Soccer
Paul Kimmage meets Eamon Dunphy: Life at 74, the ‘new Dunphy’ and his relationship with Richie Sadlier
Following his return to on-screen football punditry, Eamon Dunphy, although denying vanity, says that, after 74 years, he’s rather fallen in love with himself
Paul Kimmage
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Eamon Dunphy. Photo: David Conachy
Okay, we hear you . . .
“You’re kidding!”
“Jaysus!”
“Seriously?”
“Again!”
“Not another bleedin interview with Eamon Dunphy.”
And that’s fair. We get it. You’ve had more than enough of The Dunph. The sermons. The ranting. The rage. He’s been shouting off the same hymn sheet for more than 40 years now. That’s him on Prime Time. That’s him on the Champions League. There he blows on The Late Late Show.
Is there anything left to say?
Then, three months ago, we took a notion to pay him a visit at home in the week of the All-Ireland football final. He’s a Dublin boy, see, and we were collating opinions on what it meant to be from Dublin on the eve of a possible five-in-a-row. Ten minutes should have covered it. It was just a couple of hundred words.
But the transcript would have made a book.
Dunphy has always had stardust, and it was no surprise to find him returned to our football screens again, with John Giles and Liam Brady, after a three-year hiatus.
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Soccer pundits John Giles, Liam Brady and Eamon Dunphy. Photo: Stephen McCarthy/Sportsfile
And no surprise when the invite came from the PR company to give him a call. Ten minutes would cover it. It would be just a quick word to promote their appearance on St Stephen’s Day for Premier Sports.
But we knew how that worked.
- Seventeen
When I was seventeen
It was a very good year
It was a very good year for small town girls
And soft summer nights
We’d hide from the lights
On the village green
When I was seventeen
Frank Sinatra,
‘It Was a Very Good Year’
Paul Kimmage: There’s been some talk recently about the ‘new’ Dunphy and the ‘old’ Dunphy. Let’s start with the old Dunphy. How old is he?
Eamon Dunphy: 74.
PK: The last time I saw you was before the All-Ireland in September and I didn’t think you looked great?
ED: I had a major operation in March. I had an aneurism - an abdominal one - which they had found years ago and were monitoring. It was a serious operation but I’m fine. I workout for 20 minutes every day on a bike upstairs. I eat properly, have three or four glasses of wine . . . I’m happy.
PK: And still driven?
ED: People would say that but . . . passionate, that’s the word. I’m still engaged in the game of life, and I’ve taken my share of hits, but everybody gets that. So I would say I’m passionate and committed to the work; long-form journalism where you can . . . we had Vicky Phelan on and did 45 minutes.
PK: This is your podcast (‘The Stand’)?
ED: Yeah, you can listen on your commute or in the gym and you’ve got the whole story. It’s not 10 minutes on Sean O’Rourke or, I mean Prime Time did four stories last night in 38 minutes, that’s bollocks. So we’re really flying. We’re getting 560,000 streams every month, and we’ve passed the seven million mark since we started.
PK: Who’s your producer?
ED: Ian Maleney - a nice young lad. He’s actually a writer. He had a book (Minor Monuments) nominated for the book awards but they’re ‘hooky’. (Richie) Sadlier won Sports Book of The Year for a ghosted book! Can you believe that? Jesus! Have you read it?
PK: Yeah.
ED: Is it any good?
PK: It’s excellent.
ED: Really?
PK: It’s great, very deserving. He fillets you.
ED: (laughs) I read your piece with him. What does he say?
PK: I’ll come to that later. Go back to the podcast.
ED: Yeah, it’s doing really well. Ian is upgrading the website, the Facebook and Twitter thing, because I’m a blank space when it comes to all of that. And we have a sponsor, Tesco, and they’ve been brilliant.
PK: So the work is still important to you?
ED: Well, if it’s not important you shouldn’t be doing it. And it shows I think.
PK: Is that why you’re doing it?
ED: Yeah, I mean I don’t feel 74, I really don’t, energy wise, attitude wise, I’d still be young in my mind. And it’s not hard work for me. The only thing that’s hard work for me is writing, but that was always hard for me. It was a killer; getting it down, getting it right. And you never get it fucking right . . .
PK: (Laughs)
ED: Words are elusive, and opaque. Someone would say, ‘Jaysus, that was a great article you wrote,’ and I’d know it could have been better. There’s no article you ever write that can’t be 25 or 30 per cent better. I always think that.
