There’s people who will still get a call for a chat … I don’t care if that takes me until August
As we exit lockdown, David Brady isn’t quite ready to wrap up his much-lauded initiative of contacting society’s vulnerable members
‘I THINK THAT THE WHOLE COUNTRY BECAME A COMMUNITY’
FOR someone who has spent lockdown reaching out to those cocooning, to those in isolation in need of a lift, or a chat, or a friendly listening ear, there was a certain serendipity in one person making contact with David Brady. It let him know that his offer to talk to anyone out there who wanted a conversation during the pandemic deserved to be recognised in its own right. During quarantine, Brady’s Mayo career had merely been the jumping off point as he offered himself up for a world of conversation about Gaelic football, love, life and loss to those feeling marginalised.
And so, in a neat twist, official correspondence and contact was made with Brady from the office of President Michael D Higgins. He was commended for his ‘inspired initiative’, namely ‘It’s Good to Talk – GAA’. The movement that started with a single phonecall.
‘It was lovely to get,’ he admits. ‘It was an Irish phrase he used, one which resonated with me: “tarraingaíonn scéal scéal eile.”’
One story pulls at, or leads to, another.
‘From the man himself, who is so revered amongst Irish people – it was an honour. It kept me going. It re-incentivised me. Kept me going that this is as important as some people are making out.’
Because, no more than most, he had his own stuff going on when Covid-19 pressed the pause button on normal Irish life in mid-March. Initially, he didn’t say anything to his wife Lisa. This was his way of figuring things out during the pandemic. Of doing something. Not so much a grand gesture as a series of small, important ones.
‘I was working from home with two young kids. The first week or two were mayhem. My wife knows I’m on the phone 24-7 but she didn’t realise herself until… I used to get a few strange looks. “You’re on the phone again?” And the kids going mad outside. I didn’t say anything at the outset until a few weeks into it.’
So did she think it strange that her husband was talking to all these random people with two young children to be occupied?
Brady laughs. ‘She knows it always comes back to GAA, to football. Once she realised it was something I was purposeful on, passionate about…’
He had no idea then of the chain reaction it would spark, inspiring the likes of Kerry legend Bomber Liston and Dublin’s Alan Brogan to follow suit. Convincing whole counties like Donegal, Monaghan, Cavan, and Leitrim to embrace the initiative and embrace their own most vulnerable supporters at such a fraught time.
There was a sense that, having been the subject of TG4’s Laochra
Gael, his appearance was key to turning the lock on many of the hundreds of conversations he has had since. His personal story seemed to touch so many people – a life with faith, football and family at the heart of it all.
‘I was blown away by it (the reaction). I was very honest. I opened up in Laochra Gael. And plenty of people I was talking to mentioned, “Oh I watched the programme” or “I loved the Laochra Gael”, and I think that probably broke down a barrier in our conversations. That I’m an open, honest person. Which allowed for the expansive conversation. My story was about life, family and sport. Ninety-nine per cent of us have been on that journey. It’s not about lining out or losing All-Ireland finals, it’s about the context of what it means. The good and great days. The memories. I was transported back to great days and great memories.
‘Probably only one or two of the people I talked to ever played. But it was the journey, the fun. Like, “I went to the game with this fella. We travelled the highways and byways. I went to an All-Ireland final in 1951. As an 18-year-old. On my own. Stayed in a house that this woman knew. These were great times”.
‘It wasn’t about them competing between the lines. Let no one think that you’re special between the lines.’
THIS isn’t really about David Brady. That’s abundantly clear over the course of a conversation that hums with his trademark energy.
His first words capture his personality, when asked how he is coping now that the country is exiting lockdown. ‘I’m all good. As the man says, “I’m like Nelson Mandela, the
Long Walk to Freedom”.
The hashtag #GoodToTalkGAA started after a simple conversation with Tom, an elderly Mayo supporter, exiled in Wicklow. A man who his son felt needed some cheer and sent a Twitter request to Brady, who picked up the phone and started his own movement.
On Mayo Day, he chatted with Paddy Prendergast, 94 years old and domiciled in Tralee, the last surviving member of the last Mayo team to bring the Sam Maguire Cup back, in 1951.
When he started around Easter weekend, people were looking for meaning, for a meaningful way to help or do something. Now, with restrictions set to further ease on June 29, and the opening up of GAA club pitches, not to mention pubs, sure to add some sense normality to Irish life, is he ready to wrap up?
‘There is nobody that deserves a call that won’t get one. I still have a list – and I’m working through it constantly. At the outset, I had a lot more time. Some days I was making seven or eight calls. Other days, two or three and trying to work it in between everything else.
‘I have a list – thankfully it’s a lot smaller than what it was. But yeah, there’s people who will still get a phonecall for a chat and I don’t care if that takes me until August.’
For months now, he’s been dialling numbers that have been passed, regularly negotiating time zones.
‘It’s like the hundreds and thousands – it’s sprinkled all over the world, all over the country. North and south of the border. It started out in the context of the Mayo link. That soon evaporated to a GAA link. That probably soon evaporated to just people who were isolating, cocooning, and were just that bit isolated.
‘Because we were all isolated to a degree that last three months. I’ve gone from time zones to Asia, America, England, Ireland.
