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Kerry legend Páidí Ó Sé died this morning aged just 57.

Just read that.

RIP

Character legend and a lot more. What a man. Rip

Just heard. Had he been unwell or anything? Shocking news - relatively young man, only 57.
RIP to one of the big characters of the GAA.

Very sad news. RIP.

Very sad news. Didn't know he was unwell. RIP

Met him recently and he seemed in good nick. Very sad news but I'm glad I got to meet him and shake the mans hand. To think he'd be dead just a few weeks later is surreal. A legend and character. RIP.

The same year as John Egan - two great players on the greatest team I've ever seen.

Ar dheis Dé go raibh a anam uasal.

RIP. Legend.

Much too young. RIP

RIP. Character and legend of the game.

RIP.  Loved the way he played football.

Heart attack apparently. Rip.

Ar dheis Dé do raibh a anam.
Very sad to lose a man that has contributed so much to the GAA so young. Sincerest condolences to his family and friends.

This is the 3rd ? member of the golden years team passed on too soon after Tim Kennelly and John Egan. His own brother the father of Dara, Tomás, Mark and Ferghal died relatively young also.

wile hanlin.  God rest him.

Part of the game's folklore as a player and manager. 57 is nothing these days, RIP Paidi

Very young RIP, he gave us one hell of a day out in 2004.

Shocking News. RIP Paudie

A big shock for sure.

RIP Páidí

Very sad to hear. A true legend.

RIP Paidi

Very sad news. Far too young. Condolences to his family and the people of Kerry.

Shocked by this. Páidí always epitomised the spirit of the GAA for me. Had the pleasure of meeting him a few times, always a gentleman and always had time for a bit of banter and craic, though I'm sure he must have been tortured everywhere he went.

Ar dheis Dé go raibh a anam.

RIP Paudie, one of the game's great inimitable characters gone, and far too soon. Go ndéana Dia trócaire ar a anam uasal.

Great player and definitely one of the great characters of the game in recent years. RIP Paudi

Shocked to hear this. An absolute legend of the game.

Ar dheis Dé go raibh a anam.

A big shock. Condolences to his family.

RIP Paidi O'Se, one of the GAA greats. Ar dheis Dé go raibh a anam

Absolutely shocked at hearing this this morning.  He was one of the greats.
RIP and my condolences to his family.

Shocked and saddened by Páidís untimely death.

Ar dheis Dé go raibh a anam.

One of Kerrys greatest half back, only really surpassed in Kerry by the Pony and his nephew Tomas, Hard as nails footballer who played football the way it was supposed to be played with intensity and self believe. Will be greatly missed, 57 seems so young, Kerry have just lost one of their greatest sons, RIP Paidi, you not be forgotten!

Shocking news. He'll be dearly missed by his family and friends.

Very sad news, tragic for any family at anytime, one of the greats whose legend will live on for many years to come ... RIP Paidi.

His brother Michael died too of a hearth attack a few years ago. Father of Dara,Tomas and Marc.

Another GAA great gone from us. RIP Paidi.

Beidh cuimhne air go deo. RIP.

Grew up watching him compete with manic intensity on a great Kerry Team, I think there is some incredible statistic as to the number of All Ireland finals he played in (7?? 9???) and his direct opposite number scored a sum total of one point from play on him. I'm open to correction on the exact stat but certainly said it all about the man from an era when man to man match ups were a huge part of the game.

My he rest in peace.

Quote from: anglocelt39 on December 15, 2012, 05:39:18 PM
Grew up watching him compete with manic intensity on a great Kerry Team, I think there is some incredible statistic as to the number of All Ireland finals he played in (7?? 9???) and his direct opposite number scored a sum total of one point from play on him. I'm open to correction on the exact stat but certainly said it all about the man from an era when man to man match ups were a huge part of the game.

My he rest in peace.

From reading the tributes to him, it was 10 All-Ireland finals, and only 1 point sccored by the man he was marking. An amazing statistic.

RIP. Hadn't heard & i was opening the thread hoping it wasn't what i thought it was going to be, unfortunately there seems to be a lot of them lately. Sad news again.

Very sad news to hear. A giant has dissappeared off the GAA landscape. Leaving some enormous footprints it must be said.

Shocked to hear this, a legend of the GAA world and one of the greats.
Go ndéanfaidh Dia trócaire ar a anam uasal.

Afull sad news couldn't believe it when i first heard it Today. A legend of the game hard to believe that he is dead at  just 57 years of age. Loved watching him play and speak about his love of gaelic games , Kerry and the gaeltacht. One of the best weekends we had was when we went down to play in his tournament around 1999 and meet the legend in the flesh  . Thoughts and prayers are with his family. May he rest in peace .

The term "one of the greats" is often overused, but it certainly applies to Paidi O'Se. 

http://gaaboard.com/board/index.php?PHPSESSID=af486f21394ffc907978274968ca59b3&topic=2787.msg85002#msg85002

Story about Daragh,but gives a great insight to Paudie

Genuinely shocked and saddened by the news about Paidi. Been down to his tournament on a few occasions in the past and he was always a great host. A true legend of the game. May he rest in peace!

Very sorry and shocked to hear the news of Paidi's untimely passing. As Oraisteach said sometimes we use words like legend to freely but undoubtedly he was a legend of gaelic football. RIP.

Some footballer & character. Way too young to go. RIP.

Quite shocked by this.

Great story in Humphries book about the Kerry/Dubs rivalry when he was playing, something along the lines of Paidi being consumed by nerves and superstition, fired up to the last. John Egan would come along and casually ask where we're they heading that night!

O'Cinneide comment that the fun seemed to leave football when he stepped down sas a lot

big shock, great folballer, may he rest in peace

One of the games great characters.. Great player and never afraid to speak his mind, usually with a twinkle in the eye, and a
devilish smile...

RIP

Ar dheis Dé go raibh a anam uasal.

Very sad. RIP

Very very sad, a young man, a great character and a great GAA man.  As was said earlier, the word legend gets thrown around a lot but completely fits with Páidi...

I was completely stunned when I heard it, always had it on my To Do List to head into his pub at some stage, sip a few pints and hopefully listen to of his yarns

RIP Páidí - you can only imagine the craic is mighty upstairs with himself there

Very fitting tribute to Páidí in the Sunday Times which ends with the following verse from Sigerson Clifford.

'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...

I'm no big fan of the BBC but I just seen a mention of Paidi on the sports awards. Fair play.

RIP Paidi.

Great to see Paidi remembered on the BBC Sports Personality of the Year show.

Seen his pic was included there on SPOTY. A real legend. Rest In Peace.

Paidi just remembered by the BBC on SPOTY  nice touch by the BBC.

Nice touch from the BBC SPOTY including Páidí in their tribute, maith thú.

Brilliant gesture by the BBC,perhaps less unjustified criticism of them on this board in future.

Great to see Paidi there. Paidi def a legend of the game,who Im sure will be sorely missed in Kerry!! Dara O'Cinneidi summed him up well!!

Quote from: ApresMatch on December 16, 2012, 10:29:09 PM
Great to see Paidi there. Paidi def a legend of the game,who Im sure will be sorely missed in Kerry!! Dara O'Cinneidi summed him up well!!

Yes great to see him get a mention, I know that bit covers stars from all countries but still surprised and delighted to see that BBC had the insight to mention him so well done.

What was done for him lads?

He was included in the montage of Sports Stars no longer with us,in BBC Sports Personality of the Year show,just before the winner,Bradley Wiggins,was announced.

It's on the iplayer at 2:40:57

(https://pbs.twimg.com/media/A-RaBtqCUAEGHLl.jpg:large)

To be honest, I was taken aback by it, definitely was't expecting to see Paidi's pic coming up on tonight's show, I actually did a rewind just to check what I had seen.  Well done to someone in the BBC who had the foresight to include Paidi in the tribute the day after he passed on. 

RIP Páidí.

RIP Paidi...a legend.

Credit to the BBC, I've been one of their biggest critics, so well done for getting it right on this occasion.

Nice touch from the BBC although it would have been even nicer if they also included John Egan who also passed away in 2012.

Quote from: blanketattack on December 17, 2012, 11:09:53 AM
Nice touch from the BBC although it would have been even nicer if they also included John Egan who also passed away in 2012.

totally agree

Was taken aback when I got word of this on Saturday, way too young to be taken at 57, condolences to his family.

I met the great man a couple of years ago on a tour of the Kingdom. Dingle was packed and we ended up staying in a B&B across from his pub. We ambled in for a night cap after a busy Saturday night in Dingle and found a quiet pub, a common enough occurrence in rural Ireland now I suppose. Paidí was holding court at the counter with a couple of people. Halfway through our pints he made his way to leave but he stopped at our table to see who we were. I declared my allegiances straight away and thanked him for 04 to which he asked had I see his photos? (You couldn't miss it, the Westmeath Examiner presented him with a montage of photos in 04, it's fecking huge, Gerry Buckley talks about it here while paying tribute to the great man https://soundcloud.com/midlandssport/gerry-buckley-on-passing-paidi (https://soundcloud.com/midlandssport/gerry-buckley-on-passing-paidi)) Then he was out the door before we knew he was going, like the cute politician.

Glad I got the chance to meet and thank him when I did. There will be a strong Westmeath representation in Ventry tomorrow I'm sure. Laochra Gael.

genuine Footballing legend - Player and manager. Great loss to the game and taken v early from his family. RIP.

God rest ye Paudi. Small in stature but a giant of the game.

I have a great memory of him just after the 1997 National League final in Páirc Uí Chaoimh.

Tyrone had  just played in a vocational schools final in the warm up match and afterwards shared the same hotel as Kerry for the post match meal.

I was up at the bar getting a drink when two of the victorious Kerry players came up with the cup and asked the barman to fill it up with cider. ( Not sure who the players were. They were huge anyhow).

Next thing I know is Paudi bursts in between them and grabs the cup before hardly a drop has entered it saying "yis have won f*****g nothing yet!" and with a glare at the barman that would have cut turf, barks "don't fill that again" as he proceeds to pour it down the sink.

Kerry needless to say did go on to win the All-Ireland that year.

I also remember vividly the elderly Kerry supporter coming out of the Hogan stand during the 2003 All-Ireland semi-final and connecting Paudi with the most cowardly right hook from behind.

Colourful character. Colourful career. RIP

I never met the great man but do remember his playing days. An absolute tiger who relished the heat of battle. I'm not so sure if he was the best manager or tactician but he would have been. Huge motivator I'm sure. A true great has gone.

I was truely shocked when I heard the news. A truely great player and a great man as well. A huge loss to Kerry and the GAA. My thoughts are with the O'Se family.

http://www.irishtimes.com/newspaper/sport/2012/1218/1224327960061.html

The Irish Times - Tuesday, December 18, 2012
An abiding memory of great warmth and friendship




DAVID HICKEY

Páidí Ó Sé was a fantastic athlete and a terrific human being on top of that

David Hickey was a member of the Dublin team of the 1970s and played on Páidí Ó Sé in a number of All-Ireland finals. They became enduring friends off the field.

He was also a selector with Pat Gilroy's Dublin side, which won the 2011 All-Ireland and beat Kerry in the final for the first time since he was a player.

John McCarthy called me on Saturday morning to tell me that Páidí had passed on. Devastating news: I was rocked and you could hear John's voice breaking. We were both very fond of this fella, and the abiding memory is of great warmth and friendship.

When we scooted into an All-Ireland final in 1975, I had never heard of Páidí Ó Sé.

That was supposed to be a handy All-Ireland for us because they had a very young team. I had a cousin, Pat O'Byrne from Limerick, who rang to tell me: "You're playing on a hot bit of stuff, kiddo. This guy's a great player." He gave me a roasting that day.

Páidí would shake hands with you at the start of a match and that was his demeanour for the rest of the game.

Straightforward

I never once had my jersey pulled. I never once got a clip off the ball. He never stood on my feet or anything like that. Absolutely straightforward and if you got between him and the ball, that was your problem but there was never, ever anything underhand about Páidí Ó Sé.

