This month is the tenth anniversary of the death of that great Kerry-born wordsmith Con Houlihan. Connie, as he was known to his friends, left us on August 4, 2012, aged 86.
He had spent the last few years of his life in St James’ Hospital, Dublin from where he continued to file his columns for the Sunday World and Evening Herald. Con dictated his ‘copy’ to young Feidhlim Kelly, whom he had taken ‘under his wing’ a few years earlier.
Con worked right up to his death and forecast that boxer Katie Taylor would win gold at the London Olympics, which she did, a few days after he passed away.
He had broken his hip in a fall at Cheltenham in 1994 and never fully regained his mobility after that fall. He used to joke that the fall was on the street in Cheltenham and not on the famous Prestbury Park race track. He fell, rushing to catch an evening train back to Birmingham on the first day of the National Hunt Festival.
Con was born on December 6 1925. For a while his father Michael worked as a miner in Wales and sent money home to Con’s mother Ellen (Cronin) and his two siblings Jerry and Marie. Michael later came home and worked in the local creamery.
At first the family lived in Ballyfinane, near Currans, but later they moved to Reaineen, an area Con often referred to as ‘‘the hill country above Castle Island.’’
Con said that he ‘did a lot of scribbling’ from an early age and had a prize-winning article published in The Champion, a British Boys magazine, when he was ten years old. The author had to name the four best boxing heavyweights of all time and give his reasons why.
The prize was ten shillings, not bad for a young boy in Ireland in 1935. Years later when Con went to work in London he wasted no time in seeking out the office of the magazine on Farringdon Street. He said the felt like kneeling down and kissing the tarmac outside the door.
He won a scholarship to the Carmelite boarding school in Castlemartyr in East Cork, but was expelled for producing a ‘underground’ paper called the College Courier. So it was back to Kerry and Tralee CBS to complete his Leaving Certificate.
Just before Con died the Carmelite order made a presentation of a Silver Tray to him, as he was their most famous student.
Con studied at University College Cork where he achieved a First Class honours degree in Latin and History and a working knowledge of Greek.
He gave grinds to local students around Castle Island and worked as a part-time teacher in Nationals Schools in Renagown, Kilsarcon and Knockaderry, and also in the Presentation Convent in Castle Island.
Con’s first job after college was with local businessman Charlie Lenihan in Castle Island where he learned how to make black puddings, a delicacy that Con loved throughout his life. He also loved fishing and spending a day in the bog.
He spent some time working in England, first on building sites and later as a teacher in Hastings. He returned home and edited a newspaper called the Tax Payers News and began to write a very forthright column for The Kerryman newspaper in Tralee.
Con said: ‘‘I was teaching full-time, but was also editing a magazine called The Taxpayer’s News. That was a brave little paper, the first ever to be published in my home town. It did well for about seven years and then, like the Titanic and the Lusitania, it was shot down, not by a submarine but by a libel action. The Kerryman was where I spent the next ten exciting and dangerous years.’’
According to his cousin Joe Martin, Con never really wanted to leave his home place, but he also wanted to be a full-time journalist and in 1974 he was offered a job by Evening Press Editor Seán Ward.
Con described his last day working in the bog. ‘‘I knew I was about to depart for a different world. It was also the last day that I worked with my father. At about six o’clock we raked the embers of the fire together and quenched it with whatever water was left over and with what tea remained in the kettle.’’
When referee Seamus Aldridge awarded that famous free to Kerry at the Canal End in the 1978 All-Ireland final, Mickey Sheehy took a quick free and chipped the ball over the head of Dublin goalkeeper Paddy Cullen. This was Con’s brilliant description: ‘‘Paddy Cullen ran back to his goal like a woman who had smelled a cake burning in the oven.’’
Former Kerry footballer Jimmy Deenihan said: ‘‘It wasn’t enough to read Con’s analysis in the Evening Press on the Monday after a final, we had to hear it first hand in Mulligan’s pub from the man himself.’’
It was his ‘Tributaries’ column in the Evening Press that really broadened Con’s appeal. He admitted that one of his proudest days was when he received a letter from a reader, who wrote that he had never attended college, but that he got his third-level education from ‘Tributaries,’ which encompassed many subjects, including politics and the arts.
Con said: ‘‘In my early days in Dublin, my home was in a small friendly hotel, The Waldorf across the Liffey from the Evening Press offices.
‘‘I was very lucky in The Evening Press. Apart from the necessary piece on Monday, usually a report of some big sports event over the weekend, I was free to write about things of my own choosing on Wednesday, Friday and Saturday.
‘‘It was a good life. Too good to be true. And it all came to an end on in May 1995 when an industrial dispute caused the three papers to close, The Irish Press, Sunday Press and Evening Press.’’
In later years Con lived on Martin Street in Portobello, between the South Circular Road and the Grand Canal. I was lucky enough to visit his home once a month to collect articles in the early part of this century; the house was like a library/art gallery.
