I'm there in Gary, and you're listening to The Laugh of your Life, the podcast where I talk to influential people about laughter from their first memories of laughter to feeling left out to the moment where if they didn't laugh, they cry.

It's OK. I know what it is. And I say, what is a temporary global amnesia is caused by either severe shock due to water or the most sensational sex you've ever had in your life.

I said it's the latter. Bernard, if anybody asks, it's the latter.

TV and radio broadcaster Marty Morrissey is my guest this week. He talks to me about his childhood spent in the Bronx navigating teenage discos in West Clare and his passion for the game.

I hope you enjoy. Marty, Marty, Daryn, Gary, that's a good start, at least you got the name right.

You are extremely welcome to the last of your life. Thank you very much. I'm delighted to be here. I've heard so much. Oh, you've had so many people here before me, by the way.

I don't take know. Marty, please. I well, down the pecking order, obviously, if you if you would let me finish my sentence, I am delighted to welcome you to the last of your life as my Christmas special.

I know that we're going way back up the charts again. You were going down, down, down, down. But now you're back up, up, up to number one.

Oh, my God, I'm so happy to be here with you in studio. It's been how many episodes if we had I think maybe 13, 14 since the start of September. Some have been on Zoome. Good for you have been on do some have been in person. One restrictions have kind of have allowed thankfully restrictions allowed because I don't think I would like to interview you soon. I think we would have I like to be up close and personal with you.

Do not do so. No, no, no, no, no.

Well, shall we reveal what the first thing you said to me was when I saw you outside.

What was that? Yes, you may as well know, but I don't even remember. Can you hand this out, by the way? You were saying you were basically disappointed in the way I was looking.

I'm not very glam today, Marty. I should have dressed up a little bit better for you, but I'm just in my chair gear.

Yeah, but you look absolutely stunning. You are me. Backtrack. Never. I'm delighted to be here with Evelyn. Gary.

Oops, that's a system. Sorry. OK, Marty, shall we get going with our interview. Absolutely. OK, Marty. Marty, your first memory of laughter.

My first memory of laughter is actually in an apartment in Bainbridge Avenue in New York and getting up for school in the morning.

But before school there was TV, believe it or not, at the time.

And I used to watch The Flintstones, Yabba Dabba Doo Fred and the Flintstones meet the Flintstones are yabba dabba doo lovely.

And there was Betty and that was Wilma. And I loved the Flintstones, you know. And so that was my kind of, I suppose, forced laughter. I love cartoons as a child. Casper the Friendly Ghost. Uh, yeah, man.

The roadrunner does that. What's his name anyway? Roadrunner. Yeah, that's a shame.

Yeah, that was the name. Yeah. But before your time the.

So talk to me about me. OK, born in Ireland. Born then. Yes. Born in Indiana. You know that I, I hate I never knew you were born in Cork. I just always associate. I was clear with the association.

Yeah well my father when he you know where we're from the Morrissey side of the family come from and it's just a place on the west coast of Clare.

So when my father, my father once good names and CBS and at the time and the late 40s, 50s, you didn't really have to go to college. We did. OK, you're leaving cert. And he did Latin and Geography Australia.

So he got a job in the primary school in Mallo.

So he rented a room from her cousins. As it turns out, the baratz up from The Mousetrap, which is a famous pub in Malow, and it's like M four. It's like like Dublin for if you know what I mean. I just want to put it up in Aggrandize.

You're going to be like, no, I always knew you came from that. Yes, yes. The same for yes.

And she was renting a room and my mother was training to be a hairdresser and she came to the house to visit her cousins and then she met Martin Morrissey and Peggy Markham fell in love and all that sort of thing. And then they headed for America and they were married a good couple of years.

I don't think they thought they were ever going to have a child.

And then something happens and yours truly was coming.

And they both wanted me to come back, but not me, but my mother to come back to be born in Ireland. So she came back to her home place of Malow, and I was born in Malow, but I was shipped out after about six weeks.

They had one look at me and they said, we need to get religion by. Look at it. He is queer. All your eyebrows.

Look at the teeth. I'd say they were just like he's got star quality. He's got to go to the state.

He's got to go to New York, Hollywood. Here we go. So a couple of weeks later, I was born the end of October to the end of November. I believe I've flown outward in my mother's arms out to New York. And I was there until I was eleven eleven.

So, like, you've probably very, very clear memories of it. Oh yeah. I went to school in oh gosh, yes. In St Ann's. In New York. In the Bronx.

We used to get a half day every Wednesday. No it wasn't a half day. It was a fire drill. And it was very funny because every Wednesday at about two o'clock we'd have this fire drill and then we'd all have to walk out and in orderly fashion and then the cops would arrive with sirens.

Then the fire brigade parents began to wonder how come, you know, this fire drill is taking a little bit too seriously. But similarly, we were in St Ann's, which was a Catholic school, and there was a public school down the road, the.

They'd have a half day every Wednesday, so for the crack that phone up, the Catholic Church said there was a bomb in the school and everybody would have to abandon ship, which was great, like we loved it because we'd have to every Wednesday thanks to the boys on the road.

And so what was it like for you in school then? Like were you were you aware that your parents were Irish, you were Irish, but you did you feel different?

No, not really. I had a lovely nun from Sligo St. Thomas, and she loved me because I was Irish. And there was another lad called Denis Murphy from Wexford. But we were the only two Irish kids in the school were Italians, Jewish, Indians, all Polish.

So we were in a classroom.

I remember where it was in international class almost. There were so many different cultures there, but I loved it. Every morning you'd drive into the basketball court sometimes to be covered in snow and you'd swear your allegiance to the American flag that had to be done every morning. Oh yeah. Before classes even started. And then you do that Monday to Friday and then on Sunday you go to a hurling match and get it back.

So it was a bit confused because the was a bit confused. There was no you know, I be playing hard and I loved the hurling and I love the football. Baseball didn't do it for me. Basketball I loved I played basketball until the cows come home.

