Irish Daily Star - Inside Sport
Ice Cube was just looking at me with his gangsta face
MACAULEY ON HIS DUBS E XIT AND RAPPING IN FRONT OF SUPERSTAR
HE’S in pitch darkness in the place where he’s hunkered down for the night in Sri Lanka due to rolling blackouts across the country.
But the light from his phone helps Michael Darragh Macauley with his task.
He’s talking tattoos. Showing one on one arm he got in Nepal, talking about his plans for his next one.
It will consist of two words. Memento mori.
We’ve shot the breeze for a while over a video call, joking about his “midlife crisis’’ that has seen him traverse the globe the past few months.
Musing on the possibility that he’d have hit the hippy trail to Marrakesh if he’d been born 30 years earlier.
For the first few months, Macauley went travelling with his girlfriend — the Dublin footballer, Sarah McCaffrey.
She went back home at Christmas and he kept going for another while.
Plenty of time to think, and those two words have been going through his mind. Memento mori.
When you’ve been a boarder in Blackrock College, there’s a fair chance that Latin will come into your orbit, and the meaning of that phrase is “remember you have to die’’.
Amazing
“When we were travelling around, I tried to read different books about the different countries we were in,’’ said Macauley.
“I found Nepal amazing, really got into the Hindu and Buddhist culture, as mental breakdowny as that sounds.
“The message that everything is impermanent and you’re going to die resonated with me really well.’’
Dublin are in Kerry today, with questions crowding around him. That was the case when Macauley made his debut, too.
It was the league of 2010, just months after the day of the startled earwigs. Dublin hadn’t won away to Kerry in 28 years. They won that day, though. Macauley was to the fore. A corner was being turned.
There is talk of the Dubs in decline, but Macauley feels his old team will respond the right way.
“It will be an interesting season for them. I think you’ll see a reaction. There’s a lot of hurt from last year.”
Macauley pulled the plug on his own intercounty career in January of last year.
“I was very happy with my exit. There were no regrets. It wasn’t a fairytale finish — I didn’t pull off a Kevin Mac 2011 in my last game,’’ he said.
“But I’m comfortable with the way it finished. It’s all good.’’
When he issued his retirement statement, there was plenty said and written in the media about Macauley and his impact on Dublin — with Joe Brolly writing a particularly colourful column.
This writer contacted Macauley a couple of days later requesting an interview and his response was interesting: “Nah, I’m sick of hearing my name.”
Offers
In the months afterwards, he received plenty more interview requests. There was an offer to write an autobiography, too, and offers of media work.
Macauley turned them all down. That is far from typical.
“The few days afterwards were emotional in terms of the messages I got. It was the messages from players that I played with or against that really got to me,’’ he said.
“There were offers to do things but... I was happy that
what happened within the team stayed with the team. I’ve always had that view.
“I love the idea of having a book, but I don’t see any benefitfrom doing one in terms of where I am in life, to be honest. It just wasn’t for me.’’
Brolly’s column about Macauley contained the claim that he forgot his boots for the 2011 All-Ireland final with Kerry, and had to borrow a pair from manager Pat Gilroy.
But then social-media detectives unearthed photographs of the midfielder wearing the same boots in both the semifinal and final — Brolly ended up getting a bit of heat.
“Joe got awful stick for that, but he just got the wrong game. It’s a completely true story... I shouldn’t really say this, but it actually happened more than once,’’ he said.
“I don’t want to sound like a complete idiot, but I forgot my boots a few times. I had to wear Gilroy’s clogs in an All-Ireland semi-final before, and had to borrow boots for... a more recent big game with Dublin.’’
Advantages
There were advantages to being a Dublin footballer during the most successful period of their history. It opened a few doors.
That’s how he ended up rapping in front of hip-hop superstar Ice Cube.
“Some girl from a PR agency knew that I like hip-hop and they had Ice Cube and Kevin Hart in town,’’ he said.
“I’ve never told this story in public before... it’s a great story.
“We went to the Google
HQ and met Ice Cube and
Kevin Hart, which was pretty cool. There weren’t many people around, not much security, and I’d smuggled a speaker in.
“We were shooting the breeze for a while, then I hit play on the speaker and Ice Cube’s ‘Check Yo Self’ came blasting out.
“I started rapping along: ‘So come on and chick-ity-check yo self, before you wreck yo self, check, check, you betta check yo self’.
Ice Cube was just looking at me with this gangsta face. I was thinking, ‘Oh, shit’.
“Kevin Hart then came in and
goes, ‘That was my jam when I was 17’.
These kind of stories add to the perception that Macauley was a free spirit who just ambled along through a football career.
But, in Bernard Brogan’s autobiography, it’s made clear that he was one of the driving forces of the Dublin team — on and off the field.
Targeted
On Laochra Gael on TG4 recently, Macauley revealed that he targeted winning the Footballer of the Year award in 2013, something that he went on to achieve.
He won that award. He also won two All-Stars, eight AllIrelands, 10 Leinsters and five leagues, and an All-Ireland club title with Ballyboden St Enda’s.
Only a handful of players have ever come close to his haul.
You don’t do that if you’re not
deadly serious about the game.
“Anyone that knows me knows how competitive I am. Maybe I was just able to compartmentalise things better than some,’’ he said.
“I understand that there’s that contradiction between the way I am and the way I’m perceived.
“Your goalposts change. At the start, you’re on the Hill and think you’d love to get called up. Then you want to start a game, then to finish a game, then to win a Leinster...
“No one sets out to win eight All-Irelands. You don’t put a number on what could happen.
“It’s why Gaelic footballers answer questions so boringly. They just talk about the next game. You have to be wired into that ‘next game’ mantra.
“I know the Dublin team are the masters of talking like that, but that’s just the way it is.”