The main problem within GAA now in my opinion is all of this imported stuff from soccer – the diving, taunting and the psychological bulls**t that goes on.

Páidí Ó Sé was at the absolute opposite end of that spectrum. He had a supreme belief in himself, which was usually justified, and if he couldn't win the ball fair and square – within broad parameters! – he'd feel he was letting himself down.

I feel the clips shown on TV the other night of him getting stuck into me were a distortion. That wasn't him. It was in the heat of the game and he was unlucky to be sent off, and I probably made a meal of it to be honest.

I think the great things he did in football are what need to be remembered and I think they are what is remembered.

I couldn't say that it was a pleasure to play against him because they weren't always my finest hours but I have nothing but the highest respect for him as player.

I would say the same about him as a human being because when I became sick in 2006 he came up to see me and made huge efforts to support me.

He was an old-style Gaelic footballer, a fantastic athlete and a generous, warm person on top of that. He was one of the Kerry fellas who always came over and talked to us.

John McCarthy was in the Garda with him at that stage and they had a fairly strong relationship. We slowly got to know him well over the years between going down to Ventry and him coming up to Dublin.

The Dublin team trained down there this August for a weekend and we asked him could he do a dinner for us on Sunday evening – at one o'clock and for 65 people. He didn't bat an eyelid and put on a great, great night for us.

I think every Kerry fella is interested in some way in managing the Kerry team. It's a great accolade. I wasn't surprised at him doing that and neither was I surprised at his success.

Generally speaking I think football management is about a passionate vision of what you want to do and this was someone who could definitely get that across to people. I could see 30 guys rowing in behind him and having total confidence in him.

Widely knowledgeable

He was also a literary guy. You could have very good conversations with Páidí. He was a well-read and widely knowledgeable on public affairs. He wasn't just a footballer, as his appointment to the board of Bórd Fáilte showed.

His life was very much Kerry and football, and the two of them are so intertwined I'd say he was missing the involvement.

Some of the stuff at the end – the "animals" comment – was taken totally out of context and I think some people got mileage out of it totally disingenuously. It was unfair and certainly didn't reflect his feelings about Kerry. He took immense pride in his nephews playing for the county. They are chips off the old block – very athletic. People forget how good an athlete Páidí was.

I had great time for him. Whenever he was in Dublin there would be a phone call and I'd be into town to see him.

I loved meeting him and would like to offer my sympathies to Máire, Neasa, Siún and Pádraig; it will be a huge hole in their lives.

You could always drop down to see him or call over to his mother's shop and he always had great time for you.

We didn't meet often enough and that is my regret now.

Quote

I never once had my jersey pulled. I never once got a clip off the ball. He never stood on my feet or anything like that. Absolutely straightforward and if you got between him and the ball, that was your problem but there was never, ever anything underhand about Páidí Ó Sé.

Thats the way I always wanted to play.

Legend of a man and one of the greatest defenders ever. From reading his book, he liked  a pint and the craic too which only added to my respect. A sad loss

Sharon Ní Bheoláin has twice called him 'Paudsie' on the news this evening. FFS  :o

I'd say that's her overexaggerated pronunciation of the Gaeilge "idí".

Lookit the 2 bearloiri above.

And RTE news calling Ceann Tra "Ventry" - go bhfoire Dia orainn. 

The ultimate send off


http://www.irishtimes.com/newspaper/breaking/2012/1218/breaking21.html

With the line of players past and present lining each side and the cortege beginning to move, Cór Cúl Aodha, the all male choir of the Cork Gaeltacht under the direction of Peadar O' Riada, began to thunder " Sé Mo Laoch Mo Ghile Mear" , the 18th century Irish tribute to Bonnie Prince Charlie

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JO1HCXDtGhg

Graveside Oration by Sean Walsh, Cathaoirleach Comhairle na Múmhan CLG at Funeral of Páidí Ó Sé R.I.P.

The Ó Sé family have bestowed a great honour on me by requesting that I speak at Páidí's funeral.

I am fully aware, as indeed we all are, that we are mourning the loss of an extraordinary individual and that words are not adequate to convey our deep sense of loss; but we feel it in our hearts, in our bones and in our minds. From our midst has been taken an Icon, a Legend in his own lifetime, a man of many talents and many parts, a man we will remember for these talents. But the greatest sense of loss and grief will be felt by his family and our thoughts and prayers are with them, not only at this time, but into the future.

Páidí Ó Sé, Peileadóir Chiarraí, Captaen Foireann Chiarraí, Bainisteoir Foireann Chiarraí, garda, Fear an Tí anseo i dTigh Pháídí in Árd A'Bhóthair, fear clainne, fear a raibh scéalta iontacha greannúr le h-insint aige. Tá sé deachair dúinn a thuiscint go bhfuil sé imithe uainn.
Is i ngeansaí Chiarraí is mó a bheidh cuimhne againn go deo ar Pháidí Ó Sé. Peileadóír den chéad scoth a bhain cliú agus cáil amach dó féin is cuma pé áit sa pháirc ina raibh sé ag imirt. Ocht mbonn uile Éireann sinsear buaite aige comh maith leis na gradaim go léir eile a bhuaidh sé san Sraith Náísiúnta, Corn An Bhóthair Iarainn agus i gCraobh Na Mumhan, agus anseo i gCiarraí i gCroabh an Chontae.

Bhí sé mar cheannaire den chéad scoth againn i bpáirc na h-imeartha agus go h-áirithe in 1985 mar chaptaen na fóirne.Chruthaigh sé ceannaireacht fíor iontach ní h-amháin ar an bpáirc imeartha mar imreoir ach chomh maith mar bhainisteoir na fóirne laistigh agus lasmuigh den pháirc.

Ní dhéanfaidh éinne dearmad go deo ar an óráid a thug sé as Gaeilge tar éis dó an Chorn Sam a ghlachadh i ndiaidh an Chluiche Cheannais i bPáirc An Chróchaigh in 1985. Ba chruthú é sin ar an gcaighdéan ard a bhí aige féin . Bhí sé fíor lámhach lena chuid ama agus é ag bualadh le daoine a tháínig anseo chun chainte leis. Táimid uilig bródúil as an méid a rinne sé ar son Cumann Lúthchleas Gael agus do Chíarraí i gcoitine.

Páidí was truly in every sense of the word a Kerry great on the field and off the field he was always so entertaining to listen to. He will be sadly missed by all. Today we lay to rest the unconquerable Páidí Ó Sé, a friend to millions, a loving husband to Máire, a loving father to his children Neasa, Siún and Padraig Óg, and the proudest uncle in the world to Feargal, Darragh, Tomás and Marc and ever present friend and brother to Tom. His memory will be lovingly and proudly remembered by all who knew him. Today the GAA mourns the passing of one its greatest ambassadors. Few have earned the affection of so many sports people not alone for their sporting achievements and for their infectious, warm and charismatic personalities off the field as Páidí Ó Sé. Páidí had many friends not alone from the sporting world but from every walk of life. He was as comfortable and happy sitting with the locals in Foxy John's as he was in Government buildings with the Taoiseach of the day.

It was highly appropriate that leading the many tributes paid to Páidí since his untimely death last Saturday was one from Uachtarán Na hÉireann, Michael D. Higgins. Appropriate because Páidí throughout his life embodied everything of what it meant to be Irish. A fíor Gael, he was passionate about everything Irish. Coming from An Ghaeltacht his love of our native language was nurtured from the cradle and it was in his own native language that he articulated his great joy of being a an All-Ireland winning captain in his speech on the steps of the Hogan Stand in 1985. When speaking in his native tongue it was always spoken with such colour and beauty that it would bring on tears of joy and often laughter. He loved our Gaelic culture, music, song, dance and literature and his passion for politics was widely known. But it was in our games that his passion truly blossomed from a very young age. And when his playing days and his times in management were over he never lost that passion and kept it alive in his weekly column in the Sunday Independent. He contributed to many TV and Radio programmes and documentaries about Gaelic Games and at the time of his death was busy organising his Annual Football Tournament which in 2013 would be his own personal contribution to The Gathering where he planned to invite teams from overseas. As a director of Fáilte Ireland he was passionate about the importance of promoting tourism particularly to his beloved Chorcha Dhuibhne and Kerry.

Everybody here today will recall their own personal memories and if all those memories were collected and put together it would indeed be filled with many stories of his illustrious years as a player and team manager, it would be funny because Páidí had the charm and roguery to be a great storyteller who would have an audience in the palm of his hand as he told some wonderful stories of his own exploits and those of others. Stories, that he embellished so well with his unique gift to entertain that his listeners would always have a good laugh, often at his own expense.

As a player and manager his achievements are huge:-

Playing Honours

Schools titles
•O'Sullivan Cup (Kerry Colleges) 4: 1971,1972,1973,1974
•Munster College A with St. Brendan's Killarney 2: 1972,1973
•Munster Colleges B with St. Micheal's Listowel 1: 1974

Underage titles
•3 Munster U21 Championship 1973,1975,1976
•3 All Ireland U21 Championship 1973,1975,1976

Senior titles

All Ireland Senior Championship 8: 1975,1978,1979,1980,1981,1984,1985,1986
Munster Senior Championship 11: 1975,1976,1977,1978,1979,1980,1981,1982,1984,1985,1986
National League 4: 1974,1977,1982,1984
Railway Cup 4: 1976,1978,1981,1982
All Stars 5: 1981,1982,1983,1984,1985
County Senior Championship: 1984,198

Managerial honours

Kerry
•All Ireland Senior Championship 2: 1997,2000
•Munster Senior Championship 6: 1996,1997,1998,2000,2001,2003
•All Ireland U21 Championship 1: 1995
•Munster U21 Championship 2; 1993,1995
•National League 1: 1997

Westmeath
•Leinster Senior Championship 1: 2004

West Kerry
•County Senior Championship 3: 1984, 1985 (Player/Manager) 1990

Árd A Bhóthair was a very special place to Páidí. Here he grew from boy to man in a close knit and happy family environment that made a deep imprint on his future life. Here his early passion for football was nurtured and encouraged by his parents and older brothers. In this happy household Beatrice reigned as mother and queen and woe betide any misguided interloper that interfered with one of her brood. This loving caring and wise Matriarch was considered by the youthful Páidí as having opinions that were far superior to any verdict of the Supreme court and he left nobody in any doubt about it.

And it is true that while Páidí made many long journeys the length and breadth of this country his heart remained firmly planted in the soil of Árd a Bhóthair. Agus táim cinnte gurb'é anseo i measc a mhuintir féin in Árd a Bhóthair i nGaeltacht Chorcha Dhuibhne i gCiarraí Thiar go mbeidh an bhrón is mó, tuisc nach bhfuil an ard rí ann a thuilleadh.

It would be fair to say that the game of backs and forwards played high in the sky last night, that John Egan would have found a lot less room in the forwards now that Páidí has joined Tim Kennelly in the back line and I have no doubt that the after party is still ongoing.

It is true to say that here in Kerry football defines us as a people. We are proud of our 36 All-Ireland titles and the players and mentors who achieved that distinguished Roll of Honour. For generations our players and teams have been immortalised in song, in story and in poetry.

Good poetry has that special ingredient that will evoke the deepest emotion of the human heart, indeed, is the spirit that remains unmoved in the presence of such genius – because genius is what it is. Liam MacGabhann, a native of Valentia, was one who had it in rich abundance. His "Blind man at Croke Park" captures brilliantly the spiritual essence of Kerry's football pride exuded by Páidí Ó Sé

"Listen, asthore, for those old eyes are sealed
Tell me once more when the Kerrymen take the field
Tell an old man who is feeble, grey and old
Do they walk proudly still wearing the Green and Gold?"

When Sigerson Clifford wrote I AM OF KERRY you would think that he wrote the
last verse with Páidí in mind:

"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."

Árd A Bhóthair was his birthplace, the place where he and Máire raised their family and ran their business. It was his homeland physically and spiritually, the place he never left and today as we bid our sad farewells that the man, who achieved stardom and rubbed shoulders, with the great was in essence the boy from Árd A Bhóthair full of boyish mischief with a great sense of fun and enjoyment and without a touch of malice in his generous spirit.