But, yeah, it was it was a bit confusing, I suppose, initially. But I, I felt that when you come home on holidays, you know, you go to West Clare and you go to North Cork. And I read a lot of relations and Waterford and my father had he was an only child like myself, and he had seven first cousins, seven sisters. And one of them went and it was Margaret. No, Margaret, you can go first.

Anyway, the oldest daughter went to she married a lad from Waterford and she ended up nursing in the Iraqi army has husband, what I think he's got.

And then the next sister went teaching him tomorrow. And before you knew it, five or six of them were there. So we used go to visit the cousins in Timor. And, you know, there's about 20 of them there. So I have to say, the cousins and Margaret, like I have no brothers or sisters, are no first cousins. So they're they're as close as it gets for me. Yes. But so there's a strong, strong bond.

But I I suppose coming home on holidays from New York, I got into the Irish culture, I made friends. We had a bit of grass in front of our house. So we played ball and I broke a few windows, the usual crack. So when my father decided to come home when I was 11, when we were in New York at the time, and once you went to high school, conscription was there.

So it meant that when you were finished high school, you had to do your US Army service. Yeah. So there was no sports around. So rather than do that, it's that transitional period between primary and secondary.

And my father said he wanted to bring me home and this pub came up and quilting and like none of us had any notion about pubs, but my father was an enemy.

And that was primarily to avoid me, I suppose, going into the high school system. So we ended up going to Flanders. I'm playing, hurling and football, which is great, like.

Yes, because I was a probably a legitimate reason for something. But yeah, it was part of the reason, you know.

And do you remember what it was like to come back and were you nervous about it?

I was nervous, I suppose, but I was I was enthusiastic about I missed my friends initially in New York. I remember, you know, a great friends in the school and my great friends playing football and basketball and on the streets like that's what you did.

Were you in a house or an apartment? Apartment.

So was it very much Bronx like it was that life? Absolutely.

When I was four D we're on the fourth floor, you know, and I walk up.

Walk up. Yeah, walk up. Yeah, absolutely. Walk up. And when you go to the local shopping center at the time and you'd have to bring home the bags, you know, it was a bit of a walk up.

All right.

You were well able for the stairs here today, although I really should have played a lot cleverer because I said to myself, one second, if I collapse here different, then we'll have to give me mouth to mouth resuscitation.

You know, I messed up this whole journey up the stairs up.

Oh, thank God we have now done OK. Look, we'll come back to that. I want to move along to our next question. Right. So the first time you felt laughed at.

Marty laughed at. Well, I laughed at, um, I have great friends at home and I suppose being an only child, going back to the previous answer, loyalty would be very important to me. So I always kind of had loyal friends, but they did catch me on once because we were going to the disco in Milltown. Oh, well. And they told me that this particular babe fancied me no end.

And she said, like, we're only 15 or something. Yeah. And they said, go in there and you'll get the shift.

No doubt about it. I don't even know what the shift was, but it was important to be macho in front of everybody.

So this seems like the dark ages, but the girls were on one side and I mean, the lads were at the other side and you know, the way.

Go on, go on. Go over to Dehra. Well, that was when to go over to dinner and just ask her to dance.

She'll say, yes, I'm telling you, yeah.

One of my good friends hit me so bravely set came on me.

I can visualize, you know, Sandover hands in the pockets saying I am so cool she will love me for this and said, Hello, Daryn, go on.

Would you like to dance?

And she looked at me and she said, Go away, you asshole.

Yes. And I looked because I was so shocked by the boys. Yeah.

And all I could hear was laughter from the boys at the back. And I said, oh, no problem. So I walked away dying.

Enzyte Dying inside, huh? It's not hard now. And what's she doing now?

I haven't a clue. Oh, that's terrible. We'll come back to her again when you're 15. Like, that's your whole world.

Oh, my God.

And I mean, when I was 15 dirham. I mean, when you think of it, I'd be the first one to tell you, like there was acne everywhere, you know what I mean? And I was typical of an adolescent boy, you know, so it would shatter your confidence, having had the courage for the boys to say, look, Derin really fancy. You see the way you're looking at me now.

There was an ad years ago on TV I was Sally O'Brien and the way she would look at you.

Oh, Joe and Gary Samat. Cheering Gary, the way she would look at you.

Oh, that's really tall. And especially, you know, because you're an only child as well. Your friends were probably really important to you. They were. I never I give out to them big time. I said, are you joking me, guys? You know, why did you do that? Yeah, well, we thought that different did, but she obviously didn't put it. So that's the first time you get laughed at. Yes. And then apart from that, at that age that you were very much back and kind of in Ireland then, like, were you playing sport then?

I was. I mean, I was always I was always sport was always there was always a ball in my hand. Was there.

Yeah. Always, you know, and and I suppose in New York I learned about hurling because every time there was a game on every Sunday we went to Celtic Park. My father, when he emigrated, he became a travel agent. He worked with them, cooks travel. Then he went with fairway's.

Travel, I think was the thing he did.

He had a bit of time with Air Lingus and he ended up opening up his own business.

So I used to go to Kennedy Airport, you know, and I just loved the whole idea of watching the the planes. I know where British Airways and Japan Airlines and KLM, I could name them off. This was my thing. And I thought I'd love to be a pilot and all that sort of thing. But as a result of that, he would go every single Sunday getting by because he'd meet the Irish. That was like it was like an employment exchange, like this was before Internet.

So you would go to Gaelic Park and you'd hear Johnny is coming home. My first cousin, will you put him on a flight from Shannon are from Dublin or whatever it is.

So it was a real business thing. Yeah. So I suppose.

Yeah. I mean, Gaelic Park is is I suppose part of my DNA as opposed to just dear to me because it was a chance to play hurling and football at half time every single Sunday. And then you joined the Irish weren't as well organized as what they are now, but you'd learn the basic skills. And I always felt I felt comfortable with the whole it wouldn't be as good as, you know, I was basic, but I enjoyed there's a particular medal that you have.

