‘It’s upsetting when you’re young if you can’t read or write, it’s really obvious...’
Decorated Tipperary hurler, teacher and author Paddy Stapleton went through his own struggles at school and is now driven to help future generations
LIFE lessons. Last Tuesday, Paddy Stapleton was the guest speaker for Limerick’s Mary Immaculate College, giving an online talk to a Third Year elective group of students on the art of creative writing no less. Hurler, teacher and now author – even he laughs at life’s unexpected twists and turns. For a long time, wearing just one of those hats was all he imagined.
Here, he speaks with disarming honesty about how a kid from Borrisoleigh, who had his own struggles at school, came to this point.
He speaks with passion about his work in supporting the disadvantaged in his teaching job at Coláiste Mhuire Co-Ed in Thurles, writing a children’s book Up in the Air and the last word on the Twitter hop ball with All-Ireland final man-of-the-match winner, Limerick’s Gearóid Hegarty.
At first glance, the events of his life could so easily have lent themselves to a memoir. A hop, skip and jump through his on-field achievements: a streetwise, fearlessly competitive corner-back on the Tipperary team that made the All-Ireland breakthrough in 2010.
A no-guts-no-glory type of player who pocketed six Munster medals along the way and whose longevity was such that he was part of the follow-up Premier crew in 2016, and then Borris-Ileigh’s magical club run during the winter months of late 2018.
Then came the off-field tragedy of his sister Amanda’s passing, a life taken far too young by cancer in May 2019. The outpouring of love and support throughout her battle a shining example of community.
One of the ways he learned to cope and figure things out involved spending his Saturdays before big club games mapping out the imaginative world for a children’s book that has hurling at its core: the whirlwind season in the life of Glenstown and their best player Fitzy.
It has been a hit since Christmas and he was tickled to get that invitation to speak from Mary Immaculate College. His journey from struggling school kid to qualified English and PE teacher, from someone who battled the odds as a player – competing against players bigger, stronger or more gifted – to a decade as a Tipp senior hurler is one to resonate strongly.
‘I was very unlikely to be an inter-county hurler but to be an author, that was really out of this galaxy! Even if you met my sixth-year teachers in secondary school, they would have been surprised. Look, we all mature at different times. I struggled in every subject at primary school, English included.
‘It’s upsetting when you’re young if you can’t spell, if you can’t read or write, it’s really, really obvious. And that did upset me a little bit in my early primary school years. But I’m very lucky to have a mam, my dad, and my auntie all helped me in that they just got me reading. My mother would always buy me magazines. You know back in the ’90s how big soccer was – obviously GAA too. But I was a big Man U fan and there was Match magazine, Shoot magazine and I was going cover to cover with these things.
‘I would read then the whole Man United anthology. I was improving without noticing. My dad bought the newspaper every day so I’m reading the back of the paper – not reading anything in the front! Just improving. Maturity wise, I didn’t perform well in secondary school. But I went back then as a mature student and I improved what I wanted to do with my life.
‘Writing a book. That was a huge inspiration. To put something out there that kids already like. GAA is huge in Ireland, has such a massive following. I thought there’s not too much out there in terms of a novel.’
The value of reading played its own part in qualifying as an English and PE teacher. ‘I did finish my Leaving Cert but I certainly didn’t get the result to write home about. Or would get you PE teaching or anything like that. The way I was as a young fella, as a teenager, I wouldn’t have been able to do any better at that time. Whereas, as I matured, I said I like reading, I’m inquisitive about different things in life.
‘I got into coaching, was obviously big into sport, so I said I’d try teaching. Was lucky enough to get into UL and do PE and English.
‘That was a huge turning point for me as well, the first time to take academic education seriously. I was only 24 at the time. So it wasn’t like I was over the hill.
‘The reading as a youngster was vital. I don’t think if I had that I would have been able to access that third level mature student lifestyle.’
It was so rewarding then to go back to Mary I and speak from the heart about his own experiences.
‘I was in UL but Mary I contacted me – the English department. They have a Third Year elective on children’s literature and asked if I would do a bit on it.
‘The students in Mary I asked how can you get more interested in literacy. There is too much competition now with PlayStation, Netflix, YouTube, TikTok. We need something less obscure to read.
‘I’m not an experienced author but maybe there’s a beauty in that. To go from this little raw idea which I had three years ago. From there to a finished product.
‘I brought a lot of the skills that got me where I was in hurling or in college into it – the discipline, goal-setting, the resilience when there is self-doubt. I have quite a busy mind. I don’t like sitting still. My mind certainly doesn’t. I’d like to think I’m a creative thinker.
‘I said to them, a certain amount of it is having all my experiences in the GAA, and pulling a lot of those together. Like a puzzle, putting them into the parts they needed to be. Nearly a creative problem solving process.’
No character then called Saint to go with the Stapleton nickname? ‘Maybe the next one,’ he laughs. In a way, the project became its own escape, during a time when so much was going on.
‘I wrote it hand in hand with us getting on our run. I spent an awful lot of Saturdays writing it and we could be playing a county final or Munster final on the Sunday. It was
a good way to put down a day.’ He also talks about his day-to-day job which carries so much importance right now when the pandemic has put such a focus on the primacy of education and support for families and children.