May the Ventry sod rest lightly on this noble warrior and may the angels bear him gently to God's happy playing field.

Go dtuga Dia suaimhneas síorraí dá anam Uasal.

Doesnt really matter what Sharon whatsher tits called him. His mates back wesht called him "Rí na Paróiste". That'll do for me.

I think it's a fitting tribute to the man that, while condolences have flowed in from all quarters, there hasn't been a dicky bird of criticism or half-begrudging compliment from anyone. He will be missed by all who knew him.

I used to meet him regularly when I was working in Dublin airport when he was coming or going from the Aer Arran flight to Farranfore, talked football with him a few times walking from the airside security screening to the old temporary portacabins down near the new pier D, a few months later I was working airside again and as Paudi walked by he winked and said "how's all about Monaghan".
I was surprised and a more than a bit proud that he remembered me from our few brief chats.
Above all else I'll remember him as a gentleman.

RIP Paudì.

http://www.irishtimes.com/newspaper/ireland/2012/1219/1224327998658.html?via=mr

Quote from: Declan on December 18, 2012, 09:53:45 PM
Graveside Oration by Sean Walsh, Cathaoirleach Comhairle na Múmhan CLG at Funeral of Páidí Ó Sé R.I.P.

The Ó Sé family have bestowed a great honour on me by requesting that I speak at Páidí's funeral.

I am fully aware, as indeed we all are, that we are mourning the loss of an extraordinary individual and that words are not adequate to convey our deep sense of loss; but we feel it in our hearts, in our bones and in our minds. From our midst has been taken an Icon, a Legend in his own lifetime, a man of many talents and many parts, a man we will remember for these talents. But the greatest sense of loss and grief will be felt by his family and our thoughts and prayers are with them, not only at this time, but into the future.

Páidí Ó Sé, Peileadóir Chiarraí, Captaen Foireann Chiarraí, Bainisteoir Foireann Chiarraí, garda, Fear an Tí anseo i dTigh Pháídí in Árd A'Bhóthair, fear clainne, fear a raibh scéalta iontacha greannúr le h-insint aige. Tá sé deachair dúinn a thuiscint go bhfuil sé imithe uainn.
Is i ngeansaí Chiarraí is mó a bheidh cuimhne againn go deo ar Pháidí Ó Sé. Peileadóír den chéad scoth a bhain cliú agus cáil amach dó féin is cuma pé áit sa pháirc ina raibh sé ag imirt. Ocht mbonn uile Éireann sinsear buaite aige comh maith leis na gradaim go léir eile a bhuaidh sé san Sraith Náísiúnta, Corn An Bhóthair Iarainn agus i gCraobh Na Mumhan, agus anseo i gCiarraí i gCroabh an Chontae.

Bhí sé mar cheannaire den chéad scoth againn i bpáirc na h-imeartha agus go h-áirithe in 1985 mar chaptaen na fóirne.Chruthaigh sé ceannaireacht fíor iontach ní h-amháin ar an bpáirc imeartha mar imreoir ach chomh maith mar bhainisteoir na fóirne laistigh agus lasmuigh den pháirc.

Ní dhéanfaidh éinne dearmad go deo ar an óráid a thug sé as Gaeilge tar éis dó an Chorn Sam a ghlachadh i ndiaidh an Chluiche Cheannais i bPáirc An Chróchaigh in 1985. Ba chruthú é sin ar an gcaighdéan ard a bhí aige féin . Bhí sé fíor lámhach lena chuid ama agus é ag bualadh le daoine a tháínig anseo chun chainte leis. Táimid uilig bródúil as an méid a rinne sé ar son Cumann Lúthchleas Gael agus do Chíarraí i gcoitine.

Páidí was truly in every sense of the word a Kerry great on the field and off the field he was always so entertaining to listen to. He will be sadly missed by all. Today we lay to rest the unconquerable Páidí Ó Sé, a friend to millions, a loving husband to Máire, a loving father to his children Neasa, Siún and Padraig Óg, and the proudest uncle in the world to Feargal, Darragh, Tomás and Marc and ever present friend and brother to Tom. His memory will be lovingly and proudly remembered by all who knew him. Today the GAA mourns the passing of one its greatest ambassadors. Few have earned the affection of so many sports people not alone for their sporting achievements and for their infectious, warm and charismatic personalities off the field as Páidí Ó Sé. Páidí had many friends not alone from the sporting world but from every walk of life. He was as comfortable and happy sitting with the locals in Foxy John's as he was in Government buildings with the Taoiseach of the day.

It was highly appropriate that leading the many tributes paid to Páidí since his untimely death last Saturday was one from Uachtarán Na hÉireann, Michael D. Higgins. Appropriate because Páidí throughout his life embodied everything of what it meant to be Irish. A fíor Gael, he was passionate about everything Irish. Coming from An Ghaeltacht his love of our native language was nurtured from the cradle and it was in his own native language that he articulated his great joy of being a an All-Ireland winning captain in his speech on the steps of the Hogan Stand in 1985. When speaking in his native tongue it was always spoken with such colour and beauty that it would bring on tears of joy and often laughter. He loved our Gaelic culture, music, song, dance and literature and his passion for politics was widely known. But it was in our games that his passion truly blossomed from a very young age. And when his playing days and his times in management were over he never lost that passion and kept it alive in his weekly column in the Sunday Independent. He contributed to many TV and Radio programmes and documentaries about Gaelic Games and at the time of his death was busy organising his Annual Football Tournament which in 2013 would be his own personal contribution to The Gathering where he planned to invite teams from overseas. As a director of Fáilte Ireland he was passionate about the importance of promoting tourism particularly to his beloved Chorcha Dhuibhne and Kerry.

Everybody here today will recall their own personal memories and if all those memories were collected and put together it would indeed be filled with many stories of his illustrious years as a player and team manager, it would be funny because Páidí had the charm and roguery to be a great storyteller who would have an audience in the palm of his hand as he told some wonderful stories of his own exploits and those of others. Stories, that he embellished so well with his unique gift to entertain that his listeners would always have a good laugh, often at his own expense.

As a player and manager his achievements are huge:-

Playing Honours

Schools titles
•O'Sullivan Cup (Kerry Colleges) 4: 1971,1972,1973,1974
•Munster College A with St. Brendan's Killarney 2: 1972,1973
•Munster Colleges B with St. Micheal's Listowel 1: 1974

Underage titles
•3 Munster U21 Championship 1973,1975,1976
•3 All Ireland U21 Championship 1973,1975,1976

Senior titles

All Ireland Senior Championship 8: 1975,1978,1979,1980,1981,1984,1985,1986
Munster Senior Championship 11: 1975,1976,1977,1978,1979,1980,1981,1982,1984,1985,1986
National League 4: 1974,1977,1982,1984
Railway Cup 4: 1976,1978,1981,1982
All Stars 5: 1981,1982,1983,1984,1985
County Senior Championship: 1984,198

Managerial honours

Kerry
•All Ireland Senior Championship 2: 1997,2000
•Munster Senior Championship 6: 1996,1997,1998,2000,2001,2003
•All Ireland U21 Championship 1: 1995
•Munster U21 Championship 2; 1993,1995
•National League 1: 1997

Westmeath
•Leinster Senior Championship 1: 2004

West Kerry
•County Senior Championship 3: 1984, 1985 (Player/Manager) 1990

Árd A Bhóthair was a very special place to Páidí. Here he grew from boy to man in a close knit and happy family environment that made a deep imprint on his future life. Here his early passion for football was nurtured and encouraged by his parents and older brothers. In this happy household Beatrice reigned as mother and queen and woe betide any misguided interloper that interfered with one of her brood. This loving caring and wise Matriarch was considered by the youthful Páidí as having opinions that were far superior to any verdict of the Supreme court and he left nobody in any doubt about it.

And it is true that while Páidí made many long journeys the length and breadth of this country his heart remained firmly planted in the soil of Árd a Bhóthair. Agus táim cinnte gurb'é anseo i measc a mhuintir féin in Árd a Bhóthair i nGaeltacht Chorcha Dhuibhne i gCiarraí Thiar go mbeidh an bhrón is mó, tuisc nach bhfuil an ard rí ann a thuilleadh.

It would be fair to say that the game of backs and forwards played high in the sky last night, that John Egan would have found a lot less room in the forwards now that Páidí has joined Tim Kennelly in the back line and I have no doubt that the after party is still ongoing.

It is true to say that here in Kerry football defines us as a people. We are proud of our 36 All-Ireland titles and the players and mentors who achieved that distinguished Roll of Honour. For generations our players and teams have been immortalised in song, in story and in poetry.

Good poetry has that special ingredient that will evoke the deepest emotion of the human heart, indeed, is the spirit that remains unmoved in the presence of such genius – because genius is what it is. Liam MacGabhann, a native of Valentia, was one who had it in rich abundance. His "Blind man at Croke Park" captures brilliantly the spiritual essence of Kerry's football pride exuded by Páidí Ó Sé

"Listen, asthore, for those old eyes are sealed
Tell me once more when the Kerrymen take the field
Tell an old man who is feeble, grey and old
Do they walk proudly still wearing the Green and Gold?"

When Sigerson Clifford wrote I AM OF KERRY you would think that he wrote the
last verse with Páidí in mind:

"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."

Árd A Bhóthair was his birthplace, the place where he and Máire raised their family and ran their business. It was his homeland physically and spiritually, the place he never left and today as we bid our sad farewells that the man, who achieved stardom and rubbed shoulders, with the great was in essence the boy from Árd A Bhóthair full of boyish mischief with a great sense of fun and enjoyment and without a touch of malice in his generous spirit.

May the Ventry sod rest lightly on this noble warrior and may the angels bear him gently to God's happy playing field.

Go dtuga Dia suaimhneas síorraí dá anam Uasal.

As I read this, the hair is standing on the back of my neck.

It's as if I am or was there when this was being read aloud.

Paidí was referred to in this piece not only as Rí na paróiste but as Ard Rí.

What more can you say about this legend that hasn't been said already ?.

What a man - what a legacy - what fond memories and not a begrudger in sight.

There's not many that will have this honour bestowed on them.

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.

I wrote a little piece about Páidí for LiveGaelic if anyone's interested. It's not much because tbh even writing it yesterday I was raw as f**k, still don't really know what to say.

http://www.livegaelic.com/news/paidi-ose-farewell-to-a-legend/

Quote from: Keane on December 19, 2012, 12:25:24 PM
I wrote a little piece about Páidí for LiveGaelic if anyone's interested. It's not much because tbh even writing it yesterday I was raw as f**k, still don't really know what to say.

http://www.livegaelic.com/news/paidi-ose-farewell-to-a-legend/

Nice tribute.

Shocking really.  He's gone far too soon.  Met him once, back in 2003 when Armagh were down for a national league game in Kerry and we took the opportunity to hit Kerry on the back of the AI win the previous September.  Like many others a few of us headed out to Ventry to his pub, just to say we'd done it. He wasn't around but the bar man got him on the phone and he came over to chat to us. I can't imagine the gap that Paudi's passing will leave in Kerry, but especially in Ventry and across West Kerry. He was the main man in that part of the world and so many people like us back in 2003 made their way to Ventry just to meet this great individual and character.     

Nice wee post on Páidí's book of condolences:

John Keane says:

December 19, 2012 at 2:36 pm

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.

There are some wonderful tributes in the book of condolences

http://paidiose.com/paidi-o-se-book-of-condolence/

Billy fleming says:

Many memories of Paudi, particurly playing against him in Killarney in 1977 in Munster Championship when I scored 2 goals and of being part of Munsters panel with Paudi and staying in the same room as Paudi and Johnie Hennessy of Ardmore.in the Skylon.
A true great, playing for and against . A real hero.
May he be playing in heaven today.
Billy Fleming from Tramore.