PK: Take me back to 1962 and your time at Mrs Scott’s digs at Manchester United. You’re 17 years old, reading a book a week, three newspapers a day and there’s an Irish guy making news on Granada TV called Gay Byrne.
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Gay Byrne pictured in RTE back in 1967
ED: Yeah.
PK: When was your first time on The Late Late Show?
ED: I can’t remember.
PK: Most people would. It was a big deal.
ED: It was if you were selling something, but I hadn’t anything to sell. He offered me a job once. Ulick O’Connor, who has just died, used to sit beside Gay and stir the shit. He was a show-off and a mouth and Gay had him on as ‘the contrarian’. Anyway, he packed it in and Gay said: “Would you like to do the show every week and do what Ulick did?” So Gay thought I wanted to be a contrarian.
PK: Because that was the perception?
ED: Yeah, I was doing stuff for the Sunday Independent - and some of it was savage - but it was good. But I said, “Are you mad? I’m a journalist. I’m not going to do that shit!” But Gay didn’t understand me, really.
PK: How do you mean?
ED: I did a programme for three years called Conversations. Sarah Binchy was my producer and we went and tried for Gay and he said yeah. So we went into the studio and as they were setting up the mics he said: “Eamon, about 10 or 15 years ago you wrote a piece in the Sunday Independent praising me for the Rose of Tralee, and saying what a beautiful thing it was.” And he looked at me: “Did you mean it?” I said, “Of course I meant it.” I had written about the way he presented it, it was just gorgeous, but because everyone kicked the shit out of The Rose of Tralee, he thought I was being a contrarian.
PK: Sure.
ED: And that I’d made it up (laughs). And it kind of threw me off my stride: ‘This guy thinks I’m a (charlatan), that I make up this stuff every week!’ And I didn’t make it up.
PK: How did he react?
ED: I think I went slightly down in his estimation.
PK: How was the interview?
ED: Not great. He wasn’t giving a thing. Nothing. Zilch. But I liked Gay.
PK: You did?
ED: And I admired him.
PK: Why?
ED: His professionalism and his courage. John Caden (a former RTE producer) said something on the tribute show (last month) that I wished I’d said: “No one has remarked on Gay’s courage to pursue the things he wanted to do.” And that’s true. He (took on) all of the forces in this society - the church, the politicians, his bosses in RTE. He was unafraid in a remarkable way. And yet, and here’s the paradox, he was a very conservative man in many respects, including his Catholicism and stuff. And for someone like that to be so courageous is even more profound really. Because I’d be a rebel by disposition - he wasn’t. He was actually a straight guy. Do you remember the height of the Celtic Tiger?
PK: No.
ED: There was a frenzy about the place. The taxi drivers were buying places in Bulgaria (laughs)! Everyone had dough. And there was only one place to be on a Friday afternoon, The Unicorn. Anyway, I was in there with Pearson (the film producer, Noel Pearson) having lunch one day and Gay walked in with Gerry Ryan.
PK: Gerry Ryan?
ED: Yeah, they were opposites in most respects but they were pals. I sang a song for him, ‘When I was 17’, a Sinatra song. I said, “I’m dedicating this to Gay,” and he fucking loved it (laughs) . . . it was just a moment.
PK: Did you socialise much with him?
ED: No, I’d see him on the odd occasion I went to the theatre, which is very odd, and he’d be there with (his wife) Kathleen. She’s a lovely person, a very nice woman, but I thought he was . . . the word ‘legend’ is redundant these days, but I thought he was great in the true meaning of great.
PK: Do you remember watching him in Manchester?
ED: Yeah, he was on at six o’clock.
PK: Was there a sense of an Irishman at the top of the game?
ED: Well, that wasn’t the top of the game. It was a news magazine programme, like (Nationwide) here. There were three of them, Gay, (Michael) Parkinson and a cranky fellah called Bill Grundy, and they would be talking about dogs with three legs and stuff. It was a little show on Granada. The BBC was the gold standard.
PK: What about that clip of Gay with The Beatles?
ED: I saw The Beatles in Manchester, that was before they erupted. They were probably delighted with the publicity. That was when Gay first came on my radar and then, when I came home, I heard about The Late Late Show but I watched it and thought, ‘What are they all talking about?’
PK: You weren’t a fan?
