The day I was introduced to the fastest field game in the world!!

When I was growing up as a young lad, like most other chaps, I played every sport that came my way. Football, hurling, soccer, golf.. You name it, no such thing as ‘player burn out’ when you’re a fresh gosson!

One day, not long after my 10^th birthday all the lads I hung around with were going to sign for the local soccer club ‘Ashbourne United’. So I said I would ask my father to sign the form and pay the joining fee for me. Now my auld man is from a very rural part of Offaly, where it’s nothing but hurling and Football, a place where let’s just say soccer is the forbidden fruit! I doubt half of his local parish have even heard of Lionel Messi, proud GAA countrymen down that neck of the woods, the way it should be in my own opinion. Ah sure I said I would chance my arm anyhow and see what he’d said,

“Daa, all the lads are joining Ashbourne United soccer club, will you sign my form for me? I reckon I’d be handy enough at it, the joining fee is £100!”

“Rory, there isn’t a chance in hell a son of mine is playing a foreign sport, so don’t be annoying me” as he stuck his head back into the latest edition of ‘Irelands own’.

 “ Da, pleaaase”..

 “Rory I’d give you a bottle of whisky and 20 cigarettes before I will let you play soccer, go join the hurling like every normal chap!”..

 “Feck sake da!”

So that was the end of me playing soccer for a few years anyway. I was at the time playing plenty of football for Donaghmore/Ashbourne, we played every Saturday morning in the North County Dublin League (Meath had nothing set up for that age group at the time!)  I loved it. So I decided to take my aul man’s advice and give the small ball game a rattle.  Now you must remember I’m from Meath, so hurling was never that strong, especially during the late 90s when the Royal county footballers were ever present in Croker during the latter end of the Championship. Well myself and 2 of my buddies, whose fathers were big GAA men as well, said we would head down to hurling training one evening with the u10s to see what the craic was.

I remember it well, it was a lovely summers evening, fresh cut grass, nettles all along the side of the pitch just waiting in the long grass to pounce on a young lad who had over hit a sliotar! When we got there we gave our names and were handed a hurl each and told to spread out 40 yards apart and puck the ball to each other. This seemed to come very natural to everyone around us but we were all typical young townie chaps, who were used to playing soccer around by the shops, where the craic was whoever had jumpers on their backs had to sacrifice them as goalposts!

Well we were finding the going very tough, at least two ‘fresh-airs’ before we even connected with the sliotar and even when we did connect, god knows how far the ball would travel, one could go off over a lad’s head and the other would skim off the stick and go about 7 yards in front of you “a feck sake” as you walked up to give it another whack.

This went on for a while and then we were called into a huddle, our manager at the time – ‘Big Pat’, was the biggest brut of a man you can imagine, he was from the heart of Kilkenny, had a voice that would scare the bejesus out of you, he’d a pair of hands on him like two big IKEA frying pans and has never been seen with a clean pair of trousers on - RAW.

“Right lads, we have a few new boys joining the team today, Rory John and Eric, Welcome lads..” At the time we would have been considered the ‘bold boys’ at school so a few lads were a bit intimidated by us showing up.

Pat turns around and says “right men, I need to find a goalie, who wants to play in goals!?” ..Of course nobody put their hand up – sure for the love of god who wanted to be a goalie in hurling, only the maddest of the mad survive between the sticks on a hurling pitch! “Ok so, I’ll do it my way” says Pat, so he picked out the 3 biggest lads in the group, I was one of them, “Right chaps, says he “We have to find a goalie for this team so I need to test yee out” … “holy god what does he mean by that” I says to myself, as I looked on with a dog shit of a hurl in my hand and a Celtic jersey on me.

So this lad called, ‘Mark’ was up first, standing there, big tall gangly gosson, with a pair of Argos shin pads on and an old raggedy aul Wexford jersey on his back. Pat stands about 15 yards out from goals with a Goalies shovel in his hand and 3 sliotars at his feet.

 “Right boys… I’ll hit three balls at ye each and whoever saves the most is our goalie, it’s as simple as that!”

 “Holy mother of god, he can’t be serious” I thought, as I stood in line already starting to regret beginning a hurling career.

