Mícheál Ó Muircheartaigh, from the Irish Times

[seafoid]

A voice that links us back to the best of Irish culture

The great Mícheál Ó Muircheartaigh stands in quiet defiance against mediocrity, vulgarity and self-regard, writes FINTAN O'TOOLE
THERE'S A word that older country people used to use as a term of unqualified approbation: elegant, or to give it its full phonetic due, "iligint".
I always found it striking because of its apparent incongruity. "Elegant" was Audrey Hepburn or drawing rooms, duchesses or Fred Astaire. We confused it with glamour, wealth and – in the narrow, snobbish sense – good taste. But Irish country people used it for a child or a dry stone wall, a cow or a fanciful story. It was meant for something deeper than tasteful opulence. It was a kind of synonym for "grace" in the double sense of that word, incorporating both the physical and the spiritual. It hinted at fineness, rightness, integrity.
Mícheál Ó Muircheartaigh, who turned 80 last Friday and delivered another display of magisterial mellifluousness on RTÉ on Sunday, is an elegant man. There are people who will say he is "only" an old fellow who commentates on GAA football and hurling matches on the radio. But he's much more than that, much more, even, than one of the finest things that ever has been or ever will be on Irish radio.
He is supremely good at what he does; but more than that, he does it with infinite grace – an innate sense of rightness of what to say and, more importantly, of what not to say. He links us back to the best aspects of an older Irish culture and outfaces the mediocrity, vulgarity and self-regard that replaced it.
There's a simple thing you can always do on a summer Sunday in Ireland, a thing so woven into the texture of life that you barely think about it. You can be washing the dishes, or trying to soak in the rare sunshine or reading the depressing newspapers. And you can turn on the radio and be mesmerised.
The less important the game is (to you at any rate), the more hypnotic an Ó Muircheartaigh commentary becomes. If it's a big match like Dublin and Cork on Sunday, the content gets in the way a little. But in a game between two no-hoper counties in the early stages of the championship, you can just listen to the music. I can't count the number of times I've switched on, discovered that the featured game held no interest for me, went to turn off the radio and found myself carried way out to sea on the riptide of this lilting, dipping, cresting, flow of words.
It used to make me angry that RTÉ had decided, when Mícheál Ó hEithir retired, not to use Ó Muircheartaigh for the TV commentaries. But of course they were right, because, although he's excellent on television, it is radio that is his proper home. This is because, rather than being just a commentator, he is two other, more remarkable, things.
Firstly, Ó Muircheartaigh is a translator. He translates the visible into the audible. You miss this if you can actually see what's happening. He doesn't really describe a game. He transforms its physical rhythms, its ebbs and flows, stops and starts, crises and lulls, into rhythms of speech. He's like a kind of ballet composer in reverse. Where the composer writes music for people to dance to, he takes the dance of a game and writes it as his own kind of mouth music.
And this is the other thing he is – a traditional performer. He is steeped in the culture of Corca Dhuibhne, in the richness of speech that comes from having both Irish and English, in the gliding, swinging motion of a Kerry slide, in the dazzling fluency of the lilters. This isn't just about the verbal facility, or the extraordinary combination of utter distinctiveness and yet complete clarity in his sumptuous accent. It's ultimately about an attitude of deep humility, a concern, not to show off or indulge oneself, but to form a bridge between what must be communicated and the audience to whom it is directed.
The poet Thomas Kinsella wrote of the experience of listening to a great sean nós singer in Corca Dhuibhne: "The song was Casadh an tSúgáin and the singer Jerry Flaherty . . . Nothing intervened between the song and its expression. The singer managed many difficult things, but the result was to focus attention on the song, not on the performance or on the quality of the voice. It was a special voice, adapted (like a reptile or an insect) to its function. Mere beauty of tone would have distracted, attracting attention for its own sake. And the singer's act of communication was thoroughly completed by his audience. They sat erect and listened, lifted their glasses and drank, and murmured phrases of appreciation."
Mícheál Ó Muircheartaigh's is that special voice, perfectly adapted to its function of turning movement into sound – the sound of an Irish elegance that somehow survives, and in its own quiet way defies, so much cynicism and betrayal. We can but lift our glass and murmur phrases of deep appreciation.