Nora Phat Willie says

Comhbhrón óchroí le Muintir Uí Shé uilig. Fear spraoiúil, ildána, mórtasach agus ard fhear Gaeltachta. Chaith mo athair seal ina chuideachta sna 80 aidí in Ard A' Bhóthair. Ceol agus craic agus neart cainte.
Beannacht Dé leat. Aireoidh muid uainn go mór tú. Thanks for the outstanding memories. What a legend.

Declan Meehan says:
Ar dheis Dé go raibh a anam dílis.

Seán Ó Coistealbha says

"Bhí trí chroí a'd
A Phaidí
Do chroí mór féin
Croí lán groí
na gcarad
's síor-chroí
cúraim do chlainne
b'shin í
An ceann ba bhinne".
Comhbhrón ó chroí le Máire, Siún, Neasa, agus Pádraig Óg.
Le mór mheas
Seán Ó Coistealbha (Muintearas)

philip says :
We loved him playing for Kerry but the wonderful Westmeath leinster final TV documentary is where we listened to him and saw the emotion and his unique communication style first hand. I loved when he spoke to players after winning Leinster he reminded them that they had been good losers for decades ......now it was time to be good winners .... a lesson in football and in life.It gave us the essence of the man.

Hartmut says : The German community in Ventry always had a center meeting point in Paudies Pub .We were always most welcome and felt invited . Paudies great personality , his wit and patience , his obligingness and courtessy will not be forgotten.

From Sarsfields Ladies GFC Mountmellick. Great memories of Paidi and Dingle from our involvement in Comortas P. O Se over last few years. Incredibly unique, complex, irreplaceable personality. ' 'Rogue' & ' Legend' were oft heard summations locally. Absolutely privileged to have known Paidi and shared his company a few times. RIP.
Ml. O'Loughlin

Jody Gunning says:

Jody Gunning (Offaly '71/72 ) Rhode. I would like to express my sincere sympathy to the O'Se family. His talent will always be talked about by all his fellow footballers. A LEGEND
May he rest in peace.

John Mulligan says:

Se mo laoch.....slan leat a Phaidi....ta Horse agus Egan
ag fanacht ort agus geansai uimhir a 5 reidh duit

Daithi Mac Roibeaird says:
Tá cuireadh na Nollag fáighte agat. Go raibh síochán síoraí agat i gcónaí. Ní dheanfaidh muid dearmad ar na laetha sin ar pháirc na himeartha ar fud na tíre...ní raibh mórán a bhfuair an lámh in uachtar ort. Slán ó Ghael as Aontraim.

Seamus Furlong says:  A great man has gone... the best back I ever saw in the game. His acceptance speech in 1985 when given Sam Maguire is right up there with the best. My deepest sympathy to his family and close friends

JP Kerrigan says:Slán leat a Phaidí. Is cailiúnt mór thú do muintir na gaeltachta.


Christy Hennessy says:As a Kerryman living in Sligo,he just made you feel so proud to be a Kerryman.

An Incredible Man.

Wonderful player and manager. A certifiable rogue and politician to boot.

But everybody liked him. Not many people can say that.

RIP Paidi.

RIP Paidi.

Graveside oration:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Bgpm4CqJeC8&feature=youtu.be

I love Páidí's brother Tomas's speech here at 1:07:30. Have you ever seen a man more at ease addressing a large audience?

Quote from: Hardy on December 20, 2012, 04:43:49 PM
I love Páidí's brother Tomas's speech here at 1:07:30. Have you ever seen a man more at ease addressing a large audience?

Hadn't seen or heard him before but he's cut out of the same rock that Paidi was. I love the story his nephew Tomás told about Paidi going in to Croke Park on the bus with Westmeath, still laughing at that one.

Quote from: Croí na hÉireann on December 21, 2012, 12:38:43 PM

Quote from: Hardy on December 20, 2012, 04:43:49 PM
I love Páidí's brother Tomas's speech here at 1:07:30. Have you ever seen a man more at ease addressing a large audience?

Hadn't seen or heard him before but he's cut out of the same rock that Paidi was. I love the story his nephew Tomás told about Paidi going in to Croke Park on the bus with Westmeath, still laughing at that one.

Where is the link for that??

Sorry about that - didn't realise I hadn't posted the ... what was I saying? Nurse!

http://www.rte.ie/player/ie/show/10096528/

Brother Tomás at 1:07:30. Nephew Tomás a little further on.

Quote from: heffo on December 21, 2012, 12:45:57 PM

Quote from: Croí na hÉireann on December 21, 2012, 12:38:43 PM

Quote from: Hardy on December 20, 2012, 04:43:49 PM
I love Páidí's brother Tomas's speech here at 1:07:30. Have you ever seen a man more at ease addressing a large audience?

Hadn't seen or heard him before but he's cut out of the same rock that Paidi was. I love the story his nephew Tomás told about Paidi going in to Croke Park on the bus with Westmeath, still laughing at that one.

Where is the link for that??

http://www.rte.ie/player/ie/show/10096528/ (http://www.rte.ie/player/ie/show/10096528/) Young Tomás is up at 1:34:00 but the whole lot of the speeches is worth a look from 1:03:30

Edit: Hardy beat me to it

Quotehis direct opposite number scored a sum total of one point from play on him

Was that David Hickey?

Was Paidi not marking big Quinn when he scored the goal for Tyrone in the 1986 AI Final?

Yeah paidi was on Paudge

I was only debating this one with a fella in Kerry this week.

He contended that Paudge Quinn had moved to wing forward by the time he scored that goal. I disagreed and said that Paidi marked Quinn all through and saw no reason why they would have changed as 1) Quinn I don't think was causing any major trouble up to that point and 2) players in those day tended to stick to positions more rigidly than the fluid nature of today's positions.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X9PKpElvjpc

If you look at the video there at 1 minute 43 seconds Plunkett Donaghy launches the long ball. Sean Walsh, Kerry full-back abandons his man Damien O'Hagan to try and win the catch. The ball is missed by Walsh and another Kerry player and a Tyrone player and falls to O'Hagan. It is then a two on one situation with Paidi having to decide between approaching O'Hagan and abandoning his own man Quinn.

So that myth is debunked in my view.

One thing I am wondering though is why Quinn was wearing number 13 and clearly playing left corner forward (13 is traditionally the jersey of the right corner forward. You can also see him and Paidi in close proximity in parts of the first half)

Anyone know why this was the case? Art McRory ahead of his time tactically?

And who was Tyrone numer 10?

11 Eugene McKenna 12 Sean McNally 13 Paudge Quinn 14 Damien O'Hagan 15 Mickey Mallon

10 was Mickey McClure

A few nice tributes this weekend obviously -

'IN Kerry you expect something weird to stand up at any moment beside you on the hills. One day alone in Kerry, away from the roads, on mountains that go down sharply to the sea, and you understand why in lonely places the Irish believe in fairies and things not of this earth.''

The above lines, from a book entitled 'In Search Of Ireland'' by the great British travel writer HV Morton back in 1930, strangely came to mind this week as news of Paidi O Se passing spread like wildfire across the country.

Much has been written and said about Paidi in recent days. But one wonders whether some of the understandably eulogistic tones from his countless friends, acquaintances and admirers, missed the essence of the real man and his battles to chart life's often narrow furrow.

As an outsider, Morton, during his travels in Kerry, tried to grapple with the mysterious link between place and person.

For his part, Paidi was granite-like, rooted to where he came from, with his mellifluous capacity for speaking Irish, his love affair with Gaelic football as an outlet for his very being, and in latter years by the guttural tone and cadence of the words and phrases he used to express himself.

The physicality and the poetic fulfilment of his All-Ireland winning years, when he bestrode our playing fields, hands on hips, replete with the jutting jaw line, hair cut tight, lurking like a coiled spring ready to unleash himself upon the world, is for many an enduring image.

For the young Paidi, the exquisite feeling of having all that youthful hunger satiated in those trail-blazing All-Ireland campaigns, the intoxication of supreme effort, the sweet consolations of success, and the adulation of the crowd, would shape the rest of his life.

But his golden playing days would have to end – and when he took off that green and gold jersey for the last time he especially knew the rhythm of the seasons back in the west Kerry lands could never be the same again.

On one occasion I heard him admit in a radio interview that winter could press hard on him.

Now that his playing epoch was over, he would know that without the springtime possibility of another gilded summer to look forward to, those darker days would weigh especially heavy.

Paidi tried to stave off the inevitable onset of his own sporting winter when he embraced football management. But it could never compare with the elixir of the years he was known simply as a footballer.

The self-imposed discipline, and the byzantine politics required by the job of team manager could never be for him.

A free-range spirit he would have to remain.

When he eventually retreated from the playing fields to his fastness in the Ventry hinterland, his voluble presence increased – whether it be discussing sport or politics, or simply sounding off for the sheer thrill of it.

In the summer visitors would come from all over Ireland, and abroad, drawn by the soulfulness of the place itself – and Paidi's capacity to talk and remember.

And for Paidi, their coming helped ease the memory of times that could never be again, as he relived his days of power and passion on the playing field.

How many nights of bonded camaraderie kept the fire burning late and the lights on till the break of dawn?

But often he felt the need to sally forth from Ard An Bhothair to other places and seek new stimulus.

Frequently he travelled to Dublin – a second home for so many Kerry people. The last time I was in his pub a few years ago, a helicopter suddenly arrived out of a clear blue sky, landing in a field at the back of the building.

The stocky figure of the one-time Kerry half-back, wearing his Sunday best, could be seen running towards it, his head down as the propeller whirred overhead.

He was off again somewhere, to engage with the wider world.

And so he chose to remain the king of his castle. A troubadour who had sung his songs and paid his dues.

But we should be thankful for the Paidis of this world. The price they pay – whether as sportsman, raconteur, or whatever – for adding that special colour to our lives is often heaviest on themselves.

Maybe the last words should be left to HV Morton and how he described one of those moments in Kerry as he moodily observed evening time fading into night.

It's emblematic of this week's final leave-taking by our lion in winter. It is redolent for all of us who hail from the Dingle Peninsula.

"The hollows of the hills fill with blue shadows. Just before the sun sets there is a silence, a suspended excitement in the air, and in the silence no bird sings and no creature moves, only the clouds change colour and the wind cries among the stones.''

- Gerry O'Regan

This piece is simply brilliant -

By Eamonn Sweeney


Sunday December 23 2012

Be the first to comment
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 f**king 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.

backpage@independent.ie

- Eamonn Sweeney

Great read.

Paudge Quinn still shunned!

Quote from: orangeman on December 24, 2012, 01:10:08 AM
A few nice tributes this weekend obviously -

'IN Kerry you expect something weird to stand up at any moment beside you on the hills. One day alone in Kerry, away from the roads, on mountains that go down sharply to the sea, and you understand why in lonely places the Irish believe in fairies and things not of this earth.''

http://www.irishtimes.com/newspaper/letters/2012/0423/1224315048110.html

The phenomenon of the untraceable "humming noise", pitched at E flat, heard recently over parts of Kerry (Home News, April 17th James Pembroke, April 19th), can be easily explained if one remembers that this note is known to players of the uilleann pipes as the "ghost D". Are we hearing the spirits of Gandsey, Micí Cumbá and Canon Goodman? Could the "days of the Kerry pipers" have returned? – 


TERRY MOYLAN,

Archivist,

Na Píobairí Uilleann,

Henrietta Street, Dublin 1.

Just had a week back west. Those people are seriously hurting about the loss of PO. Paid my respects at his grave. It'll not be the same back there...it's gonna be tough for the family after the Christmas/Wren/ New Years stuff dies down.

Marooned is on RTE1 at 22.15 tonight, set your timers.

Quote from: Croí na hÉireann on January 15, 2013, 11:17:03 AM
Marooned is on RTE1 at 22.15 tonight, set your timers.

Well worth a watch!!

Quote from: Croí na hÉireann on January 15, 2013, 11:17:03 AM
Marooned is on RTE1 at 22.15 tonight, set your timers.

Excellent, thanks for that.

On now.

Paidí making a speech with his eyes closed, made the hair stand up on the back of my neck there.

How did C.Whelan not get sent off for the elbow?