ED: Well, I had been watching all these marvellous programmes on the BBC and this was Peter Ustinov boring the hole off you.
PK: He was entertaining.
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Former Taoiseach Dr Garret Fitzgerald and Bob Geldof. Photo: Maxpix
ED: Gay loved him, and the people loved him, and he had all these anecdotes but he was an awful bore. Gay had him on at least once every season. He had a grá for those guys, (Bob) Geldof would be on a lot, he had a grá for him as well.
PK: But not for you?
ED: Not really. He was suspicious of me. I didn’t tick any box. I was a footballer, a bad one, playing for Millwall.
PK: And he didn’t get sport?
ED: He knew nothing about sport. He didn’t understand it, and didn’t know enough to fake it.
PK: And you can’t remember the first time you were on?
ED: No. I wasn’t on often, but I would listen to his radio programme. I remember those letters he read out from Granard, and all around the country. It was brilliant journalism. I mean the vision, the sense, the courage to do it. I thought he was remarkable. He was an influencer, to use the contemporary phrase, but then the Annie Murphy thing was appalling.
PK: Yes it was.
ED: I saw that show and thought ‘Fuck!’ It would have sunk a lesser being, but he had built up so much credit . . .
PK: When was the last time you saw him?
ED: The last time I saw him was at the Gate Theatre. Jane (Eamon’s wife) was with me. He was with Kathleen and said: “Ahh, dear boy. I didn’t know this was your thing (laughs).” I said, “Well it’s not really, Gay. I’ve seen a lot of bad plays.” He was always polite but distant. He had his own space, and you weren’t coming into that space, and I don’t mind that because I’m like that myself. And I think he enjoyed being ‘Gay’ in a way that’s touching if you believe in that kind of thing. But I think he was a very fine man.
- The essence of writing
The point here is two-fold. Penguin are a respected publisher in the world of books and literature and there’s no index in this book. There’s no account of the World Cup except for how long it took the bus to get from the hotel to the venue. This is a raw deal Joe Schmidt is responsible for. I was delighted to see him getting a standing ovation on The Late Late Show - he clearly has done an enormous amount for Irish rugby - but your obligations, ultimately, are to people who are putting their hand in their pocket and paying €25 for a book that contains nothing except banal observations.
Eamon Dunphy
(with Neil Francis on ‘The Stand’)
PK: Did you know Parkinson?
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Michael Parkinson first met George Best shortly after he arrived in Manchester
ED: I kind of knew him. He went around with George (Best) on book tours and stuff, pretending to be minding him, but I thought he exploited George and I wrote it somewhere, or said it, and he heard about it. And then my book, I think it was Only a Game?, came out and he savaged it. But I met him a few years ago in the green room of the Late Late and we had a chat. I admire Parkinson. I think he was a very gifted man. He was a very good journalist, a very good writer and a broadcaster of real talent.
PK: But different to Gay?
ED: Entirely different. It’s a bigger country and he was more assured I would say, a more sophisticated animal. Gay was an Irish creation, the Catholicism was in there and that’s something the Brits don’t have. That’s not to say he wouldn’t have been a great broadcaster anywhere, but he had a sensibility that was conditioned by living and growing up here.
PK: We’ve lost (Hugh) McIlvanney, another icon, too in the last year.
ED: Yeah, I knew Hugh well, and read some of his stuff again when the eulogies started. He was inspired when he was writing about Muhammad Ali, but a lot of the times he wasn’t. He was very much a stylist, metaphor after metaphor and smart alec sentence after smart alec sentence. He was influenced by the American writers like Red Smith.
PK: And you weren’t?
ED: No, because when I read their stuff I thought it was shite.
PK: (Laughs)
ED: No, I was never affected by that. It’s not a competition to see who can write the slickest sentence - that’s bollocks. I’ve read a lot of good writers and books, and the essence of good writing is simplicity and brevity. Hugh was a trickster, and the trick worked sometimes. There was a whole clique of them. James Lawton was another. God rest them both.
PK: Indeed.
ED: We had a couple of good nights in Vegas.
PK: Who?
ED: McIlvanney, Lawton, Ken Jones, God rest him . . . there was about six of us. The shows start early there and we were pissed. One of the great crooners was playing, Bobby Darin or somebody. He was well past his sell-by date and couldn’t hit the notes, and myself and McIlvanney were thrown out for heckling him. We were lucky we weren’t charged.
