Irish Daily Star - Inside Sport
A WHOLE NEW BALL GAME
A NEW year, then. A new dawn. A new season. And in the GAA, that usually means one thing above all else: hope, freshly laundered, hung out to dry in January air. The Leagues begin again, football and hurling side by side, expectation stretching ahead...
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‘Kellie has won and she’s still shops
ROLAND Garros had never seen anything like it. The time was after midnight. Court Philippe- Chatrier was near deserted. Paris was still sweltering. Kellie Harrington stood in front of a group of Irish supporters holding her Olympic gold medal and...
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IN THE NAME
“THE feeling I always had of being from An Ghaeltacht was that we were the underdogs, the lads from back west, the unknowns. It suited us. To start to understand the club and where this feeling came from, it’s useful first to get a sense of the...
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WORLD
BEN Healy’s phone was hopping, but one message stood out. “Stephen Roche,” he says. “He managed to get hold of my number and sent me a message congratulating me, just saying what a great job I’m doing and stuff. “It’s pretty cool to be acknowledged...
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WHEN THEY WERE KINGS
“I played here and there was only five people on Hill 16,” says the late Dublin hero on screen. He was talking about the days before the 1974 revolution. Dublin was in the doldrums. Unemployment was rife, interest rates sky high and GAA was struggling...
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THE TALE OF THE TAPES
IT’S LONDON in the 1980s and the GAA scene is a vibrant one. Next to the pitches in Ruislip, west of London city, and beyond, a group of second generation Irish kids have no interest in risking life and limb on the hurling pitch. So every weekend,...
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WHEN RICARDO MET MET DAMIEN
NO MATTER how slowly Damien Duff spoke to him, as they sat next to each other in the dressing room, Ricardo Carvalho still couldn’t understand what his new Chelsea teammate was saying. But on the pitch, during a glorious Premier Leaguewinning campaign...
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TALK MAY BE RESULTS CAN
Roy CURTIS REPORTS SOMETIMES, in a reversal of the accepted norm, a word can paint a thousand pictures. The most profound quotes are capable of evoking images that endure for a lifetime. Here are some of the unforgettable verbal flourishes of 2025,...
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Playing in the flats made footballer he is
CHRISTOPHER Harrington was making plans for Lionel when the third goal went in. “It was a nine o’clock kick-off here on a Sunday morning. When Troy scored the winner everybody in the building heard me,” he says, laughing. The Dubliner is a coach at...
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To win Cup with Cork meant everything to me
THERE’S a photograph from the summer of 1998 that says everything about Derek Coughlan. He’s not screaming, not waving his arms, not running off like a man who’s just written his name into Cork City folklore. He’s simply standing there, calm as you...
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THE FIELD
THERE is a tendency to talk of Ireland’s 2016 win over the All Blacks as some sort of perfect storm - fly in, train, play, win. Soldier Field was nothing of the sort. Preparation in Dublin was awful, the one full training session in Chicago was...
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THE MIDAS TOUCH OF IRISH RUGBY
Paul O’connell nearly killed a man once. There are plenty of eyewitnesses to back the story up. In fact the former Ireland and Munster captain even wrote about it in his autobiography, The Battle, recalling a training ground incident where a young...
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THE WIRTZ SI BEHIND HIM
LIVERPOOL are trying to figure out how to get the most out of their expensive summer signing from Germany, Florian Wirtz. But there was a time when Reds players were scratching their heads at a German teammate – and it was nothing to do with Didi...
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SO MUCH ODHR’ ODHR’ T0 OFFER
IT COMES as a jolt to realise Odhrán Mac Niallais only turned 33 in August. He is three years younger than Michael Murphy – who has been shortlisted for the Footballer of the Year award. In the early years of the last decade, the feeling was Mac...
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There’s been a lot but that’s part of Of ups and downs, game
COLIN Healy stood in the technica l area at Mounthawk Park and glanced at his stopwatch. Twenty- five minutes had gone. And so it seemed had his team’s hopes. They were 2-0 down to Sligo Rovers and were showing evident signs of imposter syndrome,...
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GREEN GIANTS
THE gravitational pull of New York was at its most primal the night across the state line in Jersey that Paul Mcgrath decommissioned Roberto Di Baggio, pickpocketing the Italian’s sixshooters and sending them to sleep with the Hudson...
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PHILIP: MCILROY WAS A GREAT IN MAKING AT NINE
Walton saw a young RORY Mcilroy once played Philip Walton and won — as a nineyear-old. The odd couple were brought together by the RTÉ TV show ‘Rapid’ that was presented by Jason Sherlock, and the Dublin great joined them for a unique showdown on The...