Quote from: leaveherinsir on January 15, 2013, 10:56:29 PM
How did C.Whelan not get sent off for the elbow?

Thats easy. Because he was playing for Dublin.

Quote from: BennyCake on January 15, 2013, 11:07:01 PM

Quote from: leaveherinsir on January 15, 2013, 10:56:29 PM
How did C.Whelan not get sent off for the elbow?

Thats easy. Because he was playing for Dublin.

Not this chestnut again.

Funny that - Dublin had eight players suspended for a brawl in Parnell Park v Meath in 2008 - all missed the league final that year.

Kildare v Armagh on the same day engaged in what the Irish times described as a '20 man brawl' - how many suspensions arose out of that? zero.

Quote from: heffo on January 16, 2013, 11:23:37 AM

Quote from: BennyCake on January 15, 2013, 11:07:01 PM

Quote from: leaveherinsir on January 15, 2013, 10:56:29 PM
How did C.Whelan not get sent off for the elbow?

Thats easy. Because he was playing for Dublin.

Not this chestnut again.

Funny that - Dublin had eight players suspended for a brawl in Parnell Park v Meath in 2008 - all missed the league final that year.

Kildare v Armagh on the same day engaged in what the Irish times described as a '20 man brawl' - how many suspensions arose out of that? zero.

What about the brawl in Omagh?  They got off lightly in that one.

Quote from: heffo on January 16, 2013, 11:23:37 AM
Not this chestnut again.

Funny that - Dublin had eight players suspended for a brawl in Parnell Park v Meath in 2008 - all missed the league final that year.

Kildare v Armagh on the same day engaged in what the Irish times described as a '20 man brawl' - how many suspensions arose out of that? zero.

Well, you have to admit that Ciaran Whelan was one player who got away with murder on the pitch. He wasn't red carded for the elbow v Westmeath, nor when he clothes-lined Ronan McGarrity in 06. I remember him busting a Meath players nose within 2 seconds of the throw in, without punishment. He also karate-kicked a Wexford man, and was only sent off because it was the final straw that day, after 3 or 4 shocking challenges. Had it been early in the game, he probably would have stayed on.

And that's only the ones I remember. I'm sure there were more.

Fecker still at it

(http://distilleryimage4.instagram.com/79c82beada6711e1b05e1231380458d1_7.jpg)

Great viewing again last night, got a double helping with the blessing of RTE1+1. The Damien Rice soundtrack is much better than the soundtrack on the DVD release.

This thread was a nice respectful thread with PO getting respectful and warm comments from people all over the country until the posters on page 9 f*cked it up. Thanks a bunch.

Great programme and looking at the VT, I can't wait for summer and football in the Sun (hopefully).

Great show on Paidi last night.  The passion and drive of the man was there for all to be seen, as was undoubted pride in the green and gold of Kerry.  RIP, true legend of the game.

Quote from: heffo on January 16, 2013, 11:23:37 AM

Quote from: BennyCake on January 15, 2013, 11:07:01 PM

Quote from: leaveherinsir on January 15, 2013, 10:56:29 PM
How did C.Whelan not get sent off for the elbow?

Thats easy. Because he was playing for Dublin.

Not this chestnut again.

Funny that - Dublin had eight players suspended for a brawl in Parnell Park v Meath in 2008 - all missed the league final that year.

Kildare v Armagh on the same day engaged in what the Irish times described as a '20 man brawl' - how many suspensions arose out of that? zero.

Kildare did not play Armagh in 2008

Was it just twice that Páidí crossed paths with Micko in the c'ship as managers?
Glad it finished one a piece so.

Quote from: blanketattack on January 16, 2013, 04:13:09 PM
Was it just twice that Páidí crossed paths with Micko in the c'ship as managers?
Glad it finished one a piece so.

3 times - Kerry beat Kildare in Thurles in 2002 which was Dwyer's last day on the line with Kildare so Páidí was one up on Micko! I loved Páidí's line in the documentary: "If Micko tells you he's going to Dublin, he's probably going to Galway."

(http://www.inpho.ie/cache/inpho/80/f5/23/bd5089985d365f69f97bc751f002167e702cd3a390/INPHO_00649808.jpg)
(http://www.inpho.ie/cache/inpho/03/72/85/852eb7f850f0a373362d2dfcca/INPHO_00073982.jpg)
(http://www.inpho.ie/cache/inpho/62/2f/eb/72afcbd1851a48394022c591f6/INPHO_00016082.jpg)

I didnt see the show last night but I remember watching it when it was first aired. It was a brilliant look at how raw determination (and not much else) can pull a team through. Personally I believe Paudi was not a great manager, in fact many on Kerry would tell you he was poor but there is no arguing with the mans character, drive and determination. In saying that he was also a rogue of the highest order which people tend to like, if not trust.
I never met the man but heard the stories. A true legend. May he rest in peace.

Quote from: ck on January 16, 2013, 04:47:24 PM
I didnt see the show last night but I remember watching it when it was first aired. It was a brilliant look at how raw determination (and not much else) can pull a team through. Personally I believe Paudi was not a great manager, in fact many on Kerry would tell you he was poor but there is no arguing with the mans character, drive and determination. In saying that he was also a rogue of the highest order which people tend to like, if not trust.
I never met the man but heard the stories. A true legend. May he rest in peace.

Disagree strongly, Westmeath won an All Ireland minor title in 1995 and an u 21 in 1999 so you are being most disrespectful. Leinster might not have been at it's strongest in 2004 but they still had to beat their neighbours Offaly, who they had not beaten previously since 1945 ?? They beat the Dubs and Wexford, and then had to beat the reigning Leinster champions Laois after a replay in the final.
Whether Paidi was a good manager or not his profile helped to get Westmeath over the line in 2004, some of the speeches he gave that were caught on 'Marooned' were quite good and spoken in a language that we could all relate to. O Flaithearta and himself clearly had a very good partnership going in Westmeath and this all contributed to their historic victory. Raw determination only gets you so far.

Good man spuds, saved me the trouble. It was 1949 when we had last beaten the Biffos in Championship.

Quote from: Donnellys Hollow on January 16, 2013, 04:27:09 PM

Quote from: blanketattack on January 16, 2013, 04:13:09 PM
Was it just twice that Páidí crossed paths with Micko in the c'ship as managers?
Glad it finished one a piece so.

3 times - Kerry beat Kildare in Thurles in 2002 which was Dwyer's last day on the line with Kildare so Páidí was one up on Micko! I loved Páidí's line in the documentary: "If Micko tells you he's going to Dublin, he's probably going to Galway."

Nice picture research.

Quote from: blanketattack on January 17, 2013, 10:55:46 AM
: "If Micko tells you he's going to Dublin, he's probably going to Galway."

Is that not the way with all Kerry people ?  :P

What age is Paidi Og.
Does he play much football.?

Quote from: crossfire on January 17, 2013, 10:46:37 PM
What age is Paidi Og.
Does he play much football.?

He's in his first year at UL and I'd say the second line of your post is one of the daftest questions ever asked on here.

Played at right full back for the Kerry minors in 2011.

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?"

excellent piece by Darragh,Laughed out loud at the helicopter story.

Darragh's one hell of great player and columnist and something tells me he's going to be a damn fine manager too.

Brilliant when he asked for the Miller!!

There's so much of Paidí in the O'Sé brothers especially Darragh and this comes shining through in his articles and in particular this piece.

Imagine Darragh and Paidí when they used to get together - then throw in Marc and Tomás !! Explosive !

Quote from: orangeman on February 18, 2013, 01:16:35 PM
There's so much of Paidí in the O'Sé brothers especially Darragh and this comes shining through in his articles and in particular this piece.

Imagine Darragh and Paidí when they used to get together - then throw in Marc and Tomás !! Explosive !

Read darragh's and paidi's books, paidí defo had more rogue tales. I'd say darragh kept a lot more in the locker, very little controvery but still a very good read. As for the other lads, darragh mentioned he used to give tomas a lift to football, and tomas would easily sit beside him and not utter a word for 2 hours! Tomas is defo the double of him though, especially hows he plays the game

Is Martin Sheen really Tom Cruise's godfather?

PAIDI O Se's home club An Ghaeltacht did him proud.

Reeling from the tragedy of the sudden death of another much-loved club man on Saturday morning, the Gaeltacht men played on and won their place in the senior men's final of the Paidi O Se International Football Festival against Dublin side St Oliver Plunkett's.

But a Dublin side that included Ross McConnell, Paul Brogan and Jason Sherlock proved too strong for the west Kerry men, beating them 5-17 to 2-7 to win the Dermot Earley Cup.

A dark shadow was cast over the 24th football festival at the weekend when news broke of the tragic death of Tomas O Conchuir (35), from Ballycurrane, Ballydavid.

The club was thrown into disarray and a decision had to be made if it would pull out of the competition all together.

Blessing

In the end, with the blessing of Mr O Conchuir's family, they decided to play on to honour the memories of both Paidi and Tomas.

"It was always going to be a tough weekend anyway but it was the biggest tournament Paidi had ever organised and we were just going to make sure it all ran well," Paidi's nephew and vice-chairman of An Ghaeltacht, Kerry footballer Marc O Se, told the Irish Independent.

"It was a very hard blow for the club on Saturday morning. Tom was a great footballer and a larger-than-life character who'll be sadly missed and our thoughts are with his wife Ciara and his family."

Mr O Conchuir played for An Ghaeltacht alongside his brothers, Sean, Paidi and Mickey, until his retirement recently. He was also the manager of its minor team.

"Our manager spoke to Tom's family and it was their wish that An Gaeltacht played the game today. It's very sad and it certainly has overshadowed the whole weekend for us and we're thinking of the family very much," the Kerry player said.

A total of 48 teams from seven countries competed in this year s festival, the biggest ever.

The sudden death of the Kerry GAA legend at his home in Ard a Bhothair in Ventry on December 15 last shocked the country and his absence was felt all the more this weekend when he would have been in his element.

Among those attending the festival was one of his closest friends, former Taoiseach Brian Cowen.

Former Ireland rugby international and Kerry Gaelic footballer Mick Galwey opened a photography exhibition from the MacMonagle archive capturing some of the pivotal moments of Paidi's career over four decades.

There was also an exhibition of photographs from the archives of the 'Limerick Chronicle' and the 'Limerick Leader'.

Did anything ever come of the alleged plagarism from an Examiner journalist and the eulogy he wrote/stroked about Paidí?

Quote from: heffo on February 26, 2013, 02:56:16 PM
Did anything ever come of the alleged plagarism from an Examiner journalist and the eulogy he wrote/stroked about Paidí?

This is the latest from what I can see....

http://balls.ie/gaa/limerick-leader-editor-alan-english-blasts-tony-leen-over-paidi-o-se-story-apology/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=limerick-leader-editor-alan-english-blasts-tony-leen-over-paidi-o-se-story-apology&utm_source=twitterfeed&utm_medium=twitter

Has anyone got the piece? Has there been any comment from The Times or McIlvanney?

Quote from: Hardy on February 26, 2013, 03:20:03 PM
Has anyone got the piece? Has there been any comment from The Times or McIlvanney?

TONY LEEN ON PAIDI O SE (2012) -- Irish Examiner

The larcenous nature of death, its habit of breaking in on us when we are least prepared and stealing the irreplaceable, has seldom been more painfully experienced than on the roads and boithríns around West Kerry last night.



HUGH MCILVANEY ON JOCK STEIN (1985) -- collected in 'McIlvaney on Football'

The larcenous nature of death, its habit of breaking in on us when we are least prepared and stealing the irreplaceable, has seldom been more sickeningly experienced than at Ninian Park in Cardiff on Tuesday night.

Quote from: heffo on February 26, 2013, 02:56:16 PM
Did anything ever come of the alleged plagarism from an Examiner journalist and the eulogy he wrote/stroked about Paidí?

What was that Heffo ?

Quote from: orangeman on February 26, 2013, 04:04:16 PM

Quote from: heffo on February 26, 2013, 02:56:16 PM
Did anything ever come of the alleged plagarism from an Examiner journalist and the eulogy he wrote/stroked about Paidí?