PK: Why were you in Vegas?
ED: The Tyson/Bruno fight. I loved it.
PK: You love Vegas!
ED: I fucking love it. I think it’s the nicest place I’ve ever been. You could gamble all day and they pumped oxygen into the casino at two (in the morning) when you were flagging (laughs). Next thing you felt six feet tall. It was the oxygen. One of the girls who worked there, a croupier, warned me about it: “If you feel high at two o’clock stop betting.”
PK: What were you doing?
ED: I was writing for the ‘Sunday Indo’.
PK: No, what were you betting on?
ED: Oh, roulette.
PK: I hate Vegas.
ED: I’ll tell you why I like it: I always felt that everyone there was a loser, and had come there from somewhere else. Eighty per cent of the people in Vegas are not from Vegas. They’re running from something. They’re vagabonds and losers and tormented - the kind of people I like (laughs). Have you been there a lot?
PK: Not really. I had dinner with McIlvanney there once.
ED: How did you find him?
PK: I was never that comfortable in his company, you were always ‘the boy’ when Hugh was around.
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Hugh McIlvanney died at the age of 84. Photo: PA
ED: Yeah.
PK: And he had no time for underdogs, it was always about the star.
ED: Yeah. He was a starfucker.
PK: (Laughs)
ED: That’s what he was.
PK: Well . . .
ED: I had a great dinner in Vegas once with McIlvanney and Ian Wooldridge - who was a very good journalist, and a very nice man - and Don King.
PK: Was that the same trip?
ED: I’m not sure.
PK: How did you end up with Don King?
ED: He knew McIlvanney and Wooldridge because they were big (names). It was maybe two nights before the fight and we went to a restaurant in the hotel/casino. I was in my ‘leftie’ mode at the time and knew his (King’s) form - he’d run a numbers racket and had once killed a man, so I started (into him). He said, “You’re calling me a crook! What about fucking Reagan?” (Ronald) Reagan was President at the time, or had been. That was his moral equivalence, and he was right. He said, “I killed one guy - they’re killing fucking thousands!” And he came out with this (reasoning) that was quite revealing and educational about the mind of a gangster.
PK: Right.
ED: If I was starting now, again, I’d be a gangster.
PK: You would?
ED: I would, yeah. I’d point to the cervical check women and the hepatitis C women and say: “What the fuck! You want me to buy into that!” Those are the real gangsters - the bankers and the marketing people. But it was a fascinating dinner.
PK: You went to Manchester as a footballer, and came home and built a career in Dublin as a journalist.
ED: Yeah.
PK: But you could easily have done it in England?
ED: I had been writing for the Reading Evening Post, a part of the Thomson Group which owned The Times, and could have got a job in Fleet Street. But I believed in the ‘John’ project (to win the European Cup with Shamrock Rovers), which was a major mistake.
PK: You could have gone back?
ED: Yeah, but I had a young family and had bought a house and was broke. And I kind of liked being at home. So I don’t regret not going back, but I certainly could have had some kind of career there I’d say.
PK: You weren’t . . . is ambitious the word?
ED: My ambition has always been to survive, to get the rent and feed the kids. That would be my ambition.
PK: Sure, but what about when you had established yourself here and were at your height? You never looked at McIlvanney and Wooldridge and thought, ‘I could do that.’
ED: No I didn’t. I was sure I could do it to some standard, but I wasn’t sure that I wanted to do it.
PK: Why?
ED: I don’t think journalism and the level they were doing it was . . . I didn’t like the lifestyle. And I wouldn’t have gone into daily journalism, it eats your body and your soul. You say I’m driven but I’m not really. When I did the Schmidt (podcast) with Neil (Francis), I had no idea exactly what I was going to do, or say, but I didn’t like what was going on. I just hate the idea of a kid opening a book, or anybody opening a book, that’s a heap of shit. I thought, ‘Fuck you Penguin! Put an index in the book. This is bollocks. This guy can’t write.’ And that’s not in my self-interest (Penguin have published three of Dunphy’s books), but I’d rather live that way than not.
PK: Do you watch The Crown?
ED: No, Jane’s watching it. I don’t watch much drama. I’m mad about news and current affairs, particularly at the moment with Brexit. I miss Brexit. It’s like when the World Cup is over (laughs) . . . but it will never be over.
PK: I get the impression it engages you more than sport?
ED: No.