So Pat flicked up the first sliotar with his hurl and absolutely launches it at poor owl Mark, Mark dived out of the way and Pat ate the head off him “ lord jayyyysus gosson, you’re meant to save the ball not jump out of the way” he did the same with the next two balls, “Right Mark, well it’s safe to say you won’t be our goalie, stand aside there..” then up stepped Tommy, He did the exact same to Tommy.. “God lads have we any goalies at all?? Did yee ever see Davy Fitz jump out of the way of the ball? Never! Bunch of pansies I have here...” and we all 10 years of age, with barely a hair on our legs!!

“Right, in goals there with ya Rory.” I was shitting it altogether, I had bad asthma at the time and could feel my chest tighten up with nerves, because here I was at my first ever hurling training session and I was being asked to stand in front of a beast of a man with a massive hurl in his hands and I was expected to save the sliotar he was going to launch at my head!

The first two balls I managed to jump out of the way of, but I wasn’t so lucky with the last Sliotar! I didn’t manage to dive out of the way quick enough and it caught me right on my shinbone.. “Ahhh me fecking shin” as I dived onto the ground! Pat stood there with a big grin on his Face and says “Right Young O’ Connor, you’ll be the goalie so!”

After that mini nightmare was over it got worse, Pat then had us paired off in groups of 4, Pulling the shins off each other for the next 15 minutes while shouting at us, “I’m telling yee men, this might be sore now but your legs will learn to get used to wild pulls, so we’ll be more than ready when we come across a dirty shower from north Meath!!”

When that bit of torture was over we spent the last 15 minutes trying to puck the ball over the bar, every one of us absolutely bolloxed from pulling the shins off each other. The session ended soon after that and we all gathered around the back of Pat’s working van as he handed us a bottle of ‘score’ and a bag of ‘Tayto’.

 “There ya go young chaps, great session, twill be the same again next Tuesday evening”.

I’ll tell you if anyone was going to make men out of us it was Big Pat!

Rory’s Royal Roasting!!

I have always been a very keen GAA man; it’s a huge part of my life. When I was a young lad, all I wanted to do was play for the Royal County in Croke Park. I grew up watching Big John McDermott in the middle of the field, he used to pluck balls out of the sky for fun and I always wanted to be him.


Growing up I was always very big for my age, my manager from u10 to u14 had to bring a copy of my birth cert to most matches to prove to the ref and the other team’s manager that I wasn’t a “banger”.

From u14 to pretty much minor football I had it all my own way. If I’m being honest, I was never a great footballer, I was the type of chap that once I’d won a ball I’d hear “Lay it off Rory, lay if off” from the side-line. I could though, catch most kick-outs because I was a foot bigger than anyone around me; I thought this was a ‘piece of piss’ and I was destined for Croker!


Eventually though everyone around me began to naturally grow and I wasn’t as influential as my underage days. I still am an awkward whoor to have around the middle to ‘shake things up’!


In 2008 I was midfield for the Meath u21 team; we got absolutely spanked by Kildare in Navan. I did though, have one of my better outings and was proud of my efforts after the game. In the showers after, like most GAA lads, we tried to forget about the game and spoke about the drinking session we were going to go on, “mon we hit Navan lads, drown the sorrows”. As we headed back into the changing rooms, Colm Coyle (Meath manager at the time) called me over and says “I want you to come in for a training match tomorrow morning with the seniors, you deserve a shot after that performance”.


This was great news, but I was still mad for a few pints with the lads as it was my last year u21. So I said I would go for the famous ‘1 or 2’. Sure of course the craic was ninety and as the night went on I’d say to myself just to justify what I was doing “Sure even if I play a stormer tomorrow, I’m still not going to be on the championship panel so fuck it, I’ll arrive up and do my best”(a woeful attitude altogether). So I ended up getting locked and got a taxi back to Ashbourne about 4am, absolutely mouldy drunk!


The next morning I woke up on my couch in an awful heap. I just heard my doorbell ring, the mother answered it, came into the back room and says “Cormac is at the door (Cormac was a fellow clubman on the Meath team at the time) “What does he want..” says I.. “You have a game don’t you??” .. “OH SHITTTE, I do”!!


So I jumped in the car, still in the jeans and shirt from the night before “where’s your gear!?” asked one of the lads in the back seat, “awe boys I can’t play I’m in an awful way, I wouldn’t run up the stairs right now. I’ll just say one of the Skyrne lads were meant to pick it up for me and they forgot”. – Such a brutal excuse!