[Hardy]

That's the essence of Micheál perfectly captured and beautifully described by a man I wouldn't usually have much time for. An outstanding piece.

I was meaning to comment here on the fact that Micheál's 80th had come and gone with little notice. Longevity on the job in RTÉ typically has no connection with competence and often is a reward for mediocrity. Micheál is an exception. There can't be many 80-year-old sportscasters anywhere.

I remember getting an insight into his uniqueness when I had the occasion to experience a foreigner's reaction on hearing Micheál for the first time. He was an Australian who also happened to be a sports fanatic. He moved in beside us in Limerick on the Sunday evening of the Munster hurling final replay in 1987. Micheál's commentary had been his introduction to hurling. He was full of talk about it - it was the first thing he mentioned when we shook hands. "That was some match today. And the commentary - I've never heard anything like it. I had to pull in to the side of the road to listen to it".

[maddog]

He had me as mad as a bag of wasps yesterday.

I was stuck somewhere where i couldn't see the game or get internet access so it was the old crackly radio like back in the old days. Mícheál painted the pictures as he does, and i was hopping that i couldn't see the game, then praying for a draw so i could see the replay. The in laws wondering what the lunatic was doing sat outside in the car for an hour.

Long may he continue

[Croí na hÉireann]

Great article, thanks for posting it seafoid

[snoopdog]

Mícheál Ó Muircheartaigh is truly a Legend. He will never be replaced and we wont recognise what we have in him until he hangs up the microphone and those wonderful tones that i have heard every summer as a kid and now an adult will be gone but never forgotten.
He is a fascinating man. Happy Birthday Micheal.

[Denn Forever]

Jimmy Magee is 75 and he is still working for RTE. 

Stuart Hall is 81 and still commentates for 5Live.

Good on ya Micheal.  It is a pity that it is very annoying watch a game on TV and listening to Micheal's commentary.  There always a fractional time lapse that renders it annoying.

[mʲiːçaːl̪ˠ oː mˠɪɾʲçaɾˠt̪ˠiː] Looks like a russian spy's name but it is the phonetic pronunciation od Micheal's name (from Wiki).

[zoyler]

Apparently as part of the celebrations he went to Scotland yesterday to play the Old Course at St. Andrews and I doubt if he took a cart around the course!  Congratulations!

[IolarCoisCuain]

I love Micheál but that piece is a load of patronising, pretentious shite. I never heard anyone call a cow or a ditch (a "dry stone wall" in the D4 handbook) elegant. The phonetic "iligint" is deeply, deeply insulting. And that's only the first par.

Do you know what this piece reminded me of? The Paul Brady song "Nothing But the Same Old Story": http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QgaIAzWW2zc

This verse in particular:

There's a crowd says I'm alright
Say they like my turn of phrase
Take me round to their parties
Like some dressed up monkey in a cage
And I play my accordian
Oh, but when the wine seeps through the facade
It's nothing but the same old story
Nothing but the same old story

And that's what Fintan is doing here. He likes Micheál's turn of phrase, and this piece is showing off Micheál to Dublin 4, dressed like a money in a cage, with the commentary being the accordian. And he gets a big cheer, and Fintan tells the boys that Micheál is what they call "iligint" in the bog. And they all have a go at saying "iligint" then, and having a laugh and quaint country ways.

Fintan can go and f**k off, and the sooner the better.

[Rossfan]

Got out the wrong side o' th'oul bed today Iolar ?

[IolarCoisCuain]

Got out the wrong side o' th'oul bed today Iolar ?

I don't know Rossfan, I don't know. FOT bugs me at the best of times, but that piece really got up my nose. I'll be interested to see if I'm alone or if anyone agrees with me.

[paddypastit]

Got out the wrong side o' th'oul bed today Iolar ?

I don't know Rossfan, I don't know. FOT bugs me at the best of times, but that piece really got up my nose. I'll be interested to see if I'm alone or if anyone agrees with me.

Firstly for the avoidance of doubt, I think MO'M is a one off, a genius of his craft and worthy of celebration but I for two don't need FO'T to tell me that so I am totally with you there Iolar.