PK: So I’ve got that wrong?
ED: Well, it’s a fair assessment, but football is my enduring passion. I love the Premier League. I’ll watch the half-twelve match, have a siesta, and watch the half-five match.
PK: Really?
ED: Yeah, if it’s watchable. Now some of them aren’t, but I’ll watch a Heineken Cup match, I like the rugby, the golf . . . I love sport above all things, but the political curve or trajectory at the moment, internationally, is so fascinating. And so ominous. We’re going to have Boris Johnson with a majority, and Donald Trump with a second term. The European Union will be bolloxed without Britain, Putin will be away in a hack, and the guy in Hungary, (Viktor) Orban, is talking about banning the Eurovision because it’s too gay! So we’re heading for something terrible.
PK: And that fascinates you?
ED: It’s fascinating to watch the dynamics of it: Johnson, a proven liar, who doesn’t mean anything he says. Trump, a cunning rat with not a shred of decency! A fucking spiv! These two guys are going to be ruling the anglophone world with their soundbites . . . “Get Brexit Done” . . . “Build The Wall” . . . because people are falling for this shit. There’s a sort of visceral thing that’s going on in people’s gut, and you know where that leads if you’re a Muslim, or gay, or different.
PK: Sure.
ED: The AfD got 20 (seats) in Bavaria recently in the local elections - they’re neo-Nazis! So what happens when Germany kicks off? And Le Pen gets 35 per cent in France! So I’m fascinated by that, and intrigued to see how it plays out. And to see the media’s role in the playing of it. I mean the British media, The Mail, The Telegraph, they’re not newspapers at all. They’re just rags! I read The Mail online and Jane says, “Why are you reading that shit?” I said, “Because it’s happening!”
PK: I would have thought that was the spark to start you writing again? To doing what you were best at?
ED: (Sighs) It’s not going to happen. I think I’d drive myself mad. I mean, you know what it’s like, you write a piece for Sunday and before Monday even dawns you’re fretting about next week. Or beating yourself up about the copy you’ve just filed . . . ‘You forgot this’ . . . ‘You forgot that’ . . . ‘That was the wrong word’ . . . I couldn’t go back to that. The podcast requires research and concentration but it’s nothing like as severe as the writing is. Some people say they can sit down and knock it out, and some do, but I’m not that boy.
- Football men
When Darragh came to him, Eamon spoke for almost four minutes. He discussed the flaws in Pep Guardiola’s management style and why they mattered. He listed off a number of things he felt it was important to do in football, things which he said Guardiola’s side were not doing. He spoke about the cult that surrounded Guardiola, he mentioned hubris and vanity. It was all there.
Eamon went on for some time, longer than I expected, but after we went off-air, I learned why. “I wasn’t going to get a chance to call the guy who writes my Star column before the newspaper’s deadline, so I had to dictate it to him on-air. I told him to be ready.” I picked up a copy of The Star the next morning and it was almost word-for-word what he had said in that uninterrupted opening monologue. That was showbusiness baby!
Richie Sadlier,
‘Recovering’
PK: So, you’re back on TV? Back to football?
ED: Yeah.
PK: What’s the buzz? Why keep doing it?
ED: That’s a good question.
PK: What’s left to say?
ED: Oh, a lot.
PK: There is?
ED: Yeah, there’s a lot left to say about the Pep Guardiola experiment, and his fans and devotees - John is one of them, Ken Early is another. I’m not. But it’s a good question. It’s not as important as those other things, and probably an indulgence, but I think sport is the opiate of the people. It brings some colour and drama into our lives. It’s the child in me in a way, and if you let that child escape then what will you be?
PK: Sure.
ED: I’m engaged by football. I did it, and I know it, and it’s the thing I love. And John and Liam (Brady) are great to work with - great fun - but very serious. We enjoy working together, and we’ve missed working together.
PK: What have you missed?
ED: The discovery of a match with Bill (O’Herlihy) in the chair. In every match there’s a story, Ronaldo, Messi, Liverpool, Guardiola, Manchester City, and my job, and particularly Bill’s job, was to identify that story. What are the questions to be raised? What are the issues to be resolved? It’s an exercise that requires knowledge and intelligence and the ability to express yourself. That’s what drew people in. That was the vibe we created.
PK: And there’s still more to say?
ED: Well, there is, and when you have two of the greatest footballers there’s ever been . . .
PK: But they’ve been saying it for so long?