So we got to the pitch, late of course, most of the panel were out on the field warming up. I’d got sick out the window on the way down to Navan so I was as white as a ghost getting out of the car. Tommy Dowd (Meath Legend, was a selector at the time) took one look at me and says in a pure thick Meath accent “You’re soooome cowboy O’ Connor” and burst out laughing.

I strutted into the changing room, with the stamp from the nightclub clearly visible on my hand and stuttered my woeful excuse to a dead wise Colm Coyle. I thought being size 13 in boots that I would have been safe enough that nobody would have spare boots of that calibre, so I was thinking that I was going to be sitting in the dugout having the bit of craic during the game and let my hangover pass by comfortably.

But no, just my luck up perked an excited Mark Ward (Meath Midfielder at the time) “jaysus Rory, I have a spare pair of 13s in my bag here, you can wear them!” he knowing well the state I was in – da bollix!

“Ah jaysus thanks Wardy, you’re such a gentleman!!” I then got a pair of socks and size 34 shorts off another lad, I’m size 38 at best, so they were completely bet onto me! So off I headed out onto the pitch to join the warm up; looking like a chap they had dragged in off the street to make up the numbers. I was marking Nigel Crawford and I never got such a roasting in all my life, I was calling for kickouts and jumping about 10 minutes too early. The game was a complete disaster and an utter blur!!


After the game as we were jogging from side-line to side-line to warm down, I had to pull up along the railings and put the fingers down the throat. Anthony Moyles, Meath captain at the time walked by with a look of utter disgust on his face, shook his head and pointed at me saying "that is what is wrong with Meath football right there". I was in such a heap down on my hunkers that I couldn't even feel ashamed; I just stuck the fingers back down the throat again to get the last of the Navan Supermacs out of my system.

When I was eventually done getting sick, I didn’t even bother my hole having a shower; I just jumped into Cormac’s car, sat there dirty and freezing, waiting on the lads to come out so we could go home ta fack!


To tell you the truth, I wasn’t too surprised that I didn’t get a call back to training the following Tuesday – nor play another game for the Royal county!!

Sure tis no wonder it took me 3 attempts to pass my driving test…

Everyone has been on family holidays down through the years, they are great, especially when your 10 and you just spend the two weeks jumping in and out of the pool, drinking gallons of coke, orange and 7up, while annoying the life out of your aul lad every second you get “ Da, watch me do this dive into the pool”.. “Da, will you play table tennis with me!?”.. “Da, will you buy me a ball for the pool!?”.


Well in 1996 we jetted off to Santa Ponsa(wouldn’t be like us Irish to go their during the 90s) for a 2 week holiday. Myself, the mother, the Father and my older sister Carol. We were having a great holiday, sun was beaming every day, we had met plenty of sound folk around the pool to have the craic with and the entertainment at night was brilliant. One of the lads I palled around with at the pool had been to this top class park the day before, he said it was unreal, it had an arcade room full of the best of the best video games, it had a class big snooker area and it had GO KARTS!


So for the next 3 days I plagued the aul man to bring me to this park, “ Daaaa pleaseee” .. “No Rory, go play in the pool their like a good chap and don’t be annoying me”.. Well I kept at it and at it until eventually he gave in.. “ok ok, I’ll bring you tomorrow, just give me peace for the rest of today. “yeoooww” I shouted as I did a big ’bomb’ into the pool and drowned half the people who were sun bathing, “ Jaysus Margaret, what was that!?” says one man who had the ear phones in and got a right drop of water on his forehead.


So the next day myself and the father headed off to the park while the two women stayed by the pool and did what every woman loves to do – read books and try their very best to get a tan! The last thing I do remember my ma saying was “Joe, make sure he doesn’t get on anything to mad, you know what he’s like!!” and off we went.


We got to the park after 20 minutes or so, I was uncontrollably excited. “Da, can I go on this, da, can we do that”.. “Settle down now Rory or we’ll go home” !!

I went on a few different things in the park, was having a great day. I then asked can I go on the go-karts, at first he said “nooo way Rory, your far too young for them and your mother would kill me!” But like most fathers after minutes of pure harassing him, he eventually gave in. “Right ok, but just take er handy, these are fast!”


