I used to like Jimmy’s live Tour de France commentary with Pat McQuaid. He could spin you several yarns during a dull, flat 5 hour stage that would end in the inevitable sprint.
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I think it’d be fair to say that mantra stuck with you.
Just like right is right and wrong is wrong.
What’s right in China may not necessarily be right in Ireland — So that’s not quite right mate, it’s wrong.
Who takes the title of greatest living Louthman now?
Right is right and wrong is wrong.
I think that’s definitely the case with me. I have fond memories of Jimmy commentating on some of the lesser 2006 and 2010 World Cup group games on weekend afternoons - probably from a studio in RTÉ. He was rambling away and talking awful shite, possibly in a Croatia-Japan match.
I obviously remember him from a good bit before that too. Know Your Sport, some Olympics events and the odd GAA commentary. Think he was a regular commentator for one of the main featured highlights games on The Sunday Game for a good few years probably in the 1990s (? cc @Sidney) but he rarely did the live game(s). Did he present The Game on Monday?
He was an anchor on Sunday Sport there on the radio in the last few years.
He had complete blind faith in Michelle Smith. I remember an interview he did where he was making the point she was simply a world class performer. He mentioned her getting her law exams and securing some of the best marks in Ireland. “Did she take anything for that?” 
He seemed nice and affable rather than being a good commentator though in my time listening to him. But the extent of the tributes from everyone in broadcast, print and online media circles, including from absolute no marks at the lowest levels who’ve been bouncing around sport desks at Off The Ball etc , show that he genuinely seemed to have time and a friendly word for everyone.
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My mother wouldn’t hear of any talk that Michelle Smith could have been a cheat because she finished first in Irish in the Leaving Cert.
RIP Jimmy. Obviously loved all sports which makes his stance on drug cheats all the more strange. I’ll put it down to being a bit seafoid in his later years.
You’ve never seen him perform.
Not particularly.
Stefan White.
Stephen Melia
Tommy Byrne.
Magee was a lower order commentator on GAA in the late 1980s/early 1990s. There was a bit of a changing of the guard around that time as regards GAA commentary with Michael O’Hehir and Mick Dunne departing and Micheal O’Muircheartaigh concentrating on radio. Jim Carney and Marty Morrissey, who was was brought in around 1988 I think, would have been ahead of him in the pecking order.
He commentated on the 1989 Leinster final between Dublin and Meath but I don’t recall him doing any other big GAA games for RTE.
He then got the gig as main commentator on UTV’s Ulster championship coverage from 1995 to 1997, before moving back to RTE ahead of the 1998 World Cup. I can’t remember if he was still allowed to present Know Your Sport when he went to UTV but I have a notion he didn’t and George Hamilton did it on his own in 1995/96 which was the final season of it. Magee did do some GAA commentaries for RTE when he went back (Dublin v Kilkenny at Parnell Park in the 1998 Leinster hurling championship was one) but they were infrequent.
I don’t recall him presenting the Game On Monday. Micheal O’Muircheartaigh did present for at least one year (1995) so perhaps that’s what you’re thinking of.
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What a post.
The memory man!
Those were some of the ‘crack’ Eastern European teams of the era