Paul Rouse: Mícheál Ó Muircheartaigh’s love for GAA was the heartbeat of his commentary

From the era of communities gathered around the wet battery radio through to internet-based streams, his voice entertained and educated generations of people.

His first commentary for RTÉ Radio came at the Railway Cup Final on St Patrick’s Day, 1949. He delivered that commentary in Irish and it was his exceptional fluency in both languages that sustained his broadcasting career until his retirement in 2010.

Between 1949 and the 1980s he had combined his radio commentaries with his work as a teacher. Then when Michael O’Hehir retired from broadcasting in 1985, Mícheál Ó Muircheartaigh took over as a fulltime radio commentator and was charged with providing commentaries on the biggest GAA matches in every season until Cork defeated Down in the 2010 All-Ireland senior football final.

That retirement brought an outpouring of tributes from across society. What was plain was that even people with little interest in Gaelic games had tuned in to hear commentaries which were vivid and powerful and entirely unique, flowing between Irish and English, steeped in a deep knowledge of the games and the people who played them.

It is again a matter of simple fact that his status in Gaelic games was by then iconic. He spawned a small army of imitators – both those who sought to emulate his style in their own commentaries or those who were prone to break into impromptu impersonations.

More than that, his most famous lines were quoted again and again. There was no need for anyone to explain who was being impersonated, the unique turn of phrase and its glorious delivery were unmistakable.

What makes the acquisition of this status in wider Irish popular culture so notable is the context in which it happened. It is true that RTÉ Radio had the world of broadcasting all to itself in Ireland when Mícheál Ó Muircheartaigh first took the microphone at a match in 1949.

But the story of successive decades was that of the repeated dilution of this monopoly.

Most importantly, the rise of television offered an entirely new context in which radio sought to thrive. Between 1961 and that All-Ireland Final of 2010, television coverage approached saturation levels.

From the initial showing of All-Ireland finals and semi-finals in the 1960s through to the expansion of live televised championship matches in the 1990s and on through the broadcast in a new millennium of league, club, schools and colleges matches, Gaelic games assumed a central role in Irish television.

Similarly, the rise of local radio stations in the 1990s offered a different sort of challenge to the status enjoyed by RTÉ Radio.

And yet, through all of this, the voice of Mícheál Ó Muircheartaigh on RTÉ Radio One remained the voice that was most associated with Gaelic football and hurling.

This status was a consequence of several factors. Firstly, he broke the mould of all existing commentators. That is to say he was different to P.D. Mehigan and Éamonn de Barra and Fr. Michael Hamilton and Michael O’Hehir who had all gone before him into the commentary box in the 1930s. He had his own style and he developed it year after year.

Secondly, he benefited in the beginning from the fact that the initial reticence about allowing live radio commentaries of matches was gone by the time he started. At the end of the 1920s, P.D. Mehigan had been told by one GAA traditionalist that his “mahogany box” would destroy the Association: “If they don’t take that bloody box out of Croke Park, they might as well close the gates.” But by the end of the 1940s, it was clear that radio was actually adding to the lustre of Gaelic games and enhancing its appeal among the general public.

Thirdly, having got that start in a pre-television age, he was able to prosper on radio by virtue of his ability to turn a phrase and to capture a moment. None of this would have been possible if he had not loved the job and loved the games. It was this love which gave him a depth of knowledge that cannot be faked. His immense store of information was accumulated from talking to people and from thinking. He was also unafraid to offer an opinion. Indeed, his predictions were uncannily prescient.

It is enough now to say that his name became synonymous with Gaelic games in a way that could not happen again. 

Ar dheis Dé go raibh a anam.

Paul Rouse is professor of history at University College Dublin