Yeah. That my dad knows a little bit about. Yeah, yeah. Yeah, yeah. Absolutely.

Would you like to. Father needs to get over.

Would you like to tell the story. Would you like to do the honors. My dad remind. I feel like my dad has no stock and everything. Every single guest I have has some link to my dad this week. Listen to this. This week my guest on the podcast is Conor More Conor Sketches Wrightman. My dad brings me the other day. I had never I had told him nothing about doing the interview Martin he brings me the other day.

Have you ever heard of a fella, Conor?

More. Yeah, dad, why I'm playing golf with the military said on Thursday, Bush said he's sure he's joining us now is offering me they are asking me, will I pay with him? I said I would. He apparently does a great job like that.

And he does. So you have your nose stuck in everything. Yeah.

So tell us the story. Well, we won't say the year, but it was just about 10 years ago.

So 10 years ago in the clear under 14 football final. Yeah. Kismaayo. Brecon Microbe's. Yeah.

We're taking on St. reconsolidating Vyner, which would incorporate Dulan at the time, etc..

So my dad, your dad's crowd and we met, I don't know why in the name of God we ended up in the country finally kill Roshe because that's done so.

So a top of the left just I was in goals for Cambodia I and the top of the left, Icona Forward, was a young fella called Gary. But we took care of great cornerback.

So your dad was a good footballer, wasn't you?

But he didn't score me. I just want you to know who got the medal.

You really what I mean, come on. Why do you think I want to talk about this? So the other 14 finals between ourselves and Americans and it is the only championship medal.

Yeah. I hope your father listens to this hour. You'll be better. And yeah.

So we want. Right. Yeah. Very proud moment. I'm so glad you mentioned. OK, Marty.

The moment when if you didn't laugh, you cry.

No, that's a good question. If I didn't laugh, I cry about was a two years ago and after doing Dancing with the Stars.

So we did Dancing with the Stars in 2018. And I just wanted to point this out in your broadcast that I should have won.

I beg to differ. Yes. That's the end of this broadcast. Could you could you excuse me a moment?

Most improved answer maybe. Don't begin to back out of it, though.

Most improved answer. I should have won.

And moving on. Great surprise. Yep.

Anyway, Bernardo's was prior to that and Bernard thought it would be great idea that we would do a program together. And I said, yeah, let's do that for the crap because we did get on well, but I got on with everybody.

But I suppose Brennaman stuff did become great powers.

And he said, I might say to somebody inside, I said, yeah, it by all means now, you know, you say these things and you say this will never happen. Right.

Not a chance to put lo and behold, miracles did happen.

So Marty and Bernard's big adventure was born. So we went where we got to parts two part series.

One of them was to go to New York and dress up in the fashion world. Absolute idiotic, Egypt's, but we great fun. And like people think, by the way, this was a very glamorous shoot. Now, we did this in three days. Yeah, it fly in land, go to hotel, get up six in the morning. Bang, bang. Really not glitzy at all, but I loved great, great fun. Yes. The second part of that was to go and test ourselves out against the elements.

Could we survive in the Wild West as such when it wasn't really the West was reg'lar?

We were always put out with the right. So like that we were we were kind of in training and we did all sorts of things. We were taught how to survive, how to light with timber, etc. But they knew because I told them the one fear I have despite being from West Clare is I have a fear of water. I can't swim.

OK, so now we'd flown just back from New York at seven or eight in the morning. We're being picked up, then we're being driven down to do the next because everything had to be done so quickly. So we arrived in some part of Wicklow and when we arrived in Wicklow, we they put masks on and over our eyes.

And next thing I remember, I do remember standing somewhere in the field beside Bernard and some guy from the Army recruitment, you know, one, two, three, four.

You know, one of those guys, you know, he raun you come right up to your ear.

Are you ready to do this? You know, that sort of. Yeah. Yeah.

And next thing, they threw a bucket of water at us and next thing we were in the lake. Oh, stop.

So after a while they they took me out and we were in a timber kind of hot and it provides us for meals and to give us I remember bacon and cabbage and it was lovely. But apparently Bernard said there was something wrong with him and that was me. And so they looked at me and they said, what do you think of that and what do you think of that? And I said, Yeah, did we do that? Do we do that?

So anyway, bottom line was they brought me to the doctor. In Ashford, and from there, I was rushed to the hospital, so, yeah, nobody knows this out to the beacon and they test me out and I slowly come back and they told me that I don't remember half of this, that I had temporary what is a temporary global amnesia?

I think that's what it's called. So, uh, I think that's the right term.

I'm not too sure. Global, temporary global amnesia. I think this was called. Yeah. And anyway, Bernard was ringing seemingly everybody, the production team to stir something up.

And they told him the right to global amnesia. So he rang me. That was right. Yeah. I should remember this.

Yeah. Jeez, you are very bad. That was very bad. So I was lying to bed. Next thing I saw Bernard and he says, What have you got? I said, they've just told me I have temporary global amnesia. And you remember doing this and you remember climbing up here and you remember puking your guts out and all this. And I said, oh, I don't remember that at all. What do you call it? Temporary global amnesia.

He says, I look it up. I'll be back. I look up Google.

I'll be back to you in a minute.

So here am I in accident and emergency and phone rings again. Bernat It's OK. I know what it is. And I say, what is a temporary global amnesia is caused by either severe shock due to water or the most sensational sex you've ever had in your life?

Well, I said it's the latter. Bernard, if anybody asks, it's the latter. And he says, you know what, Marty? You're fine. You're back. Oh, my God.

So you either laugh. Are you cry. Have you never told anyone? No, I've never.

Nobody knows about the production team. Yeah. So it's a shark thing.

It's a it's it's hitting the water and having a fear of water. Like, I mean, I know we're having a laugh now. Yeah. But I'm worried about stem from the fear.