So I put on my helmet and got aboard the go kart – now if you don’t know me, when I was a young lad, I was desperately overgrown for my age, awful big gosson, so the Spanish people running this Go-kart business, well I’d imagine they thought I was at least 16, so they didn’t bother explaining to much to me on how the motor worked, or the possible dangers!!


The truth is folks, I was terrified deep down getting on the Go kart, but I didn’t want to let onto the father that I was a complete nervous wreck so I just went for it anyway. So there I was doing a couple of laps of the track at my own comfortable pace – about 9 miles an hour. I was getting lapped over and over again by the other people around me; I didn’t care though because I felt 10 feet tall. Then at one stage I just heard the aul man shout from the crowd “Mon Rory, give er a bit of welly…put the boot down Schumacher!!” and sure so I did, Well as god is my judge nothing could have prepared my poor father for what was about to happen!!


As requested by the big man I put the boot to the floor, the car shot off and straight away I knew I was facked. With the size 11 loafers I had at the time didn’t my lanky toes get caught and I couldn’t slow down…”Ahhhh, daddddyyyy” and what happened, I completely bulldozed straight through the tires that outlined the track and was heading straight towards a gang of aul wans who were having their afternoon tea.

As this Go Kart was heading towards the crowd of people my aul man was running behind me shouting “Holy god RORRRYYY, take your foot off the peddle” but sure I was in that much shock my body was frozen, luckily enough I had the small bit of cop on to turn the wheel away from the group of terrified women and crashed into a hape of tables and chairs where luckily nobody was sitting.


The whole eating area came to a standstill, every single person gawking over at me upside down in the Go-kart which had a tire hanging out the back of it, about 4 chairs on top of me and smoke coming out of all angles!! Dad ran straight over to the cart to see if I was still alive, I was thank god, so he picked me up, me wearing my fake Man Utd jersey which I had bought off the dell boys down the beach the day before. He then brought me into get ‘doctored up’ by the parks first aid team. I was grand just a few scratches and that, luckily enough!


So when we left the emergency area, the aul lad called me aside and said “now Rory, we can’t tell your mother about this because.. Well, I won’t be in her good books for a long time, put it that way”.

I says, “ok Da” so he bought me an ice cream to calm my nerves. So there I was a few minutes later going around on a Ferris wheel, still shaking with fear, while eating my Cornetto Ice-cream and being surrounded by kids no older than 5.


I think me and the aul man couldn't have been happier!!

Ah, The 1st of January…

Right, come on now folks, raise your hand if you are after waking up this morning hung over to bits for the 19^th time in the past 25 days!!? “a me fookin head” !!

No doubt your first thoughts were “awe god not again! That’s me, No more drinking or smoking for at least 4 weeks.. I feel absolutely cat!”

And so like the rest of the nation you will probably spend some part of today dragging your weary body up to the bottle bank with a life supply of empty cans and bottles, no doubt spill a bit of Bulmer’s on yourself while throwing them into the container “fuck ya anyway Tommy not finishing your cans, ya nuisance!”

You’ll then arrive back home, grab a black bag from the press and walk around the house throwing everything and anything that’s nice to nibble on into it - the Pringles, the box of foxes biscuits, the last few sweets in the tin of roses and straight out to the wheelie bin the lot of them will go!!

Awe sure you will no doubt attack the fruit, that’s been sitting in the fruit bowl since the first week of December, which by now has cobwebs on it and gone a dirty brown colour. You will lorry them out into the bin as well.

You’ll come back into the house, sit down on the couch and say to yourself “my god I feel crap and so unhealthy” around then you’ll probably pick up your laptop or phone, log onto Google and search for the nearest gym to you for a years direct debit membership, and pay big bucks for it!

My advice to you would be DON’T BOTHER YOUR HOLE, because come mid February you will have a pain in your bollix with the gym and be ragging with yourself for signing up to a 1 years membership. So just go for a walk or run over the next week or so to clear the body and mind, consider the gym membership in mid January when all the demons have left the system.

Awe for sure January is a rotten aul month, no doubt about it, but once these few weeks are over and we run into February we can start to get the ball rolling again and enjoy the better things in life. So until then, sit back, relax, light the fire and recharge the batteries.