‘One person was in Singapore,
they actually got out of Singapore and were in Thailand. The contact was made to me – “A friend of ours is GAA to the core, living, working over in Singapore and feels cut off totally from the world”. The person went to Thailand where it wasn’t as strict. Just got out before I made the phonecall.
‘I’d say 99.9 per cent of the calls were to people in their 60s, 70s, 80s and 90s. That was one of the few younger people, in their 40s. They didn’t know the call was coming. I asked for some information on the people to get an insight. And then said, yes, I’ll make that call. I made sure it was over WhatsApp rather than paying by the minute!
‘One or two rare calls to people who weren’t in their 60s, 70s, 80s and 90s, I would say they were emotionally fragile coming into it. The circumstances just made them more fragile. They hadn’t had good days over their lifetime – which a lot of people don’t. It was pointed out to me, “Goes through a hard time. Sometimes feels very down. Would you call?”
‘There was one call I did make – I won’t mention his name. In Roscommon. It probably was beneficial to him. I actually only got a text from him last night about some game that was on. I’ve been over and back in contact with text. Throwing me some unbelievable facts on GAA. I don’t see that as taking up my time.’
The most powerful aspect? Conversations have quickly ranged beyond the territory of Gaelic football and sport to life lessons, though sport is obviously the theme.
‘The hook is sport. And the context is GAA. But I’ve had conversations with people and they kind of feel bad at the end that we haven’t talked GAA – “Jaysus we never talked about GAA at all. I wasn’t great at it myself.”
‘This was one specific one. I talked to a man for over an hour and a half. We went through his life – or he did. It was a great learning lesson for me, this person’s life. The trials and tribulations. This was a bachelor. Eighty-one years of age. It was his niece that contacted me. He said, “She’s my best friend”.
‘I never initiated the talk about good times and bad times – he brought me on that journey. He retired as a schoolteacher after 41 years. He opened up to me and said he found it very, very hard. Found it hard to comprehend life after he retired because he knew nothing else.
‘He told me stories about pupils – I just knew he loved what he did. But he found it hard adapting. He said, “What you’re doing for me today is an exact example of what I needed. I needed to talk. I needed to open up. And I did talk to someone. I did seek help. Because I was in a very dark place.”
‘It was just part of life and the road he took. And now he’s grasping life – as the man says, “If he had three hands he’d grasp it with three hands”. It was just a nice conversation about life.’
Brady is fine-tuned to the emotional weight of things. That shone true in his TG4 tribute.
But it’s not something the Irish male, particularly in the 21st century, has been comfortable doing. Talking about the weight of things. Particularly to other men.
‘No. We haven’t been comfortable doing that and it’s definitely caught me off guard.
‘It’s the greatest lesson I learned as someone in my mid-40s. The value of conversation has for some people not been to the fore of what we are as a people or as a community or as a culture. A lot of what I did was listen.
‘I had a pretext of what people were about before I made the call on the back of people reaching out and giving me some information.
‘People have had bad days. We all have. We’re all under the one umbrella. And that umbrella has cast shadows on us all.
‘We talk about old people. People in their 60s, 70s, 80s, 90s. The wealth of experience they have. A lot of setbacks. But they didn’t let it cloud their positivity when I had conversations with them.’
FOR a long time now he has been involved in his day job in the pharma sector, working for Amgen Ireland, which produces oncology and hematology medicines.
The area of medical science has been to the forefront during the pandemic, informing how we’re going to live in the future. Was it a motivation, even subconsciously, for what he was doing as the country gains a new appreciation for front-line workers, for science, and the medical health frontier?
‘I have worked in the area of oncology the last 10 years. I’m about to start a new job next Monday week. I’m going working for Novartis Ireland oncology. My role there is communications and advocacy. What it is is trying to relate is the message of medicines and science and advancement. Every HSE worker, be it front line or intensive care or a hospital porter – I’ve always had the utmost respect for them.
‘Novartis Ireland will be to the fore of cutting-edge medicines and everything else, which is vital. Where they fit in the treatment paradigm of illnesses, viruses, or cancers. But it’s still about people. For me, the human touch that I was afforded to reach out to people. That’s still vital. A major part of what medicine is.’
Cocooning is a nice, gentle phrase. But the over-70s were shut off from society, and he was conscious of that. ‘Parents, grandparents, aunts, uncles – and neighbours. To recognise people who were cut off. We’re all cut off – but conversation is a great compass.
It can show you where life is. Where people are. Where humanity is.
‘For something we’ve never seen in our lifetime. I hope to God we never see anything like it again from an overall effect on the whole world. I come from the west of Ireland. We’re very communityspirited. I think the whole of the country became a community.’
The note from Michael D Higgins is testament to that.
The night after we talked, Garda Colm Horkan was shot dead. A tragedy that sends shock waves out far beyond the GAA community of Mayo and his club Charlestown.
‘A dark cloud hangs over our country this morning after events in Castlerea last night. My heart goes out to the Guard’s family, Community and Colleagues. RIP.’
Brady’s online message joins the river of tributes that flow from all corners.
That same morning, President Higgins poignantly described the death of a garda on duty as a blow to us all.
As if to underpin that sense, as Brady put it, of the whole country becoming a community.