The fear was that my mother had a great friend, more O'Conor and inequality al-Tikriti and she brought me back to Seafield to swim to learn how to swim.

And all her, like her daughters and her sons, were great. We grew up. We're the same age. But she was trying to hold on to me to float and all this.

But then she let me go, OK?

And I went straight down. Yeah.

And I, I just never, never recovered from it.

Like when you were six, seven or eight years of me and I it really annoys me because you know the lads that I pal around with, they go back to see if you happen to be jumping off the pier. Yeah, I'd be there saying no allowed to leave me.

And I said after that that I would learn how to swim, which I never I never did it. But that is. Yeah, that was an experience.

So if the if any of the journalists listen to this, they're going to run with that yourself.

And Bernard, our sex buddy, says, don't twist a story. He looked it up. And Bulbul.

Wow.

OK, Marty, you're no laughing matter moment in life.

My no laughing matter in life. What was that? Yes. Um hmm.

I was in Kilani doing a little preview.

Uh, what do you have at this late 90s, I suppose, anyway. And I was in a hurry and I was filming an interview like but probably still doing today. And next thing, my mother rang me and said that my father got a heart attack. So I said, OK, well, we dropped everything. And I was ringing her continuously. And I asked the doctor there was a nursery nurse and she was unsure that he'd make it.

So he luckily enough, he got the heart attack in Enis because he got no heart attack at home in West. That's 22, 23 miles from inUS. And so, um, he got into the hospital. And luckily enough, a cardiologist had just been appointed in the general hospital and the nursing staff. And Dr. Terry Hennessy does know that he got another attack inside an intensive care and he basically saved his life and the staff of this general hospital saved his life.

And so, I mean, Terry Hennessy and myself became great pals and his Mullingar man. But I hold him. Obviously, when somebody does that to you, to your family, you just hold him the highest esteem. And Chavan, his wife and all the family, they're all they're all in the medical line. But we got them from that. Dad had to get a triple bypass and also a pacemaker like he was a smoker and obviously had done damaged over that time.

A lot of damage over the years. And, um, bottom line, anyway, was that he was fine thanks to God. And six years later, I was in New York and I got a phone call. It was coming up to Christmas, December 1899.

And my mom had found that, uh, he died during the night.

So trying to come back, I had a good friend and our linguist at the time who helped me big time and to try and get me back on the flight because we'd only just arrived. And so I won't forget the flight. You know that when I hear people have lost their parents and are flying home and it's not an easy journey, you know, so it's it's yeah, it's something I won't forget. So and he's a huge loss when you're when you're you have three people, your mother, father and son and none of her brothers or sisters, you really you know, you've no chance, no uncles and you don't ever notice it and you never know until something happens.

And then you don't have the back up, you know, now you're back to relying on your good friends and the neighbors and the neighbors we have are just incredible. You know, they're my mother now for six years. He died on the 19th of December 2004.

And it just changed it changed the geometry. It changes everything. You know what I mean? The environment. It's different when you lose a parent. And it's it's quite and I've colleagues of mine who've lost their second parent and in recent weeks now and it does like they feel like will never go home. You know, that sort of I know now I, I love home and all that, but and luckily enough, Mum, thanks be to God it's alive and well and very healthy.

But it was it was a devastating blow. When you have a small family, you know you're a tripod.

Yeah. Yeah. One leg is gone. Yeah. Yeah, one leg is gone. And what what goes through your mind on a journey like that? I often it's funny you say that because I often think that when someone has to make a trip, like for even even just even the functionality of getting to the airport and remember and stuff like it must be a blur.

Yeah, it is really. Because, you know, you arrive on a Saturday and you're coming back. Monday was the first flight home by the time we put a lot of time differences and and everybody saying hello because they know, you know, particularly when you're flying over their links and you're flying home back home to Shunichi, if I remember I had to actually go to Dublin and then down to China. It was the only way they do that at the time.

Yes.

So when you're in Dublin, you're still another hour or two miles from home? Yes. Yeah, it was it was a long it's a long and empty journey. And you all you're doing is reminiscing and you're thinking and although you might try and close your eyes for five minutes, you wake up again, you know, and it's not you know, you don't get it when something like that happens.

I didn't get a chance to say goodbye because when I was leaving, he was fine, you know? I mean, like, if somebody is ill for a while, at least you can you can try to say things. I don't know if you do or you don't, but at least you feel you have that opportunity. But when you don't and it's taken away from you, you feel. But I think he knew how I felt about him because we got angry, you know, so I'm I'm consoled by that.

What does he think of you and all you had done in your life?

He was very positive, you know, because I flickered from one career to the other, you know, what did you really.

Oh, yeah. When I when I was in New York as a kid, I wanted to be a bus driver. Right. Because I loved the sound of the bus and I used to go around the apartment with a place.

You know, I've been driving around the bedroom and I go now it's the sound of the doors, but the way I love it.

So then I came home and I thought, God, maybe I should be a priest. Did you? Yeah, yeah, yeah. This is no different. I was only five or six now. All right.

Yeah, it's very there's no way teenage Marda to the priest for your stuff.

And, um, so are you say mass and we'd have the Marietta Biscuit was the host, right. A towel was the was the last word.

The robes. Robes. Yeah. Yeah the vestments. Oh sorry. Yeah. And and then on and downs you know. And we prayed today for Danny O'Brien and Mary Daly who have died. They were the only neighbors I knew but they died God. But they happened to be in the kitchen while I was inside. So they laughed of course, but I don't remember it too much.

But I there's pictures at home, but it is kind of I suppose you go through phases and then I want to cure the world when I was a little bit older and to love.

Yeah, well, she knows way too much about me. That's the problem.

I want to cure the ladies of the world. I wanted to meet as many nurses as possible. But then I discovered I had to really study hard and there was blood and I was there.

So I went teaching, you know.

So my dad was used to answer your question. Your dad was used to make change, right. Of different things.

