Love of the game
David Sneyd on Dubliner Luke Kelly’s passion for football
JOHN GILES is softly humming the words to try and jog his memory of the song’s name. ‘“Time to be getting your pit boots on…” ‘You know the one,’ he says. ‘“Time you were learning the pitman’s job and earning the pitman’s pay…” ‘You know it, about the mother telling her son about getting to work and earning the few bob for the family,’ Giles continues, before instantly continuing what seemed to be the end of the sentence. ‘School Days Over. That’s it!’ he exclaims victoriously.
‘I loved when Luke sang that. I’d never be cheeky enough to try and do a duet with him, I’d sing along with everyone else in the room, or sometimes you would only listen to him. I’m not a mad music man but Luke was more than that,’ Giles continues. ‘He was an amazing man, a curious man about many things – politics, society – he was an intelligent man. Some of us footballers might not have been the brightest, but Luke loved his football. He absolutely loved it.’
As if his credentials needed validation, the last match Luke Kelly attended before succumbing to a brain tumour aged 44 on January 30, 1984, was the previous year’s Leinster Senior Cup final between St Patrick’s Athletic and Drogheda United with his friend and renowned sports writer Con Houlihan.
‘That night at Tolka Park we embraced when the final whistle blew and shed a few tears. Luke is an immortal — the world is the better for his presence,’ Houlihan wrote as part of an obituary.
‘I never heard him talk about any one English club. It was the game that he loved, and he would often go up to Tolka Park, stay at the back out of the way and watch a game without any fuss,’ younger brother John, now 73, says.
But Luke Kelly, of course, was comfortable being centre of attention, too. He was a mainstay of the post-match parties Giles would insist on throwing – whether home or away – during his time as Republic of Ireland player-manager during the 1970s.
‘Ray Treacy was into the traditional Irish music and Luke was a big friend of his,’ Liam Brady recalls. ‘He would come to most matches and often travel abroad for our games. John [Giles] liked to have a party after every international and Luke would always be there to sing when he could. I loved most of his songs but Dublin In The
Rare Auld Times is my favourite. Paddy Reilly, a big friend of Luke’s, would also be there and also some of the lads from the Wolfe Tones.’
Far from some sort of vacuous hanger-on, Kelly was the star attraction, whether it was in the bar of Shamrock Rovers’ old Milltown ground, where the party took off after Brady made his Ireland debut against the USSR at Dalymount Park in 1974, or for the return game during Euro 76 qualifying, where the committed socialist with Communist leanings travelled to Kiev along with the team.
‘He was giving out to the soldiers with the guns, telling them, “Who do you think you are, why don’t you put them away”,’ Eoin Hand, whose close friendship with Luke began in a barn in Swindon during the early 1960s, laughs.
‘When he died, I went to see him laying out. It was so sad. He was so popular as a man. His legacy will be there forever because of the songs. Sometimes I go and say hello when I’m back up around Dublin,’ Hand, who went on to play and manage Ireland and now lives in Kerry, continues. ‘Luke had such a profound influence on people. He was so strong in his beliefs, his generosity. He had no material wants at all. He was anti-establishment but in his own honest way.
‘He loved everybody who played football, and the ironic thing is he would have loved to do what I was doing as a footballer with Ireland and I would have loved to have done what he was doing. I still have my five-string banjo which I started playing because of him.’
Long before those heady days at the height of The Dubliners’ fame, Luke and Giles were foes in the Dublin and District Schoolboy League during the mid-1950s. The latter was the gifted starlet of Stella Maris’ midfield, the former a wholehearted centre half with rivals Home Farm.
‘We were the same age, we played against each other at 14 and 15, and even then he looked big and imposing with his red hair. To look at him you would think he would be rough, but I remember he was gentle on the pitch,’ Giles says.
Luke’s former team-mate Billy Dixon, who himself went on to have a distinguished League of Ireland career, adds: ‘Luke may have been gentle, but he could handle himself when he had to.’
Giles also made quite the impression on Luke, with his sister Bessie recalling in Des Geraghty’s 1994
book, Luke Kelly: A Memoir, how he once returned to their home on Sheriff Street in thrall at the future Ireland legend’s ability. ‘I have a clear memory of him telling my father he’d played against a fellow named Johnny Giles who was definitely going to go places.’
And Giles certainly did go places – to Manchester United in 1956. Two years later, Luke went to the Isle of Man before working in various cities around England as a labourer and, in Newcastle, as a vacuum cleaner salesman. Before he emigrated aged 17, football remained a central part of his life. Luke was one of the thousands packed into Dalymount for Ireland’s World Cup qualifier with England in May 1957 when Tom Finney’s late cross for John Atyeo produced the equaliser which ensured they qualified ahead of Ireland.
‘At a Dubliner’s gig in Preston, Tom Finney actually went along and wanted to meet the band,’ Geraghty reveals. ‘And Luke told his brother Paddy (who earned an international cap with the Republic of Ireland Under-15s) that when he was introduced to him he said, “I’ll never forgive you, you b ***** d, for what happened in Dalymount”.’