All the best for 2014, please keep sharing the page for me and stay tuned for some seriousssss craic !!

Being a wee pup and spoiling Christmas morning

We all have stories to tell about fond childhood memories of Christmas morning. That sheer joy when you burst open the sitting room door to see toys everywhere and anywhere, your stocking bulging by the fire place, unreal feeling. Well when I was a chap I had chronic bad asthma, So many a time I took a shocking bad asthma attack on Christmas morning with the pure excitement, I’ve often spend half of Christmas morning wedged to the nebulizer before I could even play with my toys. Sitting there in the vest and briefs, red as a tomato and the chest rattling like a useless lawnmower!

Well this one Christmas morning I acted the bollix something shocking, here’s my story..

One year when I was about 6 or 7, like most gossons that age I was in my prime for old Saint Nick, I could not wait for Christmas morning to come around. I use to hounnddd the aul lad every day in December “daaaa, would ya say the elf’s have my toys built by now??”.. “not yet Rory, you have to keep being good right up to Christmas day, or they will stop building yours and move onto the good boys and girls toys, don’t you understand!!?”. “Ok dad!”

Well this one year I had requested the ‘Sega mega drive’ (serious computer altogether!) from the big red giant. Christmas Eve finally came around and I was wired, not only could I not sleep that night but I was actually sitting up in my bed rattling with excitement, not a hope of me sleeping!

As every minute crept by of every hour I’d sneak into my big sisters room pleading with her to come downstairs with me to see if Santa had arrived “Carolllllll, will you come downstairs with me and see if Santa came!!?” “NO Rory, go back to bed.”(It was only later in life I understood why she didn’t want to rush down the stairs in hope of getting a glimpse of Rudolph and the lads).

              It came to 4am and I couldn’t take it anymore, “I’m going for it” I thought to myself. So I crawled through the hall, took each step as quiet as I could and headed down to paradise. As I opened my sitting room door, there were presents everywhere, one side of the room had a pile of presents and a note on top ‘Rory’ and the other side had a note ‘Carol’. I started to rip all mine open like a mad man. Then eventually the moment of truth came, I found my Sega “yeowww ya rooster”.

I had finished opening up all my presents in no time, I then glanced over at my sister’s pile, while thinking to myself “sure she doesn’t care about Santa or her present’s ill open wann, she won’t mind!!” Suddenly, one turned in to every jaysusin present. I then ran upstairs, clearly full of adrenaline, shook the living life out of her in the bed and in about 47 seconds I had told her every last detail of what she had got from Santa, from her ‘dream phone’ (the most wanted present by the lassies at the time, a huge surprise that she wasn’t expecting to get!!) all the way down to the spice girls pencil case, every last detail!!

As you can imagine this didn’t go down to well,

I suppose it was about 4.17am and she let an unmerciful yelp from her bedroom, a kind of yelp that would wake a corpse.. “dadddddyyyy, Rory opened all my presents from Santy and told me what I got” as she balled her eyes out.

I could hear my aul man rattling the house getting out of the scratcher. I ran into my room and hid under the covers. He first calmed my sister down and then ordered me out to the hall to explain myself, “Rory come out here now.. Rory come out, come on” I eventually came out from my bedroom like a mouse peeping out at a lump of cheese on a trap, “Well Rory, what have to you say for yourself!!?” Says the aul lad, (standing in the hall in his finest dressing gown). “Well go on, explain!??”, so I stood there twiddling my fingers and toes and said in a very soft voice “I’m sorry da, but ya see I met Santa downstairs and he said because I was such a good boy this year I could open a few of Carols presents as well as mine, not my fault!!!”.

The father just stood there, as you can imagine he was fairly taken back by this pure genius of a comeback, in fairness he only really had one option and that was to accept this comeback, or else he was going to have to  tell me the truth about the greatest lie in the history of childhood. So no doubt he just stood there and thought to himself “such a comeback, ya little bollix ya !!”

By god I fluked that one!!

Happy Christmas folks, enjoy the day, and go handy on the poor owl turkey!!

The Average Joe’s '12 pubs of Christmas'

The 12 pubs of Christmas.. huh!!??.. What an outrageous genius Big Darcy from Clonakilty must of been to come up with this idea, savage excuse altogether to get a gang of your best pals gathered up and hit the biggest town closest to you and go on the pure rip. My memory of the day is carnage from start to finish. Often 10,20 even up to 30 lunatics would head off into town dressed in Christmas jumpers of all sorts. I can guarantee you one thing, the full panel won’t arrive home, not a chance.

