Mickey and Michaela Harte

A S a Dub I admit to having had conflicted views about Mickey Harte and Tyrone. It is regarded as one of the big rivalries of the past five or six years although in truth it is one in which Tyrone have had the upper hand.
That made the victory in last year’s quarter-final all the sweeter then. While the Dublin players affected to take it in their stride and left the pitch straight after the final whistle, there was no such reticence among the supporters.
It was a great night and I recall in the midst of it that one of the few moments of silence was when the TV showed Mickey Harte being interviewed for his reaction.
There were several derisory shouts aimed towards the screen but these were shushed down so that we could hear what he was saying. I would be less than honest if I did not admit that some of us were perhaps hoping that he might do as some others have done and make excuses as to why his team was beaten rather than the other won. That is not the sort of the man he is though.
He was gracious and praising of the Dubs and confined himself to honestly pointing out that Tyrone had racked up a fair few wides but he didn’t use that to claim that they should have won the match.
Anyway, there were no jeers when he finished. There were even some grudging ‘fair plays’ muttered and, of course, we went back to getting plastered and singing our heads off.
A while after that I watched the documentary that was made about his involvement in Errigal Ciarán and prior to that in a little club whose name I forget (but might have been St Ciarán’s now that I think of it). He spoke of how they had put the pitch together and himself and Peter Canavan recalled the huge effort that had to be undertaken to retrieve footballs from the stream that ran around the pitch.
And there was more in it about his family and parish and his county. His pride and humour shone through it all.
It was all the sadder then to see him struggle under the burden of the terrible calamity that befell his daughter Michaela. As a father of a daughter I cannot even begin to imagine what it might be like to lose her although that almost did happen when my Ciara had meningitis.
At times like this, county or sport do not matter. Except, that is, that in every parish in the country, GAA people reached out to Michaela’s family and friends and community. She was a lot, lot more than Mickey’s daughter but that’s how most of us knew her.
In the days after Michaela’s death, red and white Tyrone flags flew around the clubhouse of Naomh Fionnbarra in the heart of Cabra here in Dublin. That speaks more eloquently than any of my words ever can.