It sickens me to the core that the anointed theatre critic of the Irish Times is wantonly allowed spew gibberish on any given subject pretty much as he wishes and even more sickening that the national broadcaster at my expense repeatedly componds the sin by affording him free passage of the airwaves to repeat his biases on topics about which he knows little or nothing.

This thread though put me in mind though of something that I read recently about folk that make a career about talking about things that they know nothing about so I hit the search engines and found an article online - http://is.gd/eBFU3 - that sets it all out.  To save folk reading it all  it lists a five point template as follows

• Settle on a Topic
  
• When in doubt, equivocate
  
• Take a Contrary Position
  
• Generalize
  
• Triple the Length of Your Article by telling them what you're gonna tell them, telling them again and then telling them what you just told them.

Seems about par for the course for the expert that, from the in-depth and varied experience of his attic in Ballsbridge, knows the cost of everything and the value of nothing.

Personally I prefer the values of those that say nothing until they know something

[DuffleKing]

I wish he'd tell us the score more frequently

[Hardy]

Jesus lads. I can't stand O'Toole either and abhor his appointment by the holy see of pseudo-liberalism as their high priest with unquestioned access to every media outlet in the land to use as his pulpit.  But I couldn't see anything patronising in his piece. Even my worst enemy can sometimes articulate an opinion with which I agree and the article seemed to me to betoken a deep respect, both for the man and for something in Ireland that's becoming extinct.

I've had a vague awareness of it myself and I'm sure I 'm not alone in that. I can best illustrate it by contrasting the values of a time when Micheál O'Hehir wouldn't mention the name of a player sent off, because of the dishonour implied in such a sanction, with an attitude prevalent now that borders on glorifying dishonesty, diving and injury feigning. But I didn't have the words to express it as well as O'Toole has, in my opinion.

Also, for those who mightn't know, O'Toole, though I often spit his name, is a genuine GAA fan - often seen in Croke park, especially when Dublin are playing.

[seafoid]

It sickens me to the core that the anointed theatre critic of the Irish Times is wantonly allowed spew gibberish on any given subject pretty much as he wishes and even more sickening that the national broadcaster at my expense repeatedly componds the sin by affording him free passage of the airwaves to repeat his biases on topics about which he knows little or nothing.

That's called journalism.


Personally I prefer the values of those that say nothing until they know something

That reminds me of the apres match skit with Pat Spillane in the presenter's chair of the Sunday Game asking the D4 type if he knows he has won 8 all Ireland midils.
Fintan O'Toole has a genuine respect for Micheal and it comes through in the article.
So what if he's from Dublin and writes in the Irish Times?   

[IolarCoisCuain]

If Fintan O'Toole is a genuine GAA man, why does he make an effort separate his praise of Micheál Ó Muircheartaigh from praise of the games themselves? "GAA" is only mentioned once in 834 words. Why does he separate the commentary from what's being commentated on? Would he be just as fond of MOM if he was reading the phone book? If Fintan O'Toole likes the GAA, why not come out of the closet and say so?

Take a look at this paragraph:

"The less important the game is (to you at any rate), the more hypnotic an Ó Muircheartaigh commentary becomes. If it's a big match like Dublin and Cork on Sunday, the content gets in the way a little. But in a game between two no-hoper counties in the early stages of the championship, you can just listen to the music. I can't count the number of times I've switched on, discovered that the featured game held no interest for me, went to turn off the radio and found myself carried way out to sea on the riptide of this lilting, dipping, cresting, flow of words."

That all rings false to me. If it's the early stage of the Championship, there is no featured game. You get a few minutes from each ground, and updates from golf, tennis, hockey, cricket, racing and rest. You do not get an uninterrupted commentary on a featured game - unlike the soccer on Today FM, btw.

Fintan O'Toole is describing something that exists in his imagination, not his experience. That is not what listening to Radio 1 at the early stage of the Championship is like. Just as you're getting "carried way out t sea on the riptide of this lilting, dipping, cresting flow of words" you get beached by David Metcalf on Pembroke v Hermes in the hockey or Kel Mansfield with the racing from Kempton Park.

The other thing that gets on my wick is that line about the content getting in the way. I fail to see how the content gets in the way. I fail to see why Fintan feels a need to separate the dancers from the dance. I still maintain the article is shite.