article
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falveyb2k
Fanatical Member
"The way this man played today, if there was a flood he'd walk on water. Jack O Shea"
Posts: 1,920
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Post by falveyb2k on Feb 19, 2013 23:26:13 GMT
Sorry, thought you meant a different one!!!
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stuffoflegends
Full Member
A man who views the world the same at 50 as he did at 20 has wasted 30 years of his life.
Posts: 204
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Post by stuffoflegends on Feb 24, 2013 0:55:47 GMT
Anyone have any Results from the tournament today? can't seem to find them anywhere.
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Post by sullyschoice on Feb 24, 2013 17:31:53 GMT
St Pats beat Annascaul in Intermediate Final
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Post by glengael on Feb 24, 2013 18:01:50 GMT
Oliver Plunketts won the senior title defeating the home team in the Final.
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Post by sullyschoice on Feb 24, 2013 20:44:04 GMT
I was speaking to their manager last week and he said they were sending their strongest panel down. They obviously did.
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Post by haryegsnbaken on Mar 3, 2013 20:46:27 GMT
We anchored a ship in Ventry around the end of the 80s. A few of us went ashore for a jog and passed Pub Paidi O Sé. The man himself was standing outside and says to come in later on for a few scoops. Twas a sunday evening when we arrived in the Bar and the man couldnt do enough for us.He had green and gold hooped T shirts with Pub Paidi O Sé written on them so I bought one and stuck it on. The boys that werer with me were mainly from Cork and started the slag and Paidi produced Red and White hooped tees as well. We had a ball there and at some stage some one of the lads must have invited him out to the ship. Monday morning came and we were all a bit worse for wear and were sailing at midday. About hafl an hour before weighing anchor we saw a small punt heading towards the ship with guess who up on the bow. Twas Paidi. We brought him aboard and gave him the royal tour and he sank 4 pints in the NCOs mess before departing. Thanks for the memory Paidi RIP.
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Post by glengael on Apr 3, 2013 9:27:01 GMT
Imeall, the TG4 arts programme last week was about the Dingle Film Festival which was on over St.Patrick's Weekend. It featured a short clip from a film on Paidi, shown there, which was made by a local filmaker Brenda Ni Shuilleabhain.
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Post by Annascaultilidie on Apr 11, 2013 12:17:18 GMT
Paidi O'Pacino
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animal
Fanatical Member
Posts: 1,931
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Post by animal on Apr 12, 2013 10:45:16 GMT
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Post by Ballyfireside on Apr 12, 2013 14:02:09 GMT
Here's a few verses of my poem Ventry Harbour and which has a similar take to the clip. Thanks to Annascaultilidie for obliging with the link. Ventry Harbour Pacing play, trademark theatrical tirading, inspiring perspiration rousing and rallying his rangers with rogue, brogue roars and sighs A nation holding its breath and he terra-firma, hands on hips, macho mantra orator bawling and bellowing of bombastic, ballistic, berserk, boyish cries
Effing 'n' blinding, throwing the hands in the air kick-starting troops with a well deserved big toe where the sun don't shine Laughing one minute, seconds later sensing danger in the next parish he’d be heard swearing blind
Preserving bragging rights over old foe be paramount given half a chance they’d plant flaming blood 'n' bandages flag up our behind So how to grind out a win and salvage pride in turmoil he will with ruthless rage and rigour remindThere is a twist at the end of this work and for the moment you are welcome to experience it without charge at Ventry Harbour.
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Post by A.N. Other on Sept 3, 2013 10:12:50 GMT
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Post by Annascaultilidie on Dec 15, 2013 12:02:33 GMT
One year on today. I won't forget the date and where I was. Came off the golf course behind and could not believe the text. RIP the PO.
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Post by Chinatown on Dec 15, 2013 19:21:31 GMT
Yep was down in enniskerry when the news came through. Cold day that day
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Post by Mickmack on Dec 19, 2013 19:46:34 GMT
Billy Keane – 14 December 2013
The Kerry team were young and very nervous. It was 1997 and we hadn't won an All-Ireland since 1986. It was the morning of the final against Mayo.
He called the players to one side in the grounds of Blackrock College where the kickabout took place. I snuck over. He spotted me. Said nothing. It was just PO and the players. Maybe he knew, some day, I'd write about it.
At the time, I was a minor functionary in his back-room team. The talk is secret. That is the rule. All I can say is there was no shouting or roaring. It was a calm talk, but after that last few words there was no player in the group who didn't know exactly what his job was. There was no player who didn't know exactly what it meant to wear the green and gold.
"Are you alright?" he asked. "I'm fine," I said. The tears were coming down my face. "Was it alright?" he asked. I couldn't answer. Kerry won the most important All-Ireland ever. Páidí ó Sé saved Kerry football. He had great men with him as selectors and the planner Seamus MacGearailt kept us all grounded, but only Páidí could have won that All-Ireland.
This was Páidí at his best -- in control and beating the demons. There was a chaotic side to him too. Usually when there was drink involved.
It was the snowy January of '97 and I was at Cork Airport without a ticket. Páidí asked me to come on a trip with the Kerry team to the Canaries. I'm not sure what my job was -- and I'm still not sure. Páidí forgot all about asking me to go. Eventually, I travelled under the name of Bernie O'Callaghan. No one bothered to check my passport in the pre-9/11 times.