‘I’m not actually teaching classes at the minute. I’m doing the whole school liaison officer role which means I’m linked up with parents. I’m in a DEIS (Delivering Equality of Opportunity in Schools) school so there is an element of disadvantaged families in Coláiste Mhuire where I am in Thurles. So I link up with a certain percentage of the parents of the kids in the school. Trying to make their school life a bit easier by supporting the parents because they’re from marginalised backgrounds. So it could be foreign national or traveller background, coming from single parent family, economic issues, mental health issues – any of that stuff.
‘I’m just there trying to help the parents, trying to make sure they have the best chance of getting their child through post-primary school. Give that child a better chance of life. You see with some of the parents, they’ve had their own struggles in life. Maybe they had big struggles in school or didn’t complete school so you can imagine how intimidating it is to talk to teachers, to talk to schools, to get a handle on what’s going on.’
The pandemic and recently tightened restrictions has heightened the need for support.
‘Before the pandemic, when they’re supposed to be coming to school every day it was very obvious the issues that were going on. I could see if a child was absent for the past week and there was no note coming in from the mam or dad. So I would be able to go to them. Whereas now they’re at home and a huge issue is technology. For the vast majority of the population, we all have good internet, good devices – phones, laptops – and it can still be a struggle even with those. But a lot of these families, they don’t have the internet or they’re trying to hotspot off their phones or don’t have a phone that works well enough to do live classes – so they’re huge issues.
‘I’m trying to make sure everyone has access to the internet to run a live class, that they have a device good enough. So we try and get them out a mini laptop or a device that at least allows them access the curriculum.’
He never imagined that a throwaway line during the All-Ireland hurling final (‘Does Gearóid Hegarty ever feel that one of his numerous fouls is actually a foul?’) would blow up. That he’d end up in an online sparring session.
He didn’t think the player himself would respond not long after lifting the Liam MacCarthy Cupt. Not quite a two-fingered reply; more an emphatic two-letter riposte. Scrolling down through all the messages of congratulation after shooting the lights out with seven points from play in a dream final performance, Hegarty picked up on the flashing light attached to Stapleton’s critique of a robust tackling style.
‘No’ the player responded, defending his good name and mischievously stirring the pot so that Stapleton’s phone went into meltdown.
‘I felt very important!’ he says with laugh about receiving Hegarty’s personal reply. ‘I thought this was the most innocent comment. I don’t think I’d ever be disrespectful. I throw out what I think – I’d be quite honest in what I say – and it just got going. Eddie Brennan had thrown out something similar just before – maybe mine was a little bit too pointed. But it got going. Then it became Limerick people against the rest of the country. I think I answered about 20 people. I had to mute it after a while!
‘It was funny thinking, if this was any other year there would be people down in Smyth’s Icon down in Limerick, in the Sin Bin, they wouldn’t have seen my tweet. They would have been too busy having the craic! People sitting inside in the front room, having a few drinks, it came back on me!
‘When I saw him come back I laughed – why would he care?! Of course he’s laughing at it. He just put a ‘No’, not even a full stop. Off the cuff. I think supporters think things are more serious between players than they are. At the end of the day, he has won his All-Ireland.
‘Anyone looking at any interviews or anything I said previously, I’d be saying how good Gearóid Hegarty was. I thought it was hilarious. But then I was “Oh my God. People are actually thinking we’re in some Limerick versus Tipperary feud!” Some people were like, “you’re just jealous”. Some supporters take things to heart. I saw the funny side of it.’
Hegarty did too, later describing it as ‘a bit of craic’.
So what about the gathering sense that this Limerick team – with two All-Irelands in three years, backto-back National League and Munster titles and unbeaten in all competitions in 2020 – is capable of creating a dynasty?
‘It wouldn’t be too far off the mark. It could be a distinct possibility. They’re a good age. Very level-headed. Who know how many in a row because it’s so difficult but the next five or six, they could certainly be competing for three or four or even four or five of those.’ As to what happened Tipperary? How did their All-Ireland title defence unravel? Liam Sheedy’s squad stepped off a plane after a warm-weather training camp in Spain – into quarantine and the start of pandemic restrictions. All of that work vanished and Limerick knocked them out of Munster in emphatic fashion after an extended lockdown before Galway finished off the job.
‘If you look at the top team that won it, we’ve been well beaten by Limerick two years in a row. So that would lead you to believe we weren’t good enough.
‘We played some great stuff towards the tail end of 2019 so that’s not to say we couldn’t have beaten them in the 2019 All-Ireland.
‘This year showed there is a bit of a gap there. A mitigating factor? I know some of the stalwarts were carrying injuries into these matches.’ He looks at the new squad that has been picked for the season ahead and thinks the likes of clubmate Jerry Kelly deserves a shot.
Right now though, an inter-county fixture seems like a mirage.
In the meantime, he is keeping busy with school matters and more. With Up In The Air that is available via his own website (paddystapleton.ie), he is making his own accompanying workbook available to second level students, particularly for Leaving Certificate.
‘I’ve a workbook coming out this week that is going to be on my website. A 65 page workbook. Going to be free and downloadable.’ Hurler, author, teacher. Still figuring things out.
For himself – and others.
‘I TRY TO HELP PARENTS SO THEIR KIDS GET A BETTER CHANCE’