What was that Heffo ?

See above post Orangeman - Tony Leen used the eulogy about Jock Stein from 1986 and passed it off as his own

Quote from: heffo on February 26, 2013, 04:01:29 PM

Quote from: Hardy on February 26, 2013, 03:20:03 PM
Has anyone got the piece? Has there been any comment from The Times or McIlvanney?

TONY LEEN ON PAIDI O SE (2012) -- Irish Examiner

The larcenous nature of death, its habit of breaking in on us when we are least prepared and stealing the irreplaceable, has seldom been more painfully experienced than on the roads and boithríns around West Kerry last night.



HUGH MCILVANEY ON JOCK STEIN (1985) -- collected in 'McIlvaney on Football'

The larcenous nature of death, its habit of breaking in on us when we are least prepared and stealing the irreplaceable, has seldom been more sickeningly experienced than at Ninian Park in Cardiff on Tuesday night.

Thanks. I'm always ready to extend the benefit of the doubt, but ...

Quote from: heffo on February 26, 2013, 04:01:29 PM

Quote from: Hardy on February 26, 2013, 03:20:03 PM
Has anyone got the piece? Has there been any comment from The Times or McIlvanney?

TONY LEEN ON PAIDI O SE (2012) -- Irish Examiner

The larcenous nature of death, its habit of breaking in on us when we are least prepared and stealing the irreplaceable, has seldom been more painfully experienced than on the roads and boithríns around West Kerry last night.



HUGH MCILVANEY ON JOCK STEIN (1985) -- collected in 'McIlvaney on Football'

The larcenous nature of death, its habit of breaking in on us when we are least prepared and stealing the irreplaceable, has seldom been more sickeningly experienced than at Ninian Park in Cardiff on Tuesday night.

Damning.

Tom Humphries used to quote US Sports Journalists all the time. The reason I know this is because he always credited them. What was Leen thinking? Most anonymous posters will provide a link or quote, never mind a professional journalist.

Just watching Imeall on TG4 about the Dingle Film festiva fropm  mid March.

local festival with an international profile finished the weekend off on Monday with a Dingle Day dedicated to locally associated films and a particularly an homage to the late Paidi Ó Sé. This last was an exclusive festival production drawing material made available from RTE and footage contributed by local documentary film-maker Brenda Ní Shúilleabháin.

Let hope TG4 or RTE show it.

Missed that tonight...hope it's repeated. You have to admire the Dingle/Corcha Dhuibhne people. They have a festival or event on every other month. Always a party going on...Páidí Sé's comortas, the food festival, the film festival, the Wran, NYE, Tommy Griffin's comortas, the marathon, agus araile arís. loads of others. Great community thíos ansin.

Quote from: 5 Sams on March 28, 2013, 11:29:10 PM
Missed that tonight...hope it's repeated. You have to admire the Dingle/Corcha Dhuibhne people. They have a festival or event on every other month. Always a party going on...Páidí Sé's comortas, the food festival, the film festival, the Wran, NYE, Tommy Griffin's comortas, the marathon, agus araile arís. loads of others. Great community thíos ansin.

Sounds like you're no stranger to the delights of Wesht Kerry yourself 5 Sams?! For a small town, Dingle is a great spot for a night out to be fair and if the weather is any way fair, back around Dunquin or Ballyferriter is as close to utopia as I've encountered.

Quote from: Ciarrai_thuaidh on March 28, 2013, 11:52:32 PM

Quote from: 5 Sams on March 28, 2013, 11:29:10 PM
Missed that tonight...hope it's repeated. You have to admire the Dingle/Corcha Dhuibhne people. They have a festival or event on every other month. Always a party going on...Páidí Sé's comortas, the food festival, the film festival, the Wran, NYE, Tommy Griffin's comortas, the marathon, agus araile arís. loads of others. Great community thíos ansin.

Sounds like you're no stranger to the delights of Wesht Kerry yourself 5 Sams?! For a small town, Dingle is a great spot for a night out to be fair and if the weather is any way fair, back around Dunquin or Ballyferriter is as close to utopia as I've encountered.

I spend a lot of time down there CT. The top of an Clasach looking out over the Blaskets is the most spectacular view you will ever see...add in the people, chat about football, an teanga, pints in Maura Bawns or Muiris Dan's, tramping up Mt Eagle or Brandon, catching the odd game at Gallarus or Páirc an Aghasaigh with lads with multiple Celtic crosses in their arse pockets on view....where else would you go?? Heaven for me.

Quote from: 5 Sams on March 29, 2013, 12:27:38 AM

Quote from: Ciarrai_thuaidh on March 28, 2013, 11:52:32 PM

Quote from: 5 Sams on March 28, 2013, 11:29:10 PM
Missed that tonight...hope it's repeated. You have to admire the Dingle/Corcha Dhuibhne people. They have a festival or event on every other month. Always a party going on...Páidí Sé's comortas, the food festival, the film festival, the Wran, NYE, Tommy Griffin's comortas, the marathon, agus araile arís. loads of others. Great community thíos ansin.

Sounds like you're no stranger to the delights of Wesht Kerry yourself 5 Sams?! For a small town, Dingle is a great spot for a night out to be fair and if the weather is any way fair, back around Dunquin or Ballyferriter is as close to utopia as I've encountered.

I spend a lot of time down there CT. The top of an Clasach looking out over the Blaskets is the most spectacular view you will ever see...add in the people, chat about football, an teanga, pints in Maura Bawns or Muiris Dan's, tramping up Mt Eagle or Brandon, catching the odd game at Gallarus or Páirc an Aghasaigh with lads with multiple Celtic crosses in their arse pockets on view....where else would you go?? Heaven for me.

Ah maith an fear!

Its no wonder there's so many good footballers back there really..to quote a former Kerry players when asked why football was so strong, "with the ocean in front of you and mountains behind you, shur there's f**k all else to do!".

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p4VTn2PCxn8&feature=youtu.be (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p4VTn2PCxn8&feature=youtu.be)

Quote from: Croí na hÉireann on April 12, 2013, 10:37:52 AM
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p4VTn2PCxn8&feature=youtu.be (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p4VTn2PCxn8&feature=youtu.be)

Den scoth.
It's a pity they didn't go on to to win the All-Ireland.

1st anniversary is on 15th December

Páidí ó Sé – outstanding in all his fields

As anniversary of Kerry legend's passing approaches, Liam Kelly picks six highlights from a life less ordinary

PÁIDÍ. Gone, but never to be forgotten as long as Gaelic football is played in the Kingdom of Kerry. Next Sunday, December 15, is the first anniversary of his sudden passing at the all-too-young age of 57.



The year has flown. The seasons have tumbled one after the other through 2013 until we now arrive at the end of the first year in which Páidí Ó Sé was marked 'as láthair' from the county and national football scene for the first time in four decades.

Tears were shed, but laughter rang out as well at his funeral and, in the days and months that followed, whenever conversation among Gaels turned to memories of his impish roguery and the scrapes and foibles from which he inevitably emerged unscathed, that same laughter was always in evidence.

I cannot claim to have known Páidí well. I did, however, take notice when I saw him for the first time when the Kerry team of 1975 arrived at the Grand Hotel, Malahide, on the Saturday before they annihilated Sligo in the All-Ireland semi-finals.

Fresh-faced kids, most of them, and Páidí stood out with his pudding-bowl haircut and his stocky build.

By the third week in September that year, with the Dubs beaten and Sam back on his holidays in Kerry, that group of footballers and their manager Mick O'Dwyer, had announced themselves as the new force in football.

A few years later, down in Dunquin for a weekend, at a time when the whole of the GAA knew who Páidí was, I saw him in action as host of Kruger's pub, which he had leased after leaving the gardaí.

It was interesting to watch. Head down, polite, but saying very little, indeed shy in demeanour, Páidí pulled pints.

A group from the North were present and they were watching him, wide-eyed, clearly dying to engage him in conversation.

He wasn't rude at all, but at the time, he hadn't developed the flamboyant, entertaining personality that is expected of 'mine host' when the publican is also a famous sportsman.

So, they stood there and watched him.

Eventually, prodded by his brother Tom, Páidí engaged them in chat, and they were charmed.

It was a skill he went on to master proficiently when welcoming the likes of Dolly Parton, Michael Douglas and hosts of personalities much later in life at his own licensed premises at Ard a' Bhóthair, nine kilometres west of Dingle.

On another occasion, in 1981, again down in Kruger's, Páidí surprised me by asking if I would I like to go with him the next day to Listowel where Kerry were playing Tipperary in, as far as I recall, a challenge match.


At the time I was GAA correspondent of the Sunday Independent. I wasn't sure exactly why he asked. With Páidí, you'd wonder what was his angle, but I said 'yes.'

Maybe it was a bit of a PR investment on his part for the pub. Perhaps it was because I was an All Star selector and he hadn't won one at that time. Who knows?

For me, it was a chance to maybe get to know him better and see Kerry's early season form.

Next day we set off. First stop was at Lispole to collect selector Liam Higgins and then on to Listowel.

As we drew near the ground, Páidí says to me: "Now Liam, boy, I'll drop you here and you can make your own way into the ground. Probably better that I'm not seen with you!"

I smiled to myself. The unexpected. You wouldn't want to be sensitive.

I reckoned Páidí wanted to avoid being accused by his team-mates of currying favour with the dreaded media. Maybe O'Dwyer would think he was revealing secrets.

Anyway, that was it. I watched the match from the terraces. Kerry won. Páidí had arranged to meet me down the town on the way out – again, well out of sight of O'Dwyer and the Kerry squad.

He duly collected me and we went 'straight back wesht' as he put it. No dallying in Listowel.

Out in Ard a' Bhóthair, his mother Beatrice put on a fine big steak meal. We dined handsomely and went back to Dunquin, where Páidí got back to work behind the bar.

Did I glean any secrets that day? Not one. Did I get exclusive comments? Nope. And did I ever find out why Páidí invited me to make the trip with him? Not a bit of it.

But that was Páidí. Unique. His own man.

A man who grabbed life by the ears, shook it hard, kicked it around and up and down the highways and byways, and extracted the most he could from it.

There were so many aspects to Páidí and so many achievements they cannot be all highlighted in one article.

However, I have chosen my personal Top Six of Páidí's landmark achievements.

The criterion was that in my view, they represented his biggest challenges and brought success, not only for himself, but for wider communities in and outside of the GAA.

Managing Westmeath to victory in the 2004 Leinster championship

In this reporter's humble opinion, Westmeath '04 was arguably his greatest feat and I'm not alone in thinking that.

Former Westmeath goalkeeper Gary Connaughton went through that amazing journey and says: "That was the first time in Westmeath's history that we won the Leinster championship.

"For me, it was one of his greatest achievements.

"Down in Kerry you have the tradition, you have the players. There's nothing really matters only gaelic football.

"In Westmeath, there's a big part of the county that's hurling. In Athlone there's soccer and rugby.

"For us to come and win a Leinster was unreal. And we haven't won one since.

"I know that before Páidí there was great work done by Luke Dempsey and Brendan Lowry and Mattie Kerrigan and all those managers before him, but Páidí got us over the line."

To put it in perspective, Páidí knew next to nothing about Westmeath or its football, yet he brought them to unimagined heights in his first season with the squad.

Tomás ó Flatharta, recently appointed as manager of Laois, recalls a pivotal conversation with Páidí just over 10 years ago.

"Páidí was never afraid to step into the unknown or into any challenges," he remembers.

"He went into that with a lot of courage. When you think about it, Westmeath was the unknown, and was it a challenge? By God, it was a huge, huge, challenge.

"He asked me to go with him – he said 'come down with me and pick selectors with me.'

"I said 'Páidí, I don't know anybody in Westmeath. I don't know anyone involved. Do you know anybody there?

"And he said, 'f**k it, I don't. I've heard of Dessie Dolan, but if I met him on the street, I wouldn't know him.'

"So, we knew absolutely nothing about it. But he had the hallmarks of a great leader and he had the capacity to get to know people, motivate them, and get the best out of them."