ED: Well . . .
PK: You don’t subscribe to the view that we all have a sell-by date?
ED: No, I do, and the way you know is the numbers. The numbers on every show. I see it with the podcast. I mean I did one with John last week and we got 18,000, which is pretty good. And it’s better when Liam or Didi (Hamann) is there. And we get feedback, people write. They love it, and they missed it.
PK: What about the argument that says: ‘We know Eamon’s views on the game. And we know John’s philosophy on football. We’ve been listening to them since . . .’ How long are you doing it now?
ED: '78.
PK: ‘Let’s bring on a fresh face?’
ED: Well, if I was calling the shots I’d say, ‘Show me the face. Is he as good as John? Is he as good as Liam? Is he as good as Bill? And if he is, or she is, bring them on.’
PK: So there’s been nobody as good as you three for 30 years?
ED: (laughs) 40.
PK: Sorry, maths is not my forte.
ED: I think our show was better than Gary Neville or Jamie Carragher and all that stuff in England. It was very good, we did huge audiences, and we continued to do huge audiences until they (RTE) started acting the bollox.
PK: So what happens when a kid like, say, Richie Sadlier is given a chance? The impression from his book is that you felt threatened.
ED: Nobody felt threatened by Richie Sadlier. Nobody made him feel unwelcome or anything like that. I’ve no idea what he said in his book.
PK: You’ve a lot in common.
ED: What!
PK: You both played for Ireland and Millwall.
ED: Well, I played a few more games than he did but never mind.
PK: He was unlucky. His career was ended by injury but he had potential - he was on the verge of going to the World Cup in '02 and was about to sign for Sunderland. And he’s a good fellow.
ED: (Doesn’t respond)
PK: You don’t agree?
ED: I don’t know Richie Sadlier.
PK: You’ve spent more time with him than I have.
ED: No, I actually don’t know him. We worked on the set . . .
PK: For how long?
ED: Three, four years.
PK: I would have thought that was ample time?
ED: I don’t know what the charge is. If the charge is that we didn’t include him that’s not true.
PK: Well, you would have to read the chapter.
ED: A whole chapter?
PK: The chapter he devotes to the ‘The Football Men’ - his time with you, John and Liam. He says he met you for the first time on The Dunphy Show. He says that you were very supportive at first but that it eroded over time. He says there was a resentment when John was let go and he came on board.
ED: But sure loads of people have come on. Damien (Duff) sent me an email when I left: ‘Thanks for everything.’ And there were plenty of others, but no one other than Richie has complained in 40 years.
PK: He opens the chapter with a Barcelona/Man City game. Barcelona win 4-0 and you instruct Darragh Maloney (the presenter) to, ‘Come to me first.’
ED: That’s a lie. Did he say four minutes?
PK: So you read that bit?
ED: I didn’t read any of it, Kieran Cunningham told me.
PK: Kieran ghosts you in The Star?
ED: Yeah.
PK: What did he say?
ED: He said I spent four minutes talking and that I said to the guys, ‘Look, I’ve got to do this for The Star.’ Now what actually happened was, I said to Darragh - I think on one occasion, or maybe as a joke: ‘Come to me, I’ve got to do my Star column before we get going.’ I may have said that, and it may have been a joke, but there’s no way you can talk for four minutes - that just can’t happen. I mean two minutes is long, so that just didn’t happen.
PK: Okay.
ED: Does he say John does my analysis for me?
PK: There’s a suggestion of that.
ED: How did that work?
PK: It was a Manchester derby, and you didn’t watch the game.
ED: I didn’t watch the game!
PK: Yeah.
ED: Well where was I?
PK: You had a rest or something.
ED: I was having a rest in RTE?
PK: No, (at home). I’m not sure if the reference is specific to that game, but the sense was that you weren’t really committed to it.
ED: I wasn’t committed?
PK: Yes.
ED: That’s just bullshit.
PK: Go back to what you were saying about the old days and writing. You tell a story in The Rocky Road (his autobiography) about a column you used to write for The Sunday World. I’ve got it here: 'My Sunday World job didn’t earn me much money, but the experience of writing 800-word pieces for a tabloid format was invaluable. Every word had to count; verbosity, to which I was prone, was not an option. Some weeks I slogged for two days, ripping up my handwritten A4 pages to make the message fit the medium.
ED: Yeah.
PK: You were putting huge effort into this column?
