IT STARTED LIKE IT was meant to go on for over six decades. Almost everyone knows that the, now sadly late, Mícheál ÓMuircheartaigh got his break in broadcasting in a chance opportunity when he was a student teacher in St Pat’s, Drumcondra. Plenty will know that it was a few minutes of a trial as Gaeilge on a hurling match involving UCD.
And that this was the very first time Mícheál had even seen a game of hurling in his life. It may have been the unbearable lightness that teenagers can convincingly wear, but he did not see this as presenting any difficulty whatsoever. To his delight, he spotted the UCD goalkeeper, Tadgh Hurley.
His father had been the bank manager in Dingle and Tadgh attended school there. He knew him. He knew generations of Hurleys.
And so, in his sample commentary, Hurley would go on to have the game of his life, and become the dominant figure. He saved shots. He took sideline cuts and he finished off close-in frees.
Not only that, but the adjudicators were treated to some amusing details such as Tadgh’s status as a medical student, the demeanour of his brother Bob, who had been in the same class as Micheál’s brother Dónal, and his sister that used to come to Dún Síon strand to take in the waters. The adjudicators gave him the gig. He was offered his first paying job to commentate on the Railway Cup final a couple of weeks later.
He received a cheque for six pounds and spent it that evening on a pair of brogues at Standard Shoes in .