The two Kerrymen met the Westmeath players for the first time at the Citywest Hotel one afternoon in November 2003.

Later that evening, the Lake County men played Dublin in a challenge match at St Jude's ground in Templeogue.

It was an eye-opener.

"Westmeath were useless, absolutely terrible," says O Flatharta

"Páidí turns to me and says, 'what the f**k have we let ourselves in for?'

"And I said to him, 'Páidí – we?' It's you that got us into this!'"

Fast-forward to mid-November 2012. Though neither of them could possibly have known, it was to be the last meeting between ó Flatharta and Páidí.

"I went down to Dingle and the two of us went out for a meal. We had a great night together," says ó Flatharta

"He wasn't drinking or anything. He was in one of those rare forms you'd get him in. He was full of stories.

"I felt all along that he never kind of understood the significance of the success he achieved with Westmeath.

"He was saying to me, 'how did we manage it? How did we get it out of them that year?' It was only then he was beginning to realise that he had done this big thing in Westmeath."

Kerry v Dublin, 1975

Páidí played in 10 All-Ireland finals, and featured on the winning team on eight occasions between 1975 and 1986.

How to pick the best of those performances? No better man to ask than the great Mick O'Dwyer, who guided the green and gold through those 10 deciders?

"The one that would really stand out for me would be 1975. He was practically a young kid, coming from nowhere. He gave an outstanding display of football that day. We had him in midfield. He wasn't the biggest of men, but he had a wonderful leap off the ground," recalls O'Dwyer.

"Size didn't matter. He had wonderful positional sense – he always seemed to be in the right place at the right time.

"Wing half-back would turn out to be his best position, but he had wonderful games in the back-line as well.

"It would be very hard to pick out any one performance, to be honest, because he never played badly in an All-Ireland final.

"Even when we were beaten by Offaly in '82, he gave a great exhibition that day as well.

"He had a great record, too. In 10 All-Ireland finals only one point was scored off him in general play, and that was a fair achievement for any player.

"He was exceptional, one of the best we've had."

Lifting the Sam Maguire Cup in 1985

Was there ever a prouder All-Ireland winning captain than Páidí when he stepped up to raise the Sam Maguire Cup aloft after victory over the Dubs in 1985?

The winning speech, conducted in Irish, is still remembered by all who heard and watched it live, but viewing it again on YouTube now, one is struck by the absolute fervour and pride of the man as he took centre stage on the podium.

'An-áthas' doesn't adequately describe the emotional intensity he brought to the occasion. Another of his boyhood dreams had come true.

The Kingdom's first All-Ireland in 11 years

Donal Keenan, author of the impressive, newly published authorised biography titled 'Páidí – A Big Life' (HeroBooks €15.99) relates the background to the eventual success.

Appointed in September 1995, Páidí mentored the Kingdom to a Munster final victory in 1996.

It was Kerry's first defeat of Cork in a the provincial decider since 1986 – the Rebels had won seven titles in the previous nine campaigns.

But when Mayo stunned Kerry in the All-Ireland semi-final, there was hell to pay in the Kingdom.

Keenan writes: "A six-point defeat was greeted with shock and awe. The reaction was swift and sour. The manager was derided for what was considered a lack of control, a failure to maintain discipline ... "

Stung by the criticism, particularly by allegations of excessive celebrations after the '96 Munster final, Páidí put the pedal to the metal in 1997.

The National League title was won; the Munster championship was retained and the All-Ireland title success that was craved by everyone in Kerry was delivered.

Páidí 10 out of 10; Critics 0 – and they were lucky to get nil!

The 1984 Kerry County Championship

One of his many dreams was to captain Kerry. To do that, you needed to be nominated by the county champions. One problem remained – Páidí needed to actually play on a county championship-winning team.

What to do? Typical Páidí – he got stuck in and got the job done as player-manager.

ó Flatharta, who was a team-mate of Páidí's with the An Ghaeltacht club at the time, puts it in context.

"In 1984, Páidí had won six all- Ireland medals, so his next challenge – and he was always up for a challenge – was to become captain of Kerry and bring Sam Maguire back to Ventry. He wanted to do that.

"West Kerry was a team of five separate clubs (An Ghaeltacht, Dingle, Lispole, Annascaul and Castlegregory). They could never get on and they could never put a team properly together.

"Páidí got them together, got to know them all and was able to motivate them to get the best out of them.

"He brought West Kerry from nothing to being county champions – and he got to be captain of Kerry," says ó Flatharta.

Bringing the tourists 'back Wesht'

From 1985 when the doors opened on 'Tigh Páidí ó Sé,' the owner was relentless in driving business for the pub and for the wider area around Dingle-Ventry-Dunquin.

Many and varied were his initiatives to attract visitors to the area, but one of the best was the Comórtas Peile tournament, which began in 1989. It was, and is, played annually in February.

From humble beginnings, the tournament grew to the extent of 1,300 people representing GAA clubs from home and abroad, participating in the 2013 event as part of 'The Gathering'.

Páidí, sadly was not there to see it, nor will he be there for the 25th anniversary staging in 2014, but his legacy is proud and enduring.

I'd say there are plenty of people throughout Ireland and beyond with the same sentiment about loved ones who are no longer with us :

Billy Keane: 'One year on and you still want to ring Páidí'



'One year on and you still want to ring Páidí'

Billy Keane– 14 December 2013


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

Brilliant, poignant article by Billy. I have grown to love his articles over the last year or two, the first column I now read in the Indo. Definitely got a piece of his old man's gift, and great at capturing the Kerry take on things.

Are you serious?
He's absolutely rubbish!

..legacy podcasts?

Quote from: Jinxy on December 16, 2013, 03:37:03 PM
Are you serious?
He's absolutely rubbish!

+1

Ould sentimental Raiméis .

Quote from: Jinxy on December 16, 2013, 03:37:03 PM
Are you serious?
He's absolutely rubbish!

Couldn't agree more..he's a pale imitation of the father and Con Houlihan who he regularly plagiarises. A pure bluffer.

Not bad for a bluffer.

Quote from: orangeman on December 18, 2013, 10:54:33 PM
Not bad for a bluffer.

It is actually. Maybe a Kerryman that knew him an all, and it being the anniversity an all,  he played it safe but  he s usually not readable anyway.It is dire. But then again writing about Paudi has become a predictable  style.

Don t get me wrong.  He was one of the greats. But I feel a lot of stuff written about him does not do him justice. Nobody would have done what he did if he was just a rogue/ pierrot mix.  The condition of the man alone, even in the mid 70s took serious attitude. Top player.

Quote from: moysider on December 19, 2013, 12:20:23 AM

Quote from: orangeman on December 18, 2013, 10:54:33 PM
Not bad for a bluffer.

It is actually. Maybe a Kerryman that knew him an all, and it being the anniversity an all,  he played it safe but  he s usually not readable anyway.It is dire. But then again writing about Paudi has become a predictable  style.

Don t get me wrong.  He was one of the greats. But I feel a lot of stuff written about him does not do him justice. Nobody would have done what he did if he was just a rogue/ pierrot mix.  The condition of the man alone, even in the mid 70s took serious attitude. Top player.

Top player alright and seriously driven character.

Quote from: orangeman on December 19, 2013, 12:29:00 AM

Quote from: moysider on December 19, 2013, 12:20:23 AM

Quote from: orangeman on December 18, 2013, 10:54:33 PM
Not bad for a bluffer.

It is actually. Maybe a Kerryman that knew him an all, and it being the anniversity an all,  he played it safe but  he s usually not readable anyway.It is dire. But then again writing about Paudi has become a predictable  style.

Don t get me wrong.  He was one of the greats. But I feel a lot of stuff written about him does not do him justice. Nobody would have done what he did if he was just a rogue/ pierrot mix.  The condition of the man alone, even in the mid 70s took serious attitude. Top player.

Top player alright and seriously driven character.

The opening scene of Marooned told you more about Paudi as a man than a thousand articles ever could: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Tv2EbjhAf-I

'Kerry lack somebody to close out games since Darragh left in 2009 – if he had been playing in 2011 against Dublin we would have won'

In his first summer out of the Kingdom furnace, Tomas O Se tells Vincent Hogan of Paidi's enduring influence, his huge pride in wearing the shirt, and why he won't he miss it

Former defender Tomas O Se feels Kerry must start showing more steel if they want to get back to the top
VINCENT HOGAN – PUBLISHED 03 MAY 2014 02:30 AM

The days are simpler now, but smaller too. For two decades, football held him in a closed fist and Tomas O Se imagined that retirement would bring tumultuous freedom.


The game compels a man to be selfish and O Se doesn't deny he met that duty faithfully. When it was gone, he believed he would find time for so much that had been neglected.

It hasn't happened yet. "Still feel as if I'm chasing my tail," he smiles.

You hear the wisdom and iron of his godfather when he speaks. Paidi opened so many windows in the O Se boys' heads, it is like he never died, never left their lives. Tomas grew up as a kind of page for Paidi's obsession. He'd watch him disappear over the mountain towards Dun Chaoin on one of those cruel winter runs and have it timed when to head to the beach with the poles and Paidi's boots.

After maybe 14 miles on the road, Paidi would then assemble this grid of makeshift hurdles up the side of a dune and, in brutal, panting shuttles, do his Ed Moses thing.

His message to his nephews needed no translation. This was what it took to play for Kerry.

Whatever way you boil it down, they followed Paidi's template. So, when the county board ditched their uncle as Kerry manager after defeat by Tyrone in '03, it felt personal.

TRANSLATED

That hurt never translated into spite or recrimination, yet the story went that maybe they didn't quite pull for Jack O'Connor after. It wasn't true.

When Tomas talks about Paidi, he sees the rogue as well as the giant.

"We were living right across the road as kids, so we saw him training, we saw what Kerry meant to him," he says now. "We saw him sacrificing his job with the guards, we saw him not giving a s**t about the pub.

"Throughout the years being with him, being in his company, the way he spoke about former players, the way he really enjoyed speaking to the Paddy Bawns of this world – he showed you that Kerry was more important than the team you were playing in, bigger than any man.

"To him, it was up there with religion. The history of Kerry was so important to him. And it was important to him not to let Kerry down in any way. That's what we learnt from him. We learnt what you had to do in terms of preparation, we learnt the importance of Kerry, we learnt – in a bad way, I suppose I did anyway – that you had to be selfish.

"And there was no more selfish man than Paidi. He'd say that straight out. You have to be selfish, you have to get yourself right. So I was selfish throughout my career too, in every regard. Work suffered, personal life suffered, everything.

"That's what we got from him, everything that we knew. Kerry was always No 1. Club came second. Paidi was one of the worst clubmen of all time, he'd rarely play with them. To be fair, we gave a lot to the club when we could. But No 1 was Kerry. We did well with the club when Kerry did bad and that was no coincidence.

"I've said it before, he was the greatest Kerryman I've ever seen in terms of what I consider a Kerryman. Kerry is a great, proud county and he was one of the proudest of them all, which lent itself to why we got p****d off when he was removed."

In August of '03, Tyrone suffocated Kerry in Croke Park. At the end of the game, a Kerry supporter came onto the field and struck Paidi. He did not want to leave in those circumstances but two months later, after hearing through a third party of the county board's intentions to seek a new manager, Paidi announced he would be stepping down.

"We all know that Paidi was no saint," reflects Tomas now. "And maybe his time was up, but I didn't like the way he was treated. It was handled badly and that left a sour taste. But he would have been the first man to say Kerry is bigger than any of this.

"Despite what the media think of there being a problem with Jack or whatever, there wasn't a problem with Jack. We rowed in straight away, there was never an issue. I never had a bad word to say about Jack. I think other people made it an issue. I think possibly Jack made it an issue, but it just wasn't one for us.

"Naturally, we were delighted when Paidi won a Leinster with Westmeath the following summer. Because there was a lot of people who doubted his ability. I don't care what anybody says, he brought the life back into Kerry football. He brought a passion back into Kerry football.