I loved teaching. I really loved the whole interaction with the kids. Yeah. And I had a great time. And by fluke, everything that's happened to me, done by fluke, because Spanish Point at the time was all girls I didn't go to. I would have been ideal for me because I would have been only up the road from year to plan. And I didn't have the Irish fluency that my father had because of being brought up in New York.

So I couldn't go to in a statement. So I went to Flanders, which was great. But Spanish plane was changing from a girls school to a coeducational school. And I've been involved with the football team at home coaching young lads, and we'd want a couple of things. So next thing one. This woman arrived at our front door and says, I'm looking for Martin Morrissey, and I said, oh, come on in, I'm still in college town tonight.

And I knew about the cross, but I figured she was a nun. And I'm looking for Martin. He's very good with young lads coaching them how to play football. And I knew that my father wouldn't have a clue how to coach a team. Just wasn't his thing. And I said, Sister Sealevel, I think you're looking for me, so I can't be you're too young. And I said, well, I'm only 19 or 20, whatever it was.

Anyway, the bottom line was she gave me I was going to go back to do my medicine again, but I, I was finishing my shift. So in August she was in August, she asked me what I teach the month of September p no qualification whatsoever, of course. Yeah.

And I said, well so when I was up there for the month of September for Sister Baptist got sick, who was turned out to be a great friend of mine and and I had to take her leaving her classes. So I thought biology. And instead of she said, will you do to the end of September due to the end of October? And I stay at three and half years because I was enjoying it so much. So I never went back to college.

And then I just started doing matches in the back of a tractor trailer. And anyway, here we are talking to you now, if you know what I mean, because you never I didn't plan it.

That's no time to say no. No.

Could you ever have anticipated getting to where you are now? No. As a broadcaster and as like an icon. And I know that that might feel like an embarrassing thing to hear. But you like the effect that you have on people and the adoration that people have for you. It's like next level.

Well, thank you for saying that. But I mean, is that your true feelings now?

Man, that is a fact. It's a fact. No, no, thank you. I mean, I'm flattered, but look, I love people. I've always loved people. I mean, I'm pretty good at sending an email, and that's about it. But I am interested in people. I always have been, you know, and and I'm privileged to have gotten where I've gotten because I didn't think it was ever going to happen. But I'm so lucky that it has happened.

And I feel fortunate because literally I mean, I know it's well known that I started at the back of a tractor and trailer in back. And you never think when you're on a tractor and trailer and come back in October of that year, did you would ever be in Croke Park doing an All Ireland Herzlinger football final? You'd say this is a thousand miles away.

And I replied, I remember. Well, I started with a guy called Pascha, Brooks and Ennis.

And like when I was asked to do it, I'll never forget it. It was a Saturday night and Patrick Galván was the postman and post office man in quilting. He says, I'm thinking about doing a video piece is October 27th, 1984. I tell you, I not on the second episode. I'm no good in debt. And I said, Patrick, not a whole. I'd be competent. I'm never done. I don't even like the sound of my own voice.

Yeah, I said I've listened to it because it wasn't part of my agenda. Yeah. He says, look, it's Canaria, Britain versus Milton.

You're teaching Spanish, you're teaching in the parish of Milton. You know the boy. So so nobody's going to buy it. And I was a fanatic, but I said it'll be awful asplen power and God be good to him.

As Patrick Murray asked Joe McCarthy, ask all the lads at home came back to me at half eleven and said none of them will do it. So they always say afterwards, as a result of their refusal, they made me stop.

Yeah, it could have been me.

I hear it every Christmas when I'm at home. And I said, OK, I go down, it's down. I went. But my crowd are such a great quotes like in Dubek at a time there was just a slight embankment slight, so there was no place to do the game from a height. So John Jerilyn and make a and I don't know who else was well but they drove a tractor and trailer from our parish. Don't come back for four or five miles and put up sheet to galvanize around because it was October and plastic sheet all over it to protect us from the rain.

And that's when I did my first met. And that was on, it was my it was my birthday, October 28. That's why I remember I remembered otherwise.

And and were you bitten by a bug then? I wasn't.

I wasn't because I was mortified because then the video VHS tape was then shown up in the hole in ah in the pub in quickly that we used to have and I think people were charged fifty pence that was to pay Pascola because I was getting absolutely nothing. And I went back to Mary Kate Galván Copulatory Patrick's wife, and she said you should apply to to your great you know. Yeah. Look, no judgment whatsoever. Yeah. And I loved her father.

She supported me all the time.

So I left it in and two weeks later Pascha rang me, says we've got a big gig. And I said, it has to be we're doing the monster club HanTing final in Perlis in Simple Stadium.

So I went back from I went from my first game in a tractor trailer and done back to my second game in Simple Stadium. And that's when I got the bob.

Yeah. And. The beauty of it was that when we went to Thurles, Pascoal myself hit the nightclub and he did shift and around that time.

And so your very first your very first all Ireland in Croke Park. When was that?

That was, I think, 2012. It was Mehul, my one of my heroes, I, I suppose three major heroes in broadcasting. I loved Ka'bah. I love Keber. I just uploaded tons of that. And I love Mihajlo Hair because he was the first voice I heard in New York. Yes, because my father used quote, I've told the story before. I opened a fire escape with the long antenna, trying to get me holler here on the first Sunday in September or the third Sunday as it was.

And so me hall. And then we had everything, I mean, like magic. So we had to be tired. And the first final I did was on the radio. I think Tom McKissic was with me and that was 2012. So that's eight years ago now. So ever since I read that on radio or TV for the last couple of years, what is it like to be in Croke Park with the stadium full?

Do you get nervous? I do that very first kind of intro you do when you're in your new apartment in New York or if you're innocent. I get goose bumps head to toe, but I just can't imagine how a magic atmosphere to do it.

