Why did you first take up the game of handball?
Handball was always a tradition in my family. My Dad and Grandad were both from Boyle, Co Roscommon and they both played handball growing up.
My Grandad, Paddy Kennedy, won a Junior Doubles All-Ireland in 1941 for Roscommon. That was the old junior which is equivalent to today’s intermediate, he was a good player. My Dad obviously played a lot as well and I would go along with my Dad to watch him play.
When I was 10 years old, 1989, there were two courts played in St Brigid’s and that’s really when I started playing to be honest. I would have tipped around a few times before that after my Dad’s games, you know, a young lad in a court for a few minutes, but that was really the first time I started playing properly.
At what point did you start to specialise in handball as your main sport?
I was playing pretty much everything. Until I was about 15 I was involved in six or seven different sports. In school, you got a half day nearly every second day to go off for cross country or badminton, I played a lot of tennis growing up in Castleknock Tennis Club. I played football and hurling in Brigid’s till I was about 14 as well, a bit of soccer… I was doing everything to be honest.
I like the individual sports a bit more than the team sports in that you had a sense of sort of working things through. You had to figure out how to win yourself. I started to get a hit of success I suppose in the handball. I won my first All-Ireland at U14 in softball and then later that year I went to America for the first time, it was 1993 in Chicago.
I played in he U15, I was still 14 at the time. That was a great experience. It was a big thing to go to the States in those days, a really big thing at the time.
Michael McCluskey was a real driving force in Dublin handball and he would have been on to my Dad, ‘let’s try and go to the States this year’ and I went off. It was a great experience, I learned a lot and was really enthusiastic coming from it.
Shay O’Reilly was another great handball man and a great advocate of ladies handball in particular in St Brigid’s. Sabrina Hughes and Julie Long from the club would have visited the States the year before.
I found it a great experience and the following year, I improved dramatically. I was getting well beaten by the likes of Kenneth Kane and a year later, I had beaten him in the World Championships and I had gone out to San Diego and won the US Championships there so I made a big leap in that time.
Who was your biggest influence?
My Dad definitely was the biggest influence on me in terms of my handball career all the way through. Michael McCluskey and Shay O’Reilly were very instrumental as well but definitely my Dad was the biggest influence all the way through.
He’s a deep thinker about handball, really passionate about the game and an advocate for it but one thing he never did was put any pressure on me to play. He would encourage me but as you know yourself as a teenager, there are times when you could lose interest.
Certainly, when I was 16 or 17 there were times when I was on the verge of giving the game up. He encouraged me but he never forced me ad was always very supportive.
I used to play a lot of adults around Dublin and he would bring me around and as I got better, around 17 or so, he would bring me to play the likes of Walter O’Connor, Peter McAuley, people like that. Really tough games, you’d get well beaten but you’d learn a hell of a lot.
He was my coach as well.
What are your best memories from playing handball as a teenager?
Probably two things. I didn’t go to the States that often really, at underage or at senior, but I did really enjoy those one or two trips that I did go on as a juvenile. You actually got to know other people from around the country; there are a lot of weekend tournaments now but at the time, when we were yoiung, there wouldn’t have been and you wouldn’t really have got to know a lot of the other juveniles from around the country the same way young people do now at tournaments.
The other one was probably when I won the Minor Softball Singles in Croke Park, to get to play on that big night was a big one. Another was winning a Minor Doubles with my brother. Brian was only 14 at the time, I’d say he could be the youngest ever to win a Minor All-Ireland.
We beat Paul Brady and James Brady in that final and that was really enjoyable too.
I beat Paul in the Minor Singles final in the softball, he beat me in the 40x20 final. I beat Barry Goff, I think, 21-19 in the third in the Leinster semi-final and then I beat Kenneth Kane 21-20 in the third in the Leinster final and then I beat Paul two straight in the final so I really earned it.
That was an amazing group of minors when you look back on it…
Yeah, actually I think that’s a point worth making. When you have a group of young lads or young girls who are of a similar standard, they can really push each other on. A lot of those lads went on to be top seniors later on. Tony Healy was there at the time as well and there were others as well.
How did you make the transition to senior handball?
I took a break from handball when I was about 17, I was studying for the Leaving Cert and then I went to Dingle for a summer after the Leaving. For the guts of eight or nine months at that time, I didn’t really play any handball.
When I came back then, I was losing to lads I would normally beat, I had been out for a good while and I was thinking ‘do I really want to go and train hard now and really dedicate myself to this?’ and I decided after a while that I did.
I was in DCU at the time and I had a court there so I started to train hard. I started doing physical training as well as part of that and as I say, really, a lot of that came down to playing games.
My Dad would bring me to play top players. Around Dublin, there were a lot of really strong players around at the time that I could get really good games against and around that time, I started to improve quite quickly.
Competitions like provincial Opens were starting around then and you could get lots of games, lots of competitive matches. I am a great believer in playing everything. I played everything, 40x20, softball, hardball, and I think it’s the best way to improve, getting match practice and match training.
I made my first senior All-Ireland final when I was 22. Ducksy beat me in a third game in my first final, that was my first year playing senior in the big alley.
I won an intermediate in ’99 and then I went to America the following summer and then the following year I got to my first senior final against Ducksy and then the following year, I actually won the 40x20 and 60x30 in the same year. I was 23 when I won those two.
What tips could you give for today’s juveniles who may be reading this?
I really feel for the young people, teenagers. It’s hard for everyone during Covid but I think it’s really hard for teenagers. A year in your life is such a big thing at that age.
In terms of right now, I’d say try and keep fit if you can, it’s good for your mental health as much as anything. When we do get back on the courts, playing games and playing matches and playing against different people is very important.
Playing against the same people all the time is not as effective as playing against different people I think and if you’re young and can play against adults, you’ll learn a huge amount.
When I was growing up, adults were tough to play against, they wouldn’t want to lose and they’d go through a wall to try and beat you. There’s nothing like that for training.
The main thing is to enjoy it.
Did you spend much time in the court on your own at that age?
I would have been in the court on my own but I remember I’d be talking to Paul or Tony and they’d be after spending two hours in the court on their own, I would be gone daft if I spent two hours in the court on my own (laughs)!
About 40 minutes was enough for me, after that I’d need to be playing somebody. But even in that 40 minutes, you’d hit the ball a serious amount of times. Even if you want to practise your off hand or particular shots, it is the only real way to really improve.
It’s like a golfer; Rory McIlroy doesn’t just play rounds of golf, he’ll hit bunker shot after bunker shot or drive after drive on the range. You have to spend the time.
I used to spend more time doing that when I was younger than I would have when I was older. You do need to spend that time on your own to hone your skills but it’s the mix of the two, you need to be playing a lot of games to put it into practice as well.