"One of the biggest days in terms of that was the '96 Munster final below in Cork, when they beat a Cork team that still thought they were on top of the world. Billy (Morgan) and Paidi on the sideline. It was a kind of a stand that said, 'Kerry are back here and we won't be pushed around!'.

"That day was one of those statements. He brought the Kerryness back into Kerry that wasn't there since Mick O'Dwyer."

THE end? It had been rattling around a back room in his head maybe since 2010 when, through suspension, he sat out Kerry's championship eviction by Down.

But he held tight for 2011 and, Heaven help them, Kerry got one hand on the canister that year. Their misfortune, of course, was that Dublin managed two. Kerry should have closed the game out and he reckons, if Darragh had still been there, they would have.

So he kept at it. Horsing himself through more winters when "it's just darkness and lights and sloggin' through the dirt and muck". The league was never his cup of tea (heavy pitches and unfamiliar opponents, ravenous for ball) and over the years it armed him with a personal hatred of some venues, none more so than Castlebar.

Only when the hour went back, and they could reconvene in Killarney where there are no lights, did it feel as if summer was ever reachable.

As a footballer, Tomas O Se always liked to keep the outside world at arm's length. So when people looked at him, they just saw an O Se, another man of granite. He did few media interviews, kept himself to himself at team meetings (which he always hated). People saw his intensity, knowing nothing of where it came from.

Yet every year, he'd return with the same doubts reeling through his head. The very first day he played senior for Kerry, an unheralded Corkman gave him an "awful skinning". Aidan Dorgan, he can admit now, was a perfect prototype of the kind of forward he dreaded marking.

Small and pacy with a low centre of gravity. Marking that kind of man, Tomas likens to chasing a wasp.

A week after that game, he played county championship for West Kerry against East Kerry. Picked at full-back, he had the misfortune to be marking Johnny Crowley.

"If you remember, Johnny was on fire that year ('98)," he grimaces. "F*****g hell, he buried a goal inside two minutes. Then I pulled him down for a peno maybe three minutes later. It's a terrible, terrible feeling to get a skinning."

He mentions a game too from around that time against Wicklow in Killarney. Trevor Doyle kicked four points off him from play. The detail has been singed into his senses with a branding iron. And that's the funny thing. For all the big games and trophies O Se won, the bad days still return to him with sharper clarity.

The nerves? He kept those largely to himself.

But often he'd feel so ponderous in the warm-up to a big game, he'd find himself murmuring to Darragh: "Jesus Christ, I feel f****d!". They both knew it would pass, that it was simply symptomatic of the war he had to wage with his own mind.

"It didn't get easier down the years in terms of nervousness," he says. "I was a very nervous player, but I loved routine. Coming into games, I was grand so long as we were doing something. But I hated meetings. I'd hear lads talking about specific players and situations that might arise and my heart would be absolutely thumping.

"I mean, once a game started, I'd be grand. I was never afraid to attack a game or anything like that. But beforehand, the nerves were always there. Even going in on buses, I would often think, 'I swear to God I wish I was anywhere else than going in here now!'."

He drove himself so hard, always setting the private challenge of being one of Kerry's best three players on any day, that when he fell short of that, his natural setting became "cranky".

In latter years, people saw the accumulation of red cards and mumbled through the cracks in their fingers that, maybe, Tomas O Se was "losing it". Deep down, he knew he'd given them reason.

In March of 2012, Tomas was sent off for the third time in 10 months. It was a league game against Laois in Killarney and Jack O'Connor had phoned him the day before. Tomas was just returning from suspension for a dismissal against Armagh the previous month.

"You need to hold the head now Tomas," said O'Connor.

"No I'm grand, got the head right, I'm good!"

Ten minutes in, a Laois player collided with him and O Se reacted. "Next, the sideline man had his flag up and I knew. I was back home in Cork before the game had even finished. That was the worst day, I just felt like packing it in.

"The thing is I would argue that, when I needed to control it, I controlled it. It was in the league I was getting red cards. And looking back, any of those red cards were really stupid. If I had known I was going to get red, I'd have got my value out of it.

"But just these sad punches like. To be fair, a lot of the lads wouldn't even have gone down. And I'd be there thinking to myself, 'Jesus I'm one right clown!'."

He might have squeezed another year from it but, at 36 in June, he knew he'd have been pushing his luck. The older you get, the more likely you become a target. "Take him on, take him on, burn him!" was a sideline cry he had become familiar with.

He thinks back to '97 now, when he was just coming through as a squad player as Paidi led the Kingdom to their first All-Ireland in 11 years. He recalls the "fervour and madness" of that time with a sense of privilege.

The game was plainer and less detailed then. Paidi did almost everything for them bar drive the bus. Now there are small armies delegated to tend a county footballer's needs.

"Kerry now have two masseurs, a physio and a doctor – that's four medical staff – at every training session," he says.

"We'd have all our gear laid out for us when we go in. All you brought was a towel. Every drill you'd be doing would be written down. There was a dietician who'd come out to your house if need be and show you how to cook a proper meal. When I started, John O'Keeffe came in with Paidi and we used to do laps and laps and laps. You'd be flying fit, but there was no ball involved in those laps. We used run up these hills in Killarney and there'd be fellas staying at the top, puking above.

"Twas cruel stuff when you think back on it, but they're the kind of sessions I used to enjoy. I'd love doing well in them because that'd be confidence for the brain.

"But nowadays, the training sessions are so long and, near the end, it used to crack me up having these long sessions with long chats in the middle of the session where fellas would be getting half cold. The game is broken down to such a degree now.

"Jesus, we used to play in Munster finals and you'd barely know the fella you'd be marking!"

LIKE Paidi before him, he became one of the greatest that Kerry ever sent out in the green and gold.

But they had different ideas on football, different interpretations of how to play from No 5. Paidi's view was old school. Hold your ground, mark the No 12. When he was manager, he'd discourage the nephew from making those surges forward that became his trademark.

"There's six fellas up there to do that job, leave it to them!" he'd roar.

Nor did he share his uncle's weakness for piseogs. He remembers one day when they were children, sitting into the car at Ard an Bhothair to go to a match and waiting for Paidi to start the engine.

"What's going on Paidi?"

"Nothing!"

Then he started smiling. "I think it was some cat he was waiting to see," says Tomas. "Another time he got pulled by the guards for breaking the speed limit and he was nearly delighted. Twas the Thursday before a big game and he just took the penalty points on the chin.

"'Jesus that's good now' he said when the guards had left. 'Cos the same thing happened me in '97!'."

His death left a hole, not just in their lives, but in Kerry itself. But the seas still churn around Slea Head and, on a clear day, the Blaskets still look like they're made of perfect green baize.

Living in Cork, maybe it was easier for Tomas to call time when he did. Last year hurt because they believed they were going to beat Dublin. They'd closed the gates to training and rumour spread that it might have been to conceal how badly they were moving.

But Eamonn Fitzmaurice had them beautifully primed.

"We knew that everybody was expecting Dublin to roll over us," he says.

"Even the Kerry public thought that we were only chugging inside. But I think a lot of the older fellas possibly were just waiting for a big carrot. We knew we'd rattle them as long as we played quick football.

"But I think since Darragh left in '09, we lack somebody to close out games for us, to put in that killer ball to the forwards. If Darragh was playing in 2011, we would have won the All-Ireland. I've no doubt in my mind."

In fact, as he reflects on The Kingdom's failure to go all the way since 2009, it's clear that he feels the team is missing the leadership and steel which could always be relied upon when his older brother was at the heart of the engine room.

"There was a couple of players where physically ... .. Cork around the middle of the field, Dublin with Michael Darragh Macauley, I felt ... ..and I think it's kind of going out of the game ... .if Macauley was coming in, t'was a great strength of Darragh's and I think it's something Kerry are lacking is to physically bate them into the ground or something," he says after considered thought.

"And he'd stand over him for a second as if to say, getting a message across like, 'We won't be bullied here today ... '

"I think that's kind of left Kerry a small bit. Think they need more of that around the middle of the field. They need to be sending out messages. Standing up for yourself. We had fellas all over the field that would do that. You'd always be back up like. If a fella was in trouble ... ..like they can't send off seven fellas."

Tomas says he rang Fitzmaurice a week before making the announcement. "Just told him that I didn't think I could get to where I wanted to be anymore and that it was making me cranky," he says. "I didn't want any hullaballoo."

And there was none. One of the greatest careers of the modern game thus closed out almost discreetly. So Tomas O Se finds himself outside the wire for the first real time since breaking onto the Kerry minors in '95.

Perhaps, in time, it will break his heart, but for now he leaves with no regrets. "Jesus I've played with some of the greatest players that ever played the game," he says. "Men like Gooch, Moynihan, Maurice Fitz, Darragh, Declan.

"Everything I have today, all the friends I have, I got through the GAA, through Kerry. I've had a great innings."

http://www.independent.ie/sport/gaelic-games/gaelic-football/its-very-hard-to-walk-away-especially-with-the-likes-of-gooch-and-tommy-walsh-coming-back-30851478.html

He thought a lot about his late father, Micheal, the week of the final. He thought a lot about Paidi too. Last Saturday, they had a Mass in Ventry for the second anniversary of Paidi's death. He would have been a grandfather now, daughter Neasa having recently given birth to a baby girl.

The gathering was lovely and intimate and awash with stories that have been recycled a million times.

"The man was lawless, liable to do anything" Marc chuckles. "In a roguish way, of course. You know I watched a lovely YouTube clip of him the other night, a seven-minute tribute. And you're sitting there thinking 'Where have those two years gone?'

"I'd have loved to have been able to tap into Paidi's experience this year. You know he got dropped himself in '88 and I know he didn't speak to Mick O'Dwyer for a few years after that happened. That was never going to happen between me and Eamonn, but I'd love to have been able to chat to Paidi about it."

The future will find its own path now.

http://www.independent.ie/sport/gaelic-games/gaelic-football/a-lifesize-statue-of-gaa-legend-pid-s-to-be-unveiled-in-kerry-31193596.html

Quote from: orangeman on May 04, 2015, 05:18:21 PM
http://www.independent.ie/sport/gaelic-games/gaelic-football/a-lifesize-statue-of-gaa-legend-pid-s-to-be-unveiled-in-kerry-31193596.html

Always nice when a community commemorates one of their own. The one of Dermot Earley in Gorthaganny is class. Paidi was a man worthy of a stature of ever there was one.

Earley wasn't as successful as O'Se certainly, but at least he was a good bit less soi disant

Quote from: Syferus on May 04, 2015, 07:29:31 PM

Quote from: orangeman on May 04, 2015, 05:18:21 PM
http://www.independent.ie/sport/gaelic-games/gaelic-football/a-lifesize-statue-of-gaa-legend-pid-s-to-be-unveiled-in-kerry-31193596.html

Always nice when a community commemorates one of their own. The one of Dermot Earley in Gorthaganny is class. Paidi was a man worthy of a stature of ever there was one.

Syf

Where is Gorthaganny exactly ?

Quote from: seafoid on May 04, 2015, 10:29:59 PM

Quote from: Syferus on May 04, 2015, 07:29:31 PM

Quote from: orangeman on May 04, 2015, 05:18:21 PM
http://www.independent.ie/sport/gaelic-games/gaelic-football/a-lifesize-statue-of-gaa-legend-pid-s-to-be-unveiled-in-kerry-31193596.html

Always nice when a community commemorates one of their own. The one of Dermot Earley in Gorthaganny is class. Paidi was a man worthy of a stature of ever there was one.

Syf

Where is Gorthaganny exactly ?

It's on the Ballagh/Castlerea to Ballyhaunis road, nearer Ballyhaunis. The DE Memorial is on that road between the national school that brought Peadar Earley to Gorthaganny and the Earley family home. If you were to take a turnoff on the N60 the Ballyhaunis side of Ballinlough it starts a couple miles in the by-roads. Gorthaganny used to be fully Michael Glavey's country but when Eire Og (based in Loughglynn but it took a lot of traditional Glaveys people) set up in the 1980s it all became a bit of a mess on that front.