ED: Yeah.
PK: But you’re being ghosted now?
ED: Yeah.
PK: How does someone like Eamon Dunphy allow himself to be ghosted?
ED: It was basically to get me away from that desk. The deal was that I would make notes, phone in and give the copy. There was nothing underhand. I was doing lots of other things, The Dunphy Show, the radio show, and it was convenient. Because the writing is very, very hard.
PK: I guess the charge, really, is that you allowed your standard to drop.
ED: Yeah.
PK: McIlvanney never did.
ED: No.
PK: He sweated blood over every word right to the end.
ED: Yes he did.
PK: He never let that standard go.
ED: No, and I would accept that as a totally valid indictment - which is worse than a criticism - of me. It’s something I’ve often had words with myself about. There were two reasons for it: anyone who helped me get away from that desk was a friend. And I was working like a dog.
PK: But you didn’t have to do it Eamon. The only reason was money.
ED: Well I actually get on very well with The Star. They’ve been good to me, but it was a shortcut, so I’m wide open to that criticism. But I have to say about the teller of that tale: if you’re going to sit there, watching and snitching, then you would have to ask yourself why people aren’t mad about you.
PK: What do you mean by snitching?
ED: Well, the idea that someone would sit there, log it, and then put it into a book is a bit creepy. And I wouldn’t call that filleted by the way (laughs). I’ve been filleted worse than that. There’s about ten thousand Phoenix articles out there about me, so if that’s the extent of it, I think I’ll survive.
PK: Here’s another criticism. You did an interview in February with Gavin Cooney from The 42 and it was put to you that the ‘old’ Dunphy would have taken a stand against John Delaney. And you accepted that.
ED: I accepted Delaney?
PK: No, you accepted that the old Dunphy would have exposed him.
ED: Yeah, well, when I was on that beat I did it for the best part of 20 years. And I did it effectively and relentlessly.
PK: The argument you tried to make was that you can’t do stuff like that on TV.
ED: Well, you can’t, because the agenda on television is set by the editor and the producer. So you could tangentially mention Delaney, or the mismanagement, but you couldn’t go after it. That was a newspaper (gig). And it wasn’t all . . . when he went for Trap (Giovanni Trapattoni) and got (Denis) O’Brien involved, and the money to build the Aviva, I saw all that as a positive. I had no idea of the real financial situation.
PK: Sure.
ED: Well if you’re a proper journalist you’d find out, you could say, but I didn’t want to find out. I believed it.
PK: Here’s a quote from that interview: “My defence would be that first of all, when I was working at the Sunday Independent, I did a lot of stuff critical of the FAI and I was critical of a lot of other stuff. But I wasn’t doing that. I wasn’t a reporter, if you follow me. I would say it is fair to say I didn’t do those things, because I didn’t, and it is fair to say that the Old Dunphy would have addressed those things. That’s fair.”
ED: Yeah.
PK: Then you’re asked: “Is the assertion that there is an ‘Old Dunphy’, and by logic a ‘New Dunphy’, fair?” And you reply, “Yeah, that’s fair. I don’t mind that.”
ED: I don’t.
PK: What’s the difference?
ED: The difference I suppose would be the medium for one thing. I’m not a weekly columnist. The old Dunphy would have been (focused) on nothing else that week. It would have been, bumm, bumm, bumm.
PK: Here’s another quote from the piece: “Consistencies are the hobgoblin of the mediocre mind.”
ED: Yeah, I think that’s Patrick Kavanagh.
PK: You stand by that?
ED: Yes, I do. Consistency is an overrated thing, unless you’re a liar.
PK: So not with regard to values and principles?
ED: No, not with regard to values or principles, but certainly with regard to opinions and your responses to people, your responses to life, the vicissitudes of life. Living is learning, and learning, and learning - first about yourself, and second about the world. Because if you don’t know about yourself, and all of your weaknesses . . .
PK: What are your weaknesses?
ED: Where will I start? Liking people for a while (before) going off them.
PK: (Laughs)
ED: Weaknesses . . . hmmm . . . it’s a very interesting question. Let’s start with the Seven Deadly Sins. Vanity? No, I don’t think I’m vain. Adultery? Only occasionally (laughs), I’m not with the big boys. Greed? No, I’m definitely not greedy. So, yeah, it’s interesting, I think I’ve rather fallen in love with myself in the last 74 years.