How the day of pure and utter craic starts is heading down the local with a gang of your best mates dressed up like absolute cabbages each one of you as mad as the other, in great form.

“Well Damo, you doing the 12 pubs!!?, ..”I am lad, can’t wait, gona be class!”.. “awe stop, messy”

You have the quick one in the local “Large bottle their please” then you’ll hop on the bus into “wreck baggot street!!” or whatever town is unlucky enough to host the gathering.

First pub is quite enough, quick pint then gone, 2nd 3rd and 4th pretty much the same, but... by the 5th lads are getting giddy, it’s around then one of the gargle guzzler’s shouts “herre bhoysss, last one to neck there pint does a shot..” the harmless chap of the group - who barley drinks, but promise’s all year he will do the 12 pubs at Christmas to keep us off his case, this lad always gets stuck with the shot and then by the 7th pub this poor unfortunate wobbles out the door, asks someone for a “spare fag”, then staggers up the road, reefs the phone out of his jeans pocket and rings either one of his best college mates or his close cousin from down the country “Just did the 12 pubs ladd, unrealll craic – course I lasted the 12, sure I’m heading up to coppers now with all the bhoys, some women about the place” .

By now the gang are in the 8^th pub, even the “Decent drinkers” are getting googly eyed at this stage, one of the gang who doesn't smoke, hates fags usually, gets cocky and has a smoke outside this pub, inhale’s the john player into him, barley coming up for air, then all of a sudden the nicotine gets a grip of him. He waddles into the jacks, stares in the mirror and says to himself “be the lord jaysus, I amm taaawisted” leaves the toilet, shoulders some lad on the way out “Ya alright Keith?? ”.. “I’m grand, just making a call be back in a minute” and sure of course is no were to be seen for the rest of the night.

By this stage the gang are at the 9th pub, the shits slowly starting to hit the fan now. This is usually the pub were the “mess” of the gang gets caught by the bouncer letting loose into the sink instead of the pisspot.. “Right, OUTTT!!!” So that’s the 9^th pub written off.

So as you head to number 10, around now 6 or 7 of the more sensible ones, I’d like to call them the “better drinkers” would say “Lads, Gerry, Marty and Tony are in an awful bundle, I reckon we leave them and leg it to a different pub!!.” GONE.

So then poor aul  Tony,Marty and Gerry are left floating around the chipper, bolloxed drunk. Poor Gerry’s in a bad way spilling his heart out to the two lads “Did I ever tell you that yis are my best mate’s lads, I’m telling you, yis are, I love yas” Then good aul Gerry sticks the head back into the donor kebab for round two.

Then Tony pipe’s up “Lads, towns a kip.. I’m getting a taxi home we have a few in Kelly’s, bita craic.. “ .Marty agrees and eventually with half a kebab on his face so does Gerry.

So while the 3 stooges are half way home in the taxi, the rest of the gang are split up all around temple bar one by one getting fecked out of each pub till one lad says  “foookkkk Dublin…,I’m getting a taxi home..” usually around 2 or 3 agree with him bail into a taxi and hit the road.

It’s now 1am and the 3 or 4 pure die hard drinkers of the gang are out of the game. One by one they find there way back to there hometown after been with women in disabled jacks, after been in rows and after puking all over themselves at the side of burger king.

Everyone of you wake up the next morning and first thing you say to yourself is

“ God Christ i am dying, thankkk fackkk that session only happens once a year” !!

Well folks, that is give er take, “The average Joe's 12 pubs of Christmas”

“A lorry load of porter leads to an overflow of water”

Everyone knows that person who is a “disaster of a chap”, the type of lad who attracts unfortunate situations without even trying - ‘God that lad is an awful clutz’. Well, I’m certainly related to this breed of people. Whatever can go wrong, will and does go wrong when I’m in town. I’m the type of man that if I was to back the whole field in a 4 horse race, on the flat, the 4 horses would somehow manage to fall, or else plough into the railings either side of them, that kind of a chap. A pure “Jinx” one might say.