I blamed PO for two days, then one night he sent me over a drink and a note, it said we're going for walk tomorrow "to discuss tactics". There wasn't a word about tactics, but along with éamonn Breen we had the funniest day ever. He knew all the Africans selling sunglasses by name. Their life stories. They knew him. And he invited them all to Ventry. Jobs and beds for everyone. They sold him a pair of sunglasses the size of saucepans. We told him they were lovely.
You could never fall out with PO. Never. No matter what, because he'd always make it up to you. If you had a puncture outside his front door, it would be very hard to get him to take an interest -- but if your heart was breaking, he'd do all he could to fix it. My old friend was a mind doctor and he had a lovely counter-side manner.
In the end, his own heart broke down because it was too souped up to fit in a human frame and he drove himself too hard.
There were times when I used to feel awful for him. To be Páidí 24 hours a day -- especially in the summer -- was impossible and exacting. Everyone wanted a piece of him.
He was shy, you know. It was his first day in St Michael's in Listowel. PO was 18 and nervous. There wasn't a word out of him. Three months later, we'd have died for him. Our tiny school won all around us that year. Didn't lose a game. We won the Kerry Colleges for the first time ever. Our trainer John O'Flaherty was a football genius and he said some day Páidí would manage Kerry. I was 16 and I knew some day Páidí would win loads of All-Irelands.
Tommy O'Connell and myself walked home with Páidí every evening. There were so many yarns. They were the best days I had with him. When people left him alone, before he was famous, and he didn't have to be Páidí.
I remember bursting into the old man's study one evening, firing the schoolbag in the corner and telling him "I have no life". That was after the walk home, listening to Páidí's outrageous yarns, after a trip to London with the Kerry team.
He could be a meticulous planner and there was never a better fundraiser. His lovely family are keeping up the tradition. They raised thousands for heart equipment and the Páidí ó Sé Tournament, now in its 25th year, takes place next February. The nephews are behind it too and I'd say PO is fierce proud. There's no better weekend anywhere. He was mad about Maire and the kids. PO wasn't your conventional father. There were times when he was put in the bold corner by his girls. Classic role reversal it was. He never chastised his kids. It was all love, funny one-liners, wisdom, holidays, walks, cycles and a soft-spoken gentleness you'd never think he had in him if you watched him playing football.
A couple of weeks ago, I was in bad form. I started to dial 066 915... then it dawned on me. Now, when you'd go ringing PO there wouldn't be a response like "I'll share your pain, man" or "I love you, bro". He wasn't exactly your modern man.
He hated bad news. So the best thing to do was just call him. He'd know from the tone of your voice if the treatment was needed. Then he'd get it going. There would be enough laughter to cure any pain.
He's dead a year tomorrow. Most of all I miss watching that brilliant mind thinking. You could see him winding up. Just to give a bit of himself. It was as if there was an empty thought bubble, like they have in the comics, waiting to be filled up and you would never quite know what he'd come out with.
I see him now in his new going-away-from-home suit with a tie knot as a big as an apple. There's a shine off him and he's as fit as a trout. I can still hear his legacy podcasts in my head.
And I always will.
Irish Independent
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Post by MrRasherstoyou on Dec 19, 2013 20:48:41 GMT
Great piece. I'd love to have met him but I'd hate to have been another addition to his overload. Hard to believe he's still gone. Well done BK.
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Post by sullyschoice on Dec 19, 2013 23:25:18 GMT
Best piece I have read by Keane. I don't usually like his schtyle.
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fitz
Fanatical Member
Red sky at night get off my land
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Post by fitz on Dec 20, 2013 1:09:59 GMT
It is a refreshing piece from him for sure, very warm, with fond memories regaled. A fitting first anniversary salute to P Se, as Darragh calls him.
I think if Billy adopted more writing focus on real objects like this instance instead of some of the rambling and disjointed, and realistically difficult to understand pieces, I think we'd consider putting away the Kleenex. A positive step at least
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Post by backothehill on Dec 20, 2013 22:47:26 GMT
Lovely piece by Billy. I digress in that I really think Billy has the pulse of the regular bloke. He knows if we are Kerry of a certain generation we love Kerry football, like a bit of soccer,rugby,horses and all sports in their turn.Being a North Kerry man is a great advantage in appreciating Billy's scribblings.i don't mind being the man who says I really like Billy Keanes work. John B would be proud of him .
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Post by backothehill on Dec 20, 2013 22:47:35 GMT
Lovely piece by Billy. I digress in that I really think Billy has the pulse of the regular bloke. He knows if we are Kerry of a certain generation we love Kerry football, like a bit of soccer,rugby,horses and all sports in their turn.Being a North Kerry man is a great advantage in appreciating Billy's scribblings.i don't mind being the man who says I really like Billy Keanes work. John B would be proud of him .
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Post by backothehill on Dec 20, 2013 22:48:23 GMT
Don't know why that went up twice?
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Post by sullyschoice on Dec 20, 2013 23:44:11 GMT
That is happening a bit recently.
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Post by Annascaultilidie on Dec 21, 2013 10:11:23 GMT
That is happening a bit recently. Can one of them not be deleted subsequently?
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Post by Chinatown on Dec 21, 2013 13:53:33 GMT
Sporting books of the year review in indo today. Paidi's got a nice mention
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