Con often told us that he played rugby in his bare feet with Castle Island and there are pictures to prove it. He was a big man and when attending games he chose to stand with supporters on the terraces.
At Croke Park he could be found standing at the old Canal End. At a League of Ireland ground like Richmond Park in Inchicore you would see Con shuffle his giant frame around the perimeter wall on the Camac side of the ground. The only stadium where he sat in the press box was in Lansdowne Road.
He was shy and famously would hold his hand over his mouth when speaking. He explained the reason why: ‘‘I was very shy growing up, conscious of my size and that was how that habit came about.’’
Con would always call to a few pubs on the way to and from a game or a race meeting. He used to joke that his visits to pubs were for ‘research purposes.’ And while the great man enjoyed a drink, there is no doubt that he was able to gauge the mood of the people from his visits to the most colourful of watering holes around the city of Dublin and elsewhere.
Mulligan’s in Poolbeg Street was a regular haunt where his favourite drink was brandy and milk. He would also visit other pubs in the area like the White Horse on Burgh Quay, next door to the Press offices and Chaplin’s. If he went to a Munster football final in Killarney, Con was certain to drop into Jimmy O’Brien’s pub on his way up to Fitzgerald Stadium.
Con wrote about everything: Gaelic football, hurling, soccer, rugby, boxing, athletics, horse racing. He was also the Evening Press Theatre Critic.
He would compose his article very early in the morning. He was a big man with huge hands and never learned to type. He wrote his articles long hand on A4 sheets of paper, one paragraph per page. Normally the article would be around 1,400 words.
When the article was finished Con would walk from his home in Portobello into the Evening Press offices on Burgh Quay where sports editor Tom O’Shea would type it up. Con would return to the office to check the ‘copy’ for any typos before it was sent to print. Then he might retire to ‘an early house’ for sustenance.
No doubt he had a brilliant mind. A former student of Con’s in Castle Island Joan O’Donovan said the locals referred to him as a ‘‘pure genius.’’ And he was honest. In an interview with Keith Duggan of the Irish Times in 2003 Con said. ‘‘I am a vain man, not afraid to admit it. Show me the man who doesn’t like a bit of praise and I will show you a liar.’’
If there was one thing that made Con stand out, apart from his poetic style of writing, it was that he was very approachable. No matter where he was covering a game, supporters would engage with the Kerryman for a chat and many of those conversations ended up in a ‘Fógra’ at the bottom of his column. Or if it was very important news it could be a ‘Fógra Spesialta.’
Harriet Duffin, who was Con’s ‘friend-girl’ for 35 years, said: ‘‘When Con worked in the Press Tom O’Shea was the best person who could decipher his hand-writing. In later years I helped him with his articles.
‘‘Con is gone ten years, but it seems like only yesterday. I miss him so much. We met for the first time in the Oval Bar in Abbey Street in 1977 and he invited me to a Jacques Brel supper in the Shelbourne Hotel. He was great company and the wittiest man you could ever meet. I would love to still have him around and hear what he has to say about Covid-19 and other current events.’’
After the closure of the Press group in May 1995 Con worked for various publications including the Sunday World, Evening Herald and the Eircom staff newspaper, Eircom Live, where he contributed a monthly column. He also published several books including, More than a Game (Liberties Press), The Best of Con Houlihan (Mercier Press), A Harvest (Liberties Press), Come All You Loyal Heroes (Olympic Press) and The Back Page (Boglark Press).
Six months after his death the Irish Independent published five supplements containing essays Con had written for Allied Irish Banks. A few years earlier AIB had commissioned him to write essays on various towns and villages around the country where the bank had a branch. The supplements were free with the Saturday editions of the Irish Independent during the months of February and March 2013.
He was a stickler for punctation and often said that he wouldn’t trust anybody who would misuse an apostrophe. At his funeral, long-time friend Ray Hennessy said: ‘‘Con could paint a picture with words.’’ Another friend remarked that he could ‘‘write about nothing and make it interesting.’’
Covid has delayed plans for an Interpretive Centre in Con’s home town of Castle Island to honour Con and local culture. Michael John Kearney, Chairman of Castle Island Chamber Alliance says they are trying to buy a suitable building.
Michael said: ‘‘We hope to purchase a building where we can showcase the best of Con’s work, Sliabh Luachra music and the wealth of local history which has been documented by the Castle Island District Heritage Group.’’
There is already a bust of Con on the main street in Castle Island with the inscription: ‘Con Houlihan: Fisherman, Turf-Cutter, Rugby Player, Teacher, Writer.’ There is also a head and shoulders bust of Con in Charlie Chawke’s Dropping Well pub in Milltown and a life-size statute at the entrance to the Bank pub on Dame Street.
The Castle Island bypass, which was opened in 2010, is named after Con. A nice tribute to a local hero, who incidentally didn’t drive a motor car.
Written by Sean Creedon. This article was first published by Ireland's Own in August 2022.