Thank you very much, Daryn. Good afternoon. Just in case you're walking on Fifth Avenue in New York, jogging around the carnation, Abu Dhabi late on late night dining in Abuja in Tokyo are just chilling out a long street in Cape Town, South Africa. Let me tell you, this is Croke Park on the north side of Dublin City in September for 2016. We are calling out to you from the seventh floor on what is known as the Hogan stand tall.

Corkman don't know Kucik three times smaller than medalist's and clear selecter is standing right beside me to the left and then stand on hill six is full. No seats available across the way in the queues extend and to my right. Every seat has been sold out for a week. At the end, there is no venue in the world right now. There, there's over eighty two thousand people gathered in what is undoubtedly one of the greatest stadiums in the world.

Can you hear the voices? Can you hear the band march across the green field of GM headquarters for thirty one years? Behind the scene, Prendergast car leads the men for Kilkenny Black no jerseys clinging to their muscular bodies to their immediate left and fifteen Tipperary soldiers hurdlers Hurleys felt firmly in their grasp, but Captain Brendan from embarrassedly leading them into yet another battle with Kokanee. 2016 has already been a remarkable year. On the international stage, the music world lost David Bowie and Prince in sport.

The greatest of all. Muhammad Ali passed away, and he, too, graced this fabulous Croke Park Arena. On July 19, 1972, the G lost the brilliant handball Michael Doxie Waltz and two former presidents Jacques Blueprint for Wicklow and Joe McDonagh, who sang The West awake after his County Galway won the all Ireland hurling title on this very day. Thirty six years ago, we remembered them all today and the many volunteers from the world who have passed away.

But they left a legacy of love and affection. While the world changes, some things in Ireland never change. Back here in Croke Park, the parade continues its Tipperary versus Kokanee. But there is one change. Whoever wins this gets an all out in the middle with a special added inscription, 1916 2016 to celebrate the centenary of the Irish Rising. Listen to the noise. Listen to the heartbeat of the people of Ireland, all Ireland hurling Funday. Should it be, in my humble opinion, a national holiday?

I've said it before, but I want to say it again. If you had to leave home because of unemployment or you just wanted to see the world, don't feel left out because you are with us today in spirit and in mind, we are thinking of you. We are Irish and we are family. I know Tanizaki from Jenkintown to Kilkenny is listening in Perth, Australia, Damien Ireland, Kokanee here beside the pool and Zahrani by Patrick Murphy from Cork is in York, Maine.

USA Stephen Callahan. Paul Kaiji from Nina are listening to us in Hanoi, Vietnam. Hello to John Reaney in Cape Town, South Africa. Michael Dwyer is enjoying the sunshine in Maui, Hawaii. Jerry Birmingham is tuning in from the Czech Republic, filea English speakers with the Irish Defense Forces and listening to the wireless in the Golan Heights, Syria. We salute you and your colleagues for what you're doing for peace around the world. Vivian Doyle is in Chicago, Illinois.

Derek Wright has found Archie Radio One in the four Congo village in Mozambique. Hello, Derek. Neeve Burke is in Melbourne, Australia, and so too is Stevie Kelly. Eddie Morgan is in Tasmania while Sean Hayes and Kate MacDonald are in Muscat, Oman. Good morning. Afternoon or evening to each and every one of you.

Well, you know, you're waiting for Jackie Hurley or Darren Farrell or whoever it is to hand over to. Yeah, that's that's the last couple of minutes. He's saying, I hope I don't make a mess of this. You never do. Well, thanks for doing what I have to. Thank you.

But it is nerve tingling and I knew why I did that opening when it was radio, because radio is is the best medium of all, as you know. I don't care. I know we do TV, both of us. We're lucky enough to be doing it. But radio is a you can paint pictures. You can imagine what it's like, like when you do your impersonations with DI, I think to die, you know what I mean.

Yeah. And I love it when you saw it in him because he's a friend of mine by the way.

And I saw him every chance you get, any time I meet him, he says, thanks for taking the piss out of me. It means I'm relevant.

Yeah, he's great.

But yeah. So now you have you know, you don't realize. You don't realize what. Sorry, I want to go back to what I was trying to say. Yes. Why I did that kind of opening in my thought was he was going back to that little boy in New York watching my father and my father coming, you know, to the fourth floor, fire escape, crying. I said, what's wrong with you? I remember this is a child.

Are you all right? That I know. I am. I am. But God, I love to be in and I love and I said Prashar klavern even playing. I said, Claire will never get that because of the time that it would never get. Yeah, but I always think of what it was like for the diaspora and what it means to be in South Korea or Dubai. And this is their day as much it is for the countries involved.

So literally it was very funny. I thought I'd put some bullet points together in my head. So I put up on Twitter, where will you be watching or listening to the all island hurling final on next Sunday? Right. And the first one back in my kitchen. Why?

I said thank you for that. That's not what I meant. You were going for gold like that?

Yes, I wanted Singapore, but you're the only Irish person ever in Singapore to listen to the tweeter, Twitter in a nutshell. Yeah. Yeah. So I said, where in the world?

Like the quiz. Yeah. Years ago, the truth, the lawyers.

Where in the world will you be watching or listening to the match? And suddenly the floodgates open my emotional thinking about it. So then I got I must have gotten about a 100, 150, and I had to kind of swim with the Irish Army and the Defense Forces. And there were loads there was another fellow from the Sahara and he got got a signal like there was just it just shows you. And sometimes sometimes I think people don't fully appreciate what it's like that, OK, Christmas is special and I am part of the Christmas special.

Oh, I am the Christmas. Yeah.

So Christmas is special, but the other day that's important for the vast majority of people is the I'm hurling and football final day.

What are your countries involved.

Not to hear the crowd roar, to hear the band starting up and away they go, like I dreamt as a little boy that one day I'd marched behind the band. I didn't want to be. I never even thought about broadcasting. I just wanted to be in Croke Park with my Clare jersey on. I was good enough to play to represent my country, not what I was going to say. Did I come to that? But it was yeah, it is special to answer your question and but I read the player reached out was because I was one of those I was one of those little children that listened and got indoctrinated or not the word indoctrinate but just fell in love with the people of Ireland and what our games means to people because our games are special.