Life in Dublin was both grim and joyous in the 1950s. Kelly had several jobs after leaving school at 13, one of which was for a wine merchants and he had a particularly galling experience at Lansdowne Road. ‘I remember having to carry a crate of bottles across the pitch during a schools’ rugby match and wishing the ground would swallow me,’ he said in a 1971-interview used in Geraghty’s memoir. ‘I was so embarrassed… It was degrading.’
Through it all was his love of football, which Kelly developed from his father. ‘We come from a big soccer family,’ John explains. ‘Our Dad, also Luke, worked for Jacobs and was a defender for them in the Irish Free State League of Ireland (the precursor to the League of Ireland), so soccer was always the game he loved to play. There wasn’t one specific team he supported, he loved the game,’ John continues, with Geraghty adding: ‘Luke would play GAA in school, that was the official game allowed because of the ban on foreign games, and soccer would be on the street, and in those days the guards would often try to stop you.’
It is obvious where Luke Jnr developed his sense of adventure, as his father would often clock off work and decide to swim home to the North Wall from Butt Bridge at Liberty Hall. On one occasion he was arrested and, as described in Geraghty’s memoir, the headline in the papers read: ‘Well-known footballer arrested for suicide attempt.’
A fire in the family home meant a move to Whitehall, one of the new northern suburbs, something which affected Luke greatly.
He and his sister Mona would make trips back to Seville Place and St Laurence’s O’Toole for the ceili dances and Irish dancing lessons but friendships were also formed near their new home. .
‘Luke came from Larkhill and I was from Whitehall; less than a mile apart,’ says Brady. ‘He went to Larkhill Primary School with my older brothers. I went to the same school years later. His younger brother John had a big involvement with St Kevin’s Boys, my schoolboy club, so when we met we had much in common.
‘I remember being at a party in Luke’s house when I was on summer break from Arsenal. He was an intelligent and interesting man.
‘To be away from home as a young
He looked big and imposing with his red hair, but I remember he was actually very gentle on the pitch JOHN GILES
To be away from home at such a young age playing football was hard and we identified with The Dubliners LIAM BRADY
I had some of the best times – and nights – of my life with him. It was a privilege that Luke Kelly was our friend PAT JENNINGS
man was hard. We identified with The Dubliners. I would go to see Irish bands like The Dubliners and Wolfe Tones when they played in London. There were seven Irish players in the Arsenal team of the late 70s. Pat Jennings, Pat Rice and Sammy Nelson from the north, and Frank Stapleton, David O’Leary, John Devine and me from Dublin. We would play The Dubliners on the bus after an away win and we would all sing along, even the English!’
It wasn’t just Republic of Ireland players that gravitated towards him. ‘I’m surprised nobody has been in touch with me about him before. I’ve never really had a chance to properly talk about Luke, I can’t believe how quickly the time has gone since we were at his funeral,’ Pat Jennings says, from his home in Hertfordshire where Luke sought refuge for three days following Jennings’ Tottenham Hotspur testimonial in November 1976.
‘He turned up at White Hart Lane totally out of the blue,’ Jennings explains. ‘I was told there was a man in reception who insisted he was a friend of mine and when I got down to see who it was, Luke was standing there smiling, holding his banjo and with his passport in his top pocket. We all went back to the house that night for a sing-song. It felt like we were in the Albert Hall when he sang , although some of the Arsenal lads never forgave me for it because it was off the cuff and they never got the invite.
‘At Arsenal, we made absolutely sure The Dubliners were always played on the team coach. Every away game, up and down the country, going to Cup finals at Wembley, Luke was the voice we listened to.
‘My wife Eleanor and I knew him since about 1965 when she moved over to London after singing with the Hilton Showband all around Ireland. She worked with Phil Coulter, who of course wrote Scorn Not His
Simplicity and was close to Luke,’ Jennings continues. ‘After that night in the house, he stayed with us. He spent time reading the works of JP Priestly, he read and sang songs with my children, who all adored him. Afterwards he told us how much he needed that break. It was a great time. ‘I had some of the best times – and nights – of my life with him,’ Jennings beams. ‘When I was home during the Troubles and he was in Dublin, we would meet for a game of golf by the border in Warrenpoint. Word would go round that he was there and the bar would be full before we knew it. Luke was a great man, a football fanatic. I think he had a desire to be a professional and he adored footballers, but we adored him so much more.
‘The other day my grandson, he’s only two, he picked up one of my records in the house, and I told him, “That’s Luke”. I hope he will listen to him as he grows up. Our whole family has been brought up on The Dubliners and it was such a privilege that Luke was our friend. I’m delighted he is being recognised with these statues.’
President Michael D Higgins will unveil both sculptures; one a life-size bronze piece of Luke sitting while singing and playing the banjo, which will be erected on South King Street; the other a marble portrait head destined for Royal Canal, Guild Street-Sheriff Street.
They will be permanent fixtures of his place in Dublin’s heart, a city which gave him a love of both music and football.