Sometimes jest is too close to the bone

On the evening of the day on which I made my Confirmation, April 16th 1994, the late Dermot Morgan was finishing a run of shows at the Olympia Theatre in Dublin.

For those of you with less than three decades mileage on this here planet, yes Dermot did exist before Father Ted. Firstly ironically as a character called Fr Trendy.

Mostly though, Morgan made it as a political and celebrity satarist. Principally as one third of the Scrap Saturday crew. Which also incorporated Gerry Stembridge and Pauline McLynn. Yes, that one – Mrs Doyle.

Take Mario Rosenstock, Oliver Callan or whoever you wish to nominate, they are all by-products of Dermot’s brilliance, though with no disrespect meant to any of them, they’re only trailing in his wake.

Anyway, among the many hillarious gags the great man delivered on the night was a brilliant take off of the great Mike Murphy interviewing, among others, President Michael D. Higgins, then a Labour Party TD.

The nub of which was “Michael D. Higgins, the D’s for Dodgy”! In jest obviously, but, you know, the skit did come back to mind in the last week, when the sportsperson formerly known as The Dodger couldn’t avoid leaving a putrid stench suffocating every bit of good they may have done on the hurling field.

Denis Joseph Carey that is. The bollox formerly known affectionately as DJ, whereas now mention of his name will either make blood run cold or boil with pure rage, anger and disgust.

Now, aside from the most obvious difference that Oscar Pistorious did actually murder has partner Reeva Steinkamp, for this observer at least, the similarities between the two cases are nauseatingly plentiful.

1. Both sporting heroes whose achievements meant their fame transcended what would be normal sporting dividers.
2. Both initially played the victim and, on the back of that had huge swathes of public support behind them.
3. In both cases, when doubts initially surfaced, those who raised them were labelled shit stirrers, begrudgers and heartless.
4. Both egomaniacs had many more victims than the initially obvious ones. With the South African, that meant, naturally, the Steinkamp family, but also the numerous athlethes who were probably done out of the chance of competing because he was actually still allowed to do so as both a ‘normal’ athlete and para athlete in the shadow of what he had done.
5. With Carey, one couldn’t but think of the no doubt hundreds, possibly thousands of people genuinely in need of and/or waiting for cancer treatment. Or indeed fundraising for same.

Carey’s evil greed has the stench of that other vile creature, Lance Armstrong, off it. Except, to me, the Gowran man’s deception was and is even worse. Back then at least, the GAA could fairly handily sell the amateur status bull and the disciples dutifully lapped it up like cocktail sausages late at a wedding!

In the present day however, that duck won’t fly as easily. Nor should it. However, at the most basic and fundamental element, it is indeed all about community spirit, togetherness and, in so many parts of rural Ireland in particular, the GAA club is indeed the hub of the community and the focal point people gravitate towards in times of strife.

Never was this more evident than in the height of the Covid-19 outbreak when club members became auxiliary shoppers, housekeepers, gardeners and whatever those who were housebound or simply encumbered by reduced mobility might have required. The other areas where clubs – of any sporting kind to be fair – come into their own are fundraising and, most poignantly, at the time of a bereavement. All of which I can sadly personally vouch for.

So it should have been absolutely no surprise that when he, widely acknowledged as the finest hurler of his generation and among the best the old game has ever seen, revealed he had health troubles and was in need of support, people and funds would swarm in his direction. Which they did, as we now know, to the tune of some €400,000. Including from people who genuinely were suffering from cancer and undergoing treatment at the time they were approached by Carey.

But here’s the really sickening element the draws him upsides odious Armstrong in my book. Armstrong’s use of his cancer issues to cover up his competitive doping – on foot of which he managed to ‘achieve’ things never before seen in cycling. We now know, of course, that they most likely never would have been pulled off if Armstrong’s engine wasn’t nefariously souped up.

In a similar way, there is something of a natural disposition of being sympathetic towards anybody who finds themselves in fiduciary difficulties. Especially in a scenario commensurate to that which Carey purported himself to be in. Playing on such a narrative, though, loses any credence it may have had – even if the illness alleged to be at play here was genuine – when cognisance of the reality that the financial difficulties at play – even if they are entirely genuine – only manifested themselves as a result of those effected living well beyond their means. As a great man once said.

Furthermore, any molecule of sympathy people may have initially felt for the Young Irelands clubman surely rapidly dissipated on foot of his sister Caitriona also being a dirty rotten scoundrel who duped many people of large sums of money. Also under fraudulant pretences.

Indeed, the major question many of us would like answered is how Caitriona Carey wasn’t in prison long before her brother was even rumbled. And, for that matter, if and when will she ever get a day in the Phibbsborro B and B.

No doubt, DJ now residing in D7 will bring some solace to those who were broadsided by his wrongdoing. For many, though, the sordid calamities constructed by the brother and sister won’t reach a point of total closure until both are resident in State accommodation.

Naturally, one has to believe in the possibility of people being rehabilitated in prison, even if Denis Joseph Carey is allowed the grace of being capable of reforming, it will be very difficult to ever even picture him as DJ again.