                   

This short story I’m about to tell you confirms this fact. The Irish must have come up with the auld saying “Murphy’s Law” when they heard I was entering this world!

 

Back in the summer of 2008, we were getting an extension done to the family home. Plenty of hard graft went into this, as is the case with all extensions. Ours was coming along well, the blocks were laid to perfection, the roof was spot on and the plumber (a good friend of mine) had a lot of his work done; the place was starting to take real shape.

One Thursday night, after playing a championship match with my beloved club, Donaghmore/Ashbourne, we all went back to the clubhouse for “a few pints” – standard enough. Before my aul lad left the club that night the last thing he said to me was “now Rory, you have work tomorrow, I’ll say no more!” Then he headed towards the exit, turned back and says “o and, have u got a key!?” I replied “I do big joeseyyy!” and he headed home.

 

Like most nights in the club the craic was had, the die hard clubmen at the bar dissecting your every move on the pitch. “Why didn’t you catch that ball?? ... Why didn’t you fist that over the bar?? ... Why didn’t you lay it off to Davey?? Sure jaysus he was straight in front of goal!!” - The usual craic that goes on in every GAA club the length and breadth of the country.

Well after a good stack of fine porter I eventually said enough is enough “Right lads I’m heading home, have work tomorrow”(as if one more pint at 3am would make any difference to the head of me the next morning.) 

As I wandered home in the early hours, with my gear bag in one hand and a rotten Benson and Hedges fag in the other, belting out ballads to myself on the way up to the house, I got to the front door and lo and behold I didn’t have a sniff of a key in my pocket - “bollix”.

I says to myself “If I knock on this door big Joe is going to kill me!” so as I was standing there scratching my head, trying to think a way around not having to wake up the mother and father, I looked over at the window of the extension and says “sure I’ll jump through the window and in through the garage door, be grand”.

You must remember now that I was after playing a champ match so the legs were banjoed, not to mention the 12 pints I inhaled since the game. So let’s just say I wasn’t in the greatest nick to be doing missions through a semi building site.

So with a great deal of struggle I eventually got through the window, but as I was walking along the joists, I wobbled for a second, lost my balance and with the gallon of porter I had on board I had no hope of staying on my feet “hup be da jaysus” I slipped in between the shagging things and hit the ground like a sack of spuds “a me fucking ankle” nearly made shite of myself.

I pulled myself up, limped up to the old garage door, hit the garage door a woeful attempt of a shoulder, burst the door wide open and fell straight onto my hands and knees. I then staggered up off the ground, left the door wide open and straight up to bed with me. The mother does the shopping of a Friday so there was no hope of a few sambos before I hit the cot.

The next morning I woke to my phone going mental vibrating on my bedside locker, “Ahh shut up ta fuck will ya, stupid alarm”. As I was lying in bed in an awful heap, dreading getting up for work, didn’t I hear the auld man flush the toilet, let out a sneaky fart in the hall and head down the stairs for morning tae.

Then all I heard in a mild Offaly accent was “WHATTTT daaa faccckkk!!” The mother ran down straight away in shock, then I just heard “Rory get yourself down here now”... “O no, what did I do now, don’t tell me we’ve been robbed!??” were my thoughts. So I dragged my stiff and hungover frame out of bed, crept down the stairs terrified to what my eyes were about to witness.

O holy mother of sweet divine jaysus. Wasn’t the whole kitchen FLOODED!! I must have burst a pipe when I slipped through the joists the night before, and fecking water had come in through the old garage door that I’d left open out of pure drunkenness. Now I mean the kitchen was a swamp, this was the last thing I needed with a dreadful hangover and having to face a day’s work!

“Awe dear lord da, I’m so sorry. I’ll ring Martin (the plumber) straight away and have this sorted in no time”. He gave me a look that would kill, then he turned to my poor mother, who god love her was flat out tearing pages out of the Meath Chronicle to try soak up some of the water, and says “I need a cigarette”.

He then brushed me out of his way and headed out the back garden to gather his thoughts.

There was absolutely no way I was giving him the opportunity to come back into the house and land me with a well-deserved solid right hook, So before he came back in like a loose bull, I grabbed my coat, slipped on my shoes, gave mammy my apologies and scampered out the door to work.

I’ll tell you that one morning I was never as happy to leave a warm house and head off to work hungover!!