I mean, I'm I know I'm a mad lunatic of a German, but I do believe that whether it is ladies, football, Kamogawa, Gaelic football, hurling every parish, there is a team and every community is involved. And we saw during covid, my God, the response was just that was emotional. That was overwhelming.

Like in my it's been narrowed down Kanamori a Brickner mealtime and we are the greatest arrival's. Yeah, but when covid arrived they were giving each other's numbers. So Milton that and Cumulous would bring her own messages to people like that's, that's the G. You know, the mean rivalry was gone and it was like it used to be really bad years ago, but it's not. No, we're great pals. Yeah, but you know what I mean. And that was replicated all over the country.

I know. I know. Fantastic. I was chatting to the two Johnnys.

I saw him and I'm a wreck. I'm a total lump in my throat. Here it is that. But what I was watching the most women cried.

No, no. But I was watching it at the weekend.

Limerick and Waterford. And listen to your intro. It was. It was. Yes, it was Christmas time. It was. And the diaspora. But it was also covered. It was all of that was in my mind as you were doing that intro.

And thank you for mentioning. But I was I didn't want to overdo it because there's nobody there. Yeah, I know. I know. You know, I remember in my head, I said you could be dolled up with nowhere to go in New York. Oh, you could be in your pajamas in Sydney.

Yeah. Yeah, you know what I mean. Yeah, we're here. We've made it to this part and I didn't want to go glory, glory, hallelujah. I don't want to because it wasn't that. I know. I know. It was a different vibe. Yeah. Yeah. But the sorry. The Sudanese were saying they're on the committee for their their club. All right. Yeah. And they said it was great because because I covered the committee meetings are way short.

They meet outside now the committee meetings could go on for three hours and we are just delighted to be kind of, you know, having the chats with people that thank God they're going to be charged because you just stand outside and do them anyway.

OK, Marty, the person you always laugh with, um, that's a good question.

Um, I suppose I have a good friend, David Punch, Dave Punch to tie up what I said earlier.

That punch played with Limerick and he played in nineteen eighty all owned or eighty one.

I learned early.

Fine but Dave Punch played in the Monster Club Final four Patric's well that I commentated on my second match against six my bridge loan Thurles and I met David and then we became great pals and for the last 16, 17 years he's done the stats sitting beside me at all the games and we've great laughs because David is a bit, you know, he's a bit different, is a unique kind of an individual.

You know, he's a different perspective in life, you know, but it's very soft, very just a really decent human being.

And we have we've great fun take the piss out of each other, basically, you know, and we've become great pals. Brendan, which is a good friend of mine now the stage. And he's also a bit of centric, I think that I'm attracted to people a little bit off and. Delete that delete, I wonder why. I mean, they say it takes one to know one. Yeah, well, that's true. That's true. But, um, I didn't know Bernard until Dancing with the Stars, but, you know, his sense of humor.

I enjoy a laugh, like, you know, our friendship. Yeah. Yeah. So I enjoy that kind of. So, like, if you want to have a laugh with maybe be two of the people that I would have a great laugh with, you know. OK, Marty.

A time where you had the last laugh time I had with the last laugh.

Well, you know, the babe when I was 15, I got but four years later, we hit it off when I was 19 or 20.

Wow. What can I say?

What happened? Did you put in a draft or did she come out like. No? Well, I wouldn't say she came crawling back now, apparently, but I kind of improved. Right. Right. Dressed a little bit better. A bit more swagger. Yeah. But it's like, you know, a bit of deodorant, you know. Nice to shave. The spice was gone. Oh. So, yeah, we've become great friends and we're great friends.

Oh yeah.

Oh yeah. Oh you said we come back to her after. So you're good pals. Oh yeah. Can you reveal the name. Absolutely not. Her name is Darryl.

Oh my goodness. That's it. That's the answer to the question.

Answer the questions. Lovely. Well, it wasn't the last laugh we had. We just had a great laugh over it, to be fair. OK, no, no, no, no. We had great we just had a great fun. And she apologized profusely. She realized she made a mistake. Guess she she she never said that. But I'm saying it on the radio. So it's on record. It's on record. Perfect. Yeah. OK, Marty, if laughter it wasn't the best medicine, what will be.

Um, I would definitely say hitting a couple of haystacks.

You know what? We had a fantastic night and face jacks one time. We did after the VIP awards. We did. And you dropped us home and everything I did, we went to the chipper.

We did. We went to the gym where we went on. It was Camden Street was Camden.

We went down a dark alley. But we did actually.

Yeah, because it was John and it was a baby. Yeah. You're now brother in law and your sister still you you make this on the two of us as a result of this conversation, probably pointed to some chipper.

And I must say, I think you were doing your impersonations then, which I didn't know at the time, but you were just I said brilliant, you know, and now everybody knows I'm so sad because I usually the name of that place would be on the tip of my tongue.

But it's been so long. It's a place that has a brilliant chips beside it. How did you decide to where we were? Oh, yeah.

It's a party in their houses. Babylon, Babylon, Babylon. It's like a disco chipper. Yeah, that's right. Yeah. There was there were hopping all over the place. The music was great. Yeah.

Babylon and obviously everyone's saying hello to you. I meant to ask you about this. How is that. I mean, you know what, it's such because people often ask me because people often say hello to me a night out or whatever and kind of say, hey, do you find it?

I love it because it of course, it's like, look, it could be so much worse. They could be coming up Saints Stadium.

But are there other times where you kind of go, know, I just have a meal now and no one said, oh, no, no, no.

To be fair, I've always appreciated the people like the positive feedback I get is great.

Yeah, we want to be loved. We want to be liked. That's why we're in it. That's why we're doing what we do, because we go above the parapet so that we could really love her, you know.

So yeah, no, I've always appreciated and I'm always I suppose it was very funny. There was always a sports thing and you got to a match and you're kept busy. Yeah. And it was the selfie kind of thing had started when, you know, the late 90s or whatever nineties and you had little boys and girls and they're so like when I would meet my hero, I knew what it was like, you know, to me, of course, that I would see and, you know, somewhere I wouldn't go near me, but I just thank God I got to know him afterwards.

But like kids nowadays, they have the phone and they know how to turn the angle bang photo door.

So, no, I don't consider it an inconvenience. The only thing is that I was concerned as couverture Unkovic. I know, because when you go out, I'm inclined now to stand a little bit because I don't want to be putting them in a position. And I started this thing are pointing to two fingers at people, but it was mainly to say, have a bit of fun.

Yeah, but keep your distance.

Stay back, stay back for two meters. How we both get into deep, deep trouble and the kids won't stop pointing the fingers as well. So it became a thing that stuck. But it was funny actually during dancing. Yes.

Dancing is a whole new ballgame, isn't it? I swear to God, they're what? It opens you up. It opens up. And I have genuinely hundreds of letters of kids who who wrote to me from schools and everything. I remember doing a match last year, beginning of this year before covid. Really? Bovin Omer. Yes. And I walk from where the commentary position was around the back to the girls because I was doing the Post match interviews on the second.

You know, we often overlap, and there were these little boys playing football behind the girls and they set up Marty and I thought, first of all, when you're in Almar, you think nobody will know you up here.

I don't know why you think that. You know, you think you're another. Yeah, but anyway, up Marty, how are you? And I do a lot of little boys now, and I'm Quran's. Not too bad. We could take a selfie with us. I'd be delighted. Yeah, no problem. That's what they all came around. This is before Colvert now and so we could do a few steps for us.

You're a great dancer. And it was the dancing more than the football, you know what I mean?

Yes. Yeah, that's what they said. Oh yes. Yeah, it was. It breaks down all barriers. And yeah, I must say it was one of the best things I ever did was to do.

But it's such a happy life. There's no you know, it's just pure fun. Yeah. Did you love it. Oh, I loved it. Oh absolutely.

I remember Ksenya myself saying we get to program nine.

I said we will be lucky to get to program too. But the way we're dancing. Which one did you get to get to program? It was bad.

It's very good. It's not bad. Kind of the quarterfinals of the championship. And we were I mean, I've had Christiansburg Berg on the radio with me, but I am selgin off lady in Red Riding a red.

Yeah. It was the song there that was being played when I got the P45 flip and I danced it rather well, but obviously I didn't get the votes. But I, I mean, I love Christopher Walken, I love song but it's just. Yeah it was, it was the greatest experience. I remember I met Cassandra for the first time at the end of November and we were taking photographs, so I didn't know her at all. But we came out.

Yeah. And the lads, the dancers and the competitors, Rob Heffalump Guereca I love Rob and Jake and Bernard and TMOS. Timothy Leary was your coolness personified. He was so laid back he was horizontal, you know what I mean.

And but we meet for lunch, we'd all be training in different rooms and then we'd meet for lunch and they'd had the professional dancers would have water and let us just raw carrots. Hi. I'm like yeah I'm starving. So here was I would buy a can of coke. You give me a toasted. Absolutely. Chips, sweet chili. And so after a week or two I kind of had I'm embarrassed by this. I'm going to I'm going to have to go with them.

And was more or less that kind of peer pressure. Right, that I actually give up. And I lost a stone half. It was amazing, though. Yeah, that's good. Put it back on.

OK, Marty, are you ready for your quickfire round now? OK, the actor that you always laugh at.

I always laugh at Hugh Grant. Oh, jolly good. Very good, sir. Yeah.

We haven't had that before I left. OK, the actress. You always appart. Yeah. The actress I fancy. Oh go on. Jennifer Aniston.

You got to. I'll take your question and I'll turn it on.

Is it good. Oh she's actually funny isn't she.

She's not bad. OK, the movie you always laugh at. Um I love, uh, Police Academy. Lovely Beverly Hills cop. Great. I love that music. And Beverly Hills cop.

You're your favorite comedian. Has to be Bernard or Cher because he's got to listen to the podcast.

Yeah. Why don't I put on a burner bra after that? Love Tommy Turner. Yeah. Yeah.

And finally, Marty. Yes. Your best or worst joke Chipper's. My worst. Our best joke. Let me think about that.

Now, that's a good one. And this is a tough one because I haven't got I've got great. You've plenty.

There was a fella walking, there was fella driving along the road and he saw a sign that says for sale talking dog.

So I said I never heard of a talking dog. So anyway, so he said he pulled in a lot by talking dog. So he went into your man and your man said, if you're talking, don't get over talking dog for sale. And what does he say? Shook it all down. Have a chat with him.

She man went home and I said, Can you talk?

Of course I can. I'm a talking dog, Seamap.

And I told him anyway that what he's doing is just, you know, for a little while I was in London work for the MI5.

Then I came back and I work for the Special Branch, but then they cut me outside. So I just, you know, I wouldn't work for them. And I'm here since. And I see a man went back into the fellow who was selling your dog is really amazing.

He says he worked for them, MI5 and Special Branch, and he's not a liar.

Thank you for laughing at that. Oh, my Mike.

Marty Morrissey during. Gary, thank you so much for sharing the last of your life. Thank you for having me here and for being my Christmas special. So let's be honest.

Do you still love me more than I did before they go? Good night and happy Christmas. Thank you for listening to the last of your life with Marty Morrissey. I hope you enjoyed it. So that brings season four of the podcast to a close. We'll be back in 2021 with a whole bunch of great guests. Until then, they're over 40 episodes of the podcast. You can feast your ears on. As always, thank you so much for listening, liking, subscribing and all those are the things this podcast is brought to you by Collaborative Studios.