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Maurice Fitzgerald launching Kieran Donaghy’s new book ‘What Do You Think Of That?’ with Mícheál Ó Muircheartaigh in the Ballygarry House Hotel. Photo by Gavin O’Connor
THERE were GAA legends everywhere you looked at the launch Kieran Donaghy’s book, What Do You Think Of That? at a packed Ballygarry House Hotel on Thursday night.
But it was up to one in particular to launch the much-anticipated, guaranteed bestseller.
Maurice Fitzgerald never lined out alongside Star in green and gold, but he was well versed to speak about the four-time All-Ireland winner, while Mícheál Ó Muircheartaigh, MC for the evening, looked on.
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On whether Donaghy was ready to announce his retirement from inter-county football, Maurice Fitzgerald said; “the road is hard, the road is tough but I don’t think the last chapter is written yet.” With these words, Maurice who was in gregarious form, said he was re-launching Kieran’s football career as well.
Fitzgerald made light of the fact he had only read one chapter of the book, because he deleted it off his computer by mistake.
Nevertheless he described it as “refreshingly honest and totally what you would expect from Kieran Donaghy. He covers the complexities with his father as a young man growing up. You could see the strengths of a young boy coming through in the household”.
“For someone to achieve so much with two different codes and achieve at the highest level really is a phenomenal achievement that sometimes gets overlooked. To me, that marks Kieran out as someone very special,” said Maurice, who highlighted Donaghy’s performance in the 2011 losing All-Ireland final to Dublin as his finest in a Kerry jersey.
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Kieran Donaghy speaking at the launch of his new book ‘What Do You Think Of That’. Photo by Gavin O’Connor.
The Cahersiveen man recalled a game between St Mary’s and Austin Stacks, where he faced off against Donaghy at midfield and took a fair share of verbal abuse from his opposite number that day.
“I think I was on the downward slide at that stage, but I remember saying if I can keep Kieran Donaghy quiet, I’m pretty sure we can win. I meant keeping him quiet in a footballing sense, but I hadn’t realised in another sense it is utterly impossible as you all know!”
Kieran recalled that encounter; “I remember I put my knee on his back at one stage and caught a massive ball. I said to myself ‘I’m going to beat Maurice Fitzgerald today. This is great!’.”
With that movement, Donaghy took off down the pitch and scored a point off his weaker left foot. Running back to Maurice he said “We’re going to sort you out today!”
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“The next kick out came out and I felt a knee in my shoulder,” said Kieran. Fitzy had won the ball and was ‘casually soloing’ away from the Star. “I went hassling and pulling his shorts and his jersey, eventually I caught him around the 45 and he just threw his eyes at the posts and my eyes lit up, I thought ‘not only am I going to kick a point off him but now I’m going to block him down’. I dived full stretch, Maurice toe tapped it back onto his left and slapped it over the bar from 50 yards!”
A lesson from the master then. There were many more stories told throughout the night among the huge crowd present from the world of GAA, all of them wishing the Star well. No doubt many of them are mentioned in the book. We’ll have more photos from the launch later…
Mícheál Ó Muircheartaigh introduced Maurice Fitzgerald at the launch of ‘What Do You Think Of That’. Photo by Gavin O’Connor.