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HEALY’S READY TO TAKE ON THE WORLD
FROM landing into Carysfort Park at the start of this fairytale story to Japan’s National Stadium and the Athletics World Championship this weekend. From humble beginnings to European greatness, via Olympic heartbreak in Tokyo and Paris and the...
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Nathan had to work for it, he always had grit
THE soul of Leixlip is in a place called Captain’s Hill. Roy Keane once lived there, renting a room when he was on a FAI FAS course. Monday to Friday, Keane would walk down to the village, board the 66 bus and get off in Palmerstown where the course...
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Jim would be great in the Áras just like Mary Robinson
HE’S advanced into his 65th year, yet uniformed in Paul Mescal shorts and a crisp Lamine Yamal Barcelona replica shirt (“€20 on holiday”) there is scarcely a whisper of autumn about John O’leary. In the two decades BC — Before Cluxton — that small...
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A WHOLE NEW WORLD
VICKI Mcdonnell scored Ireland’s first-ever Women’s Rugby World Cup try — an old school No8, she knew what she was doing. Ireland’s 1994 RWC campaign wasn’t quite as sure-footed as they ploughed ahead despite being ignored by the IRFU and travelled to...
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GONE IN 60 60 SECONDS
LAURA O’CONNELL was primed and ready to go and, just a week before her dream race, it was snatched from her grasp. The 26-year-old was one of only two Irish female racing drivers – Hanna Celsie was the other – drawn from 25 countries worldwide, who...
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BOUNCING BACK FROM TRAGEDY
FOR Arne Slot and Liverpool, a pre-season that interrogated their psyche in the most brutal fashion has unfolded as a dignified exercise in love pushing back the forces of darkness. Diogo Jota’s tragic passing on July 3rd seeped into every nook and...
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LIFE, LOVE AND
EAMON DUNPHY is asked about a picture on his sitting-room wall. It’s of his younger self, taken when he was in his athletic prime, aged between 30 and 32. Later, when we move to his kitchen and are chatting over cups of tea, he interestingly moves...
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Winning the All-ireland is a feeling that will last forever. I’ll tell my kids about it, & they’ll tell theirs
THE ‘Overview Effect’ is a cognitive shift experienced by astronauts when viewing Earth from space, leading to a sense of awe and interconnectedness with all life on the planet. As the lads walk in the All-ireland final parade tomorrow, there’s a...
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If you’re not making not improving it, you It better, if you’re can’t hog the job
ON A dank Monday afternoon in December 2022, Pat Ryan pointed his car for Limerick. It was the launch of the Munster Senior Hurling League, the competition in which he would make his bow as Cork senior manager and one which they actually went on to...
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ALL HANDS ON DECK
IT wasn’t that Tyrone were an i r relevance. No, throughout the first 100 years of the GAA, they had won people’s respect. Their problem was they won precious little else. The bottom line is that up until the GAA’S centenary year, Gaelic football had...
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BULLET THE
EAMONN Dillon is freediving deep into the ocean of memory, sweeping the seas of his lived life, swimming toward a standout landmark as striking as the Great Barrier Reef. August 11, 2013, a sensesslamming All-ireland semi-final, one that came close to...
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UNSTOPPABLE FORCE MEETS IMMOVABLE OBJECT
IT was Coretta Clay, an aunt to Cassius, who first labelled the prize fighting supernova who, as Muhammad Ali, would go on to shake the world, “the Alpha and the Omega.” The beginning and the end. Those whose knees have trembled before stepping onto...
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Kingdom and Tribe need to solve problems
TWO teams plenty would have been eyeing up as potential All-ireland winners are Galway and Kerry. Galway were my pick from the start. They’re also two teams that so far in the All-ireland series have failed to ignite in any way at all. The word from...
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RAISE A GLASS
INSCRIBED on Seamus Heaney’s headstone, a poetic call to rise above the ordinary, are words forged in the furnace of his own lyrical imagination, “Walk on air against your better judgement.” The beloved Derry bard reposes in a quiet field in Bellaghy,...
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Daylight Robbery
Two men, same job. Same hard-bitten up-bringing. The same gift for managing teams and people. At different stages, both took charge of Ireland in the 1980s but if, in 1981, you could put your house on one of them taking The Boys in Green to the World...
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Blue leader Ciaran is cut from same cloth as Keano
AS Ciaran Kilkenny chose an airless Salthill sweatbox to aim a defiant mid-may fist at the growing consensus about terminal Dublin decline, an eternal Alex Ferguson hymn of praise came rolling across the years. Even as the Sky Blue veteran — a...
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People see me on TV and hopefully attitudes are changing now
Bernie Collins isn’t just one of the faces of Sky Sports, she is one of the most extraordinary Irish people in modern sport. The rise and rise of the Fermanagh- born, all girls convent- educated woman through the ranks of Formula One as a design...
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GAA’S SUMMER OF LOVE
1LOUTH awoke on Monday to a world domed by joy, a tribe unbound from all their underclass yesterdays. 2For 68 years the county itched with a desire for fulfilment it couldn’t quite scratch. Then Monday dawned and for their delirium-drunk hearts, the...
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WEIGHT OF THE THE CROWN
By PAT NOLAN JIMMY BARRY-MURPHY knew before a ball was pucked that Cork were up against it. It was the Munster semi-final of 1998 and his side, fresh from winning the League, were AllIreland champions Clare’s first opponents. En route to that League...
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ONE NIGHT IN LOFTUS ROAD
40 years ago Barry Mcguigan stepped into the ring at Loftus road for a world title fight against eusebio Pedroza. it would become one of the defining moments of the 1980s in ireland. Garry DOYLE (below) was there as a 10-yearold with his...
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ROYA L RUMBLINGS
FOR maybe 15 years, a golden age during which it burned as intensely as a blood-red setting sun, Dublin v Meath offered the ultimate, unmissable Irish light show, sport as f i e ry, passionate summer kiss. Roughly bookended by the late 1980s and the...
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Chelsea a Kell’ of a good fit!
Liverpool goalkeeper Caoimhin Kelleher could ‘rip it up at Chelsea’ next season. That’s the view of former Ireland striker Shane Long, who feels Kelleher needs to quit the Anfield giants this summer and become a No 1 in his own right. Kelleher’s...
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Free man of the town
World champion for 1985 Dennis Taylor is welcomed home to Coalisland by his two sons
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CRIMSON TIDE IS RISING AGAIN
ON the March day in 1979 that they wrapped Christy Ring in the Cork soil, St Patrick’s Street burst its banks, the primal scream of place summoning a crimson tide of 60,000 Rebels onto the weeping pavements of their city-state. To doff their cap once...
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Matters of the art
Ireland’s tattooed loosehead Andrew Porter proudly shows off the arm ink of the name Wendy in memory of his mother see inside
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MASTER AND COMMANDER
Custodian of the thickest highlight reel of summer magic, yet perhaps his most jaw- dropping cameo came when he opened a window to his own competitive terrors. “I can remember the Thursday night before we played Tipperary in the 2009 All-ireland final...
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ITALIAN SOBS ARE
Think of Italian Rugby now and you are likely to think of a team with more wooden spoons than Gordon Ramsay. Since entering the Six Nations in 2000, they have beaten Ireland just once and have finished last in 18 tournaments. Hard to believe then...
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THREE KEY match-ups
SAM PRENDERGAST ROMAIN NTAMACK v v Simon Easterby has promised that Prendergast’s defence will improve today and it must do as Ireland’s defence can’t afford any passengers against this freeflowing defence. On the flip side, the 22-year-old showed...
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I still wonder what happened to the tin of sweat
TONIGHT’S welterweight showdown between Lewis Crocker and Paddy Donovan at the SSE Arena in Belfast is rightly being hailed as the greatest all Irish pro fight in a long, long time. Those of us old enough to remember it will go back over 62 years for...
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Ross ready to shine at Kingsholm
ROSS Byrne has spoken of his delight at signing for Gloucester for next season in a move that ends his long association with Leinster. Ireland out-half Byrne, 29, made his Leinster debut in 2015 and has scored 1,156 points over the last decade for the...
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THE BOHS ARE
Roddy Collins entered the dressing room at Morton Stadium knowing he was about to lose his job. It was 2001. He had been manager of Bohemians for just over two years but now it appeared as if he was 45 minutes away from exiting. A friend had grabbed...
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Caelan odds on For leading Lion
Ireland may well have the, er, lion’s share of the Lions tourists in Australia this summer. But, says former Ireland star Jordi Murphy, nothing is set in stone yet as the Six Nations preceding the tour can be a great leveller and it is important for...
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BLUE ERA FOR TEAM TEAM GREEN
Rob Kearney’s ability to turn the rugby air Blue doesn’t always go down well. IRFU Performance Director David Humphreys carefully chose his words when doubling down this week on Leinster’s dominance of Irish rugby being a good thing. He further...
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POSSIBILITIES ARE eamonmcgee ENDLESS Nobody knows where football will go as we enter a brave new world
Anyone that tells you they have a fair idea of what’s going to happen in the Gaelic football world in 2025 is talking nonsense. From a sports media perspective that can happen quite often, but when you hear someone confidently predict how it will go,...
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I didn’t win All-ireland for Offaly, the players won it, I’d an easy job
On a cold January morning, Michael Bond walked into Dublin’s Lighthouse Cinema and looked at his younger self on the big screen. He was a much younger man then, 50-years old, but unknown. Secret agent Bond sent on an improbable mission to save...
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THE PENGUIN WHO LAID LOW
“Rugby never knew the old Buenos Aires before the Falklands War with its tango music, its glamour and easy charm. “The city didn’t really look any worse than a lot of European capitals at that time, bashed about a bit maybe. “Oh, I was going to tell...
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‘There’s a dark side to high performance’
IT BECAME part of Conor Meyler’s nighttime ritual. As familiar and routine as brushing his teeth. He’d reach for the roll of sticky tape and the scissors without thinking. A strip of a couple of inches length would be cut. He’d put it to one side to...
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We could be in for rollercoaster Ryde in 2025
WHEN WB Yeats became the first Irish winner of the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1923, it was seen as validation for the new State put in place after the Treaty. The reaction of George Bernard Shaw to Yeats’s elevation to the pantheon went...
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2024 top 100 HEADLINE MAKERS IN IRISH SPO RT
On the night Kellie Harrington won her second Olympic gold, Gerry Hutch stood in an outdoor basketball court in Dublin’s north inner city, clapping and cheering as hard as he could. It was then that he says people approached him and encouraged him to...
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They’re
PEOPLE remember that semi-final in Bordeaux when they think about Leinster versus Clermont. when
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Azim: I’m inspired by Mcguigan
ADAM AZIM has revealed training every day in the gym in front of Barry Mcguigan fires him up to be even better. The Shane Mcguigantrained light -welterweight has been tuning in to see his mentor star in the ‘I’m A Celebrity’ jungle in Australia over...
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THE COLONEL
November is Willie Mullins’ favourite month. Shortened days, foggy weather, mist in the air, horses on the gallops. He surrounds himself with champions and with hope. Galopin Des Champs trots past, seventh in a line of 21 horses, ridden by Paul...
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SUPER MAC
FORMER All- Irelandwinning manager Pat Gilroy has quit his position as a director of Croke Park in protest at what he sees as a growing focus on money at the highest level in the GAA. Gilroy guided Dublin to Sam Maguire in 2011 — their BErst...
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TIME TO SHINE
EVAN FERGUSON can back up his return to goalscoring form for Ireland by putting in overtime at club level. Ferguson has managed just over 100 minutes of action in the Premier League so far this season across six appearances — with BEve of those coming...
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We always is this how I wondered Missed out... life is,
AT the start of 2024, the idea of Drogheda United winning the FAI Cup seemed about as crazy as the concept of a comedy about three madcap priests becoming a cult phenomenon on British TV. Yet football, like God, moves in mysterious ways. Way back in...
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‘Katie needs to be in top shape to handle Serrano’s pressure’ MIKE TYSON EXCLUSIVE
Defeat MIKE Tyson is backing Katie Taylor to beat Amanda Serrano in their highly anticipated rematch this month. The Irish boxing great defeated the Puerto Rican via split-decision in an all-time classic when the pair made history by becoming the...
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‘Shankly forged a new path for the city’
THE STATUE outside AnBEeld catches the eye. To any visitor, it’s impossible to ignore. Bill Shankly immortalised in bronze, arms aloft either in celebration or in an attempt to embrace all who love the club he loved. The words at the base of the...
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‘I asked Ollie what the f**k are you doing here? And told him to ‘get out’
IT was like a scene from Phoenix Nights, Ollie Byrne playing the Brian Potter role. Good old Ollie ruled Shelbourne with an iron BE st as well as a BE stful of dollars. All his players loved him. Everyone outside of Shels hated him. And he didn’t...
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CROKER CRUNCH Leinster and Munster ready for sold-out showdown at GAA HQ
IT WASN’T Ronan O’gara or Roy Keane Jack Crowley wanted to be when he was younger. It was Joe Deane. Crowley was a better Gaelic footballer than hurler, but he loved hurling and he adored Deane, the prolific Cork corner-forward and three- time All...
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