A Man for All Seasons: John Scally’s new book The People’s Games: A GAA Compendium is a celebration of the magic of the GAA through the stories of some of the people who populate it. Among their number is Dublin star Michael Darragh MacAuley. Scally writes: Michael Darragh