This corner has often opined that an idle mind is a dangerous thing. Speaking wholly from personal experience, it can be a grave threat to one’s mental stability. On that score, An Fear Rua never had any such worries. Now read on…
Liam Cahill slipped quietly out of the world last week. From what I can gather, it was suddenly, probably quietly and without a fuss. Sticking perfectly to a Liam Cahill script if so. Understated, regrettably probably largely unaware of the influence he was on and impact he had on so many people. None more so than the occupant of this seat.
My dear departed friend and – I am very proud to say – for more than ten years, colleague, from Mount Sion was the quiet giant of Irish public life. In media, in politics, in sport, in history and Lord knows what else.
Like so my facets of life, my crossing of paths with Liam was down to who we both knew mutually rather than any specific business dealings. What that in actuality meant was a plethora of people from Drumree, Dunsany, Batterstown and Dunshaughlin. In particular Shane and Niall Kelly.
Even though contributions from yours truly had been printed in the Meath GAA Yearbook the previous year, I was only out of college and very wet behind the ears when, via prompting from the older Kelly brother, Liam took a chance on me as a writer.
At the time, the only other work published to emanate from the one typing finger here was a newsletter for the local GAA Club produced – somewhat controversially – in my role as PRO. And with the assistance of Paul Reilly, Matt Dwyer, Damien Hynes and Martin Craig.
All of it achieved without the occupant of this seat having an internet connection or the foggiest notion of the workings of the world wide web. The height of technological assistance available at the time was a printer with a mind of its own and a fax machine which eventually went up in smoke.
That led to a situation which people would scarcely fathom nowadays. Whereby articles were either faxed or posted to wherever they were going. Meaning that I wouldn’t see them until they either appeared in the newspaper or were posted back to me by whomever had published them.
I’d never heard of Liam before Shane put us in touch with each other. Which is strange, having been considered old fashioned when in school having been tuned into and slightly obsessed with politics, news and current affairs at an age it would have been considered weird at best to be as such.
Thus, most of the then correspondents and the departments in which they served could be reeled off the tip of the tongue. From Joe O’Brien in Agriculture to Kieran Wood doing Religious Affairs (Hopefully that nonesense is defunct by now) and Donal Kelly as Political Editor. Yet there is no recollection of ever seeing Liam at that time.
As far as can be recalled, it was after he left RTE and was working in Intel that he set up his website – http://www.anfearrua.com – which would change his life, mine and so many others.
The tagline with the location of what was a very unique take on all things GAA being The GAA Unplugged. To this day I’m still not entirely sure what the phrase means, but then, the mystery behind the website was a big part of the allure. To that end, initially not revealing writers’ real names was another masterstroke. Hence how a certain Press Box Lad came to fruition. Cough.
What the policy did was allow for the production of content with a reduction in duress as nobody knew who was behind the pen names. Of course, there was a big difference in the debate and rancour doing the rounds on discussion boards and the like back then compared to the venomous, spiteful, personalised dirt the cowardly keyboard warriors spew now.
However, ironically, in view of what immediately preceded this paragraph, it was in fact the message boards connected with the site which forced Liam to close the site down in 2012. Some of the comments therein having the potential to land him in extremely hot water legally speaking. As they absolutely should have the others thereof.
Indeed this writer got a few buckets of bile one day when, in the course of commenting on the pertinent issue of the day it was mentioned that it was my belief that GAA-related matters had no business ending up on the desks of the Gardai or the courts. A view I still fervently hold. Undaunted, AFR backed me to the hilt.
In fact, he more or less gave me free rein to write on whatever subject matter took my fancy. There was only one occasion on which these wheels skated on a bit of thin ice. But, rather the admonishing and dropping me, he simply said “Anyone can make a mistake but it says a lot about the character of the man who admits it”.
It says even more, though, about the regard in which Liam was held that his website appealed to the ordinary man on the street as much as was the case with celebrity A-listers up to and including President Michael D. himself.
It was in relation to one such high profile fan of the site that your columnist hit the skids. That said, the fact that the individual was a devotee of the unique sports media outlet gives an indication of the breadth of the 72-year-old’s voracious hunger for knowledge and topics upon which he could contribute with confidence and authority.
For me, that was down to his work in RTE and, later, in politics, sport and public relations. It is a glowing endorsement to his character and alacrity at his job that the former journalist was universally popular across the political spectrum.
None other than Charles J. Haughey – a much malinged figure (largely wrongly in my view) who did more good than will probably ever be acknowledged by the knockers – was the first to cop that Cahill’s nous at the media scene could be deployed to great effect in the political arena.
So much so that the man born in Swatragh, Co Derry dispatched the national broadcaster’s former Political Correspondent to Brussells to work on and through Ireland’s Presidency of the EU.
When the great man from Abbeyville abdicated his throne for the final time, the incoming Albert Reynolds had the good sense to retain the services of the master media wingman.
After Albert’s coalition Government with Labour collapsed over the bungled appointment of Harry Whelehan to the judiciary, Liam departed the political scene for a while. The next step on this most extraordinary of life journeys taking him to the Intel computer manufacturing plant in Leixlip.
It was there An Fear Rua was conceived and brought to life. Initially, if memory serves me correctly, as an Intel internal Ezine. Whereupon it became so popular that the well versed producer of the slightly off-the-wall website saw an opportunity to expand it to much greater horizons.
And when it was big, it was really big. Not only in the massive volumes of traffic the site itself was attracting but also due to the other publishing avenues it opened up.
Press Box Lad, for example, ended up making appearances in the Irish Examiner and several Leinster Championship match programmes thanks to collaborations between the website and Tony Leen in the newspaper and John Cotter in the Leinster Council. Most if not all of which came about through the efforts of Shane Kelly.
Mention was made earlier of how mutual connections of Liam and I played a huge part in making AFR the success it was. An example, my late father met him at the funeral of Geraldine Kelly, wife of Larry, with whom Liam had worked in Intel. It was the end of August and the harvest was still in full swing. Da mentioned that I had written a piece about my love for and adventures at that most special time of year.
Not for a moment thinking he would use it. But the request came to send it on and publish it he did. https://boylantalkssport.com/2022/06/21/fields-of-gold-previously-posted-in-2006/ and what that did was open up a whole new world upon which yours truly could scribe.
Mind you, it also fitted in perfectly with who Liam Cahill was. So many interests and the ability to opine lucidly and educationally on each and every one of them. That leads in nicely to the next few furlongs of the journey one was blessed to share with him. It must have been in rudimentary, routine conversation that it was discovered we also shared a mutual interest in horse racing.
One thing led to another as they say, and firstly I sent him a poem I’d written after the Noel Meade trained Nicanor had won at Cheltenham. Before long, another lovely character called The Guvnor began to appear on the AFR pages with tips any day there was a fixture in Ireland.
Alas, when the risks and ructions with the site became too much, the Lad was let go out of the Press Box and The Guvnor had to leave the parade as the red headed man hung up his cap. Upsetting as it was for a lot of people – not least the man himself – it did open doors to other corridors for exploration.
In my case, that meant posting my selections on Twitter before my beloved significant other re-launched the website which you are currently reading. They are now the life blood of what we do on a day-to-day basis.
Liam, on the other hand, went back to his old stomping ground – politics. It was then that his universally popularity came to the fore. Those from across the political spectrum sought out and swore by his advice.
My inclination always was that his natural disposition was towards the Labour Party. Especially given his long and distinguished association with the trade unions. So it was poignantly fitting that his last ‘gig’ on the political circuit was with former Labour leader Alan Kelly.
Before that though, he had also worked with MEP Neasa Childers before the burgeoning careers of Fianna Fail’s Thomas Byrne and the late, great Shane McEntee of Fine Gael were others to avail of Cahill’s knowhow and elite skill in public affairs.
Advocacy was another string to this most varied of bows. The union thing, I suppose. One campaign which he threw his seemingly boundless enthusiasm and energy behind was the North East Pylon Pressure group and, by extension, Rural Ireland Says Enough. It’s an awful pity there wasn’t another campaign about the amount of land being taken out of agricultural use and bting turned into jungles of houses. But that’s a matter for anothtr day.
The other huge shared interest we had was history. My only regret now is that we didn’t get to jointly undertake some exploration but the literary giant who has left us long, long before his time has left an intriguing volume of historic recording which should serve as both a monument to his own life’s work and an enticement to somebody with the interest therein to carry on his efforts and possibly even expand on them.
Liam’s first book, Forgotten Revolution – pertaining to the Limerick Soviet of 1919. Not surprisingly given the author in question, if my take on it is correct it revolves around workers fighting for their rights and/or representation. It commands a prominent place in the bookcase in my office, it has only been summarily flicked through. Even after the revised edition thereof was released to commemorate the 30th anniversary of the original release.
Being someone that couldn’t have an idle mind, at one point he and I had actually done a fair bit of the ground work on AFR magazine before costs moved it beyond viability. However, in between paintings and everything else he threw himself into came a Creative Writing course in NUI Maynooth.
He of all people didn’t need any such tuition but I often wondered was it a form of coping mechanism for him following the death of his beloved wife Patricia in 2015. What is sure is that he had many more miles to travel on the journey of an extraordinary gentleman.
His second book, From Suir To Jarma, chronicling the contribution of his cousin Mossy Quinlan during the Spanish Civil War, was released very shortly before his death. If you ever want a quicker, quite unique take on the Irish role in said event, have a listen to Christy Moore’s Viva La Quinta Brigada
To return to point, though, Liam and I last spoke on the first anniversary of da’s death – June 10th – where we both agreed to exchange copies of our respective new books. Alas, I will now have to send the delivery to a different address.
Susie and Eoin, I truly do not have the words to convey my heartache and loss at your dad’s passing. Know how proud he was of both of you, just as I know he loved the overlap between GAA and horse racing and how you, Susie, surrounded him with the equine world.
Liam, I am still trying to process that another person so close and important to me is gone. A process I know all too well but which never gets any easier. I’ve no doubt you’re working on another book up there already.
Now though, maybe it’s time you were the subject matter rather than the author. Coladh Samh mo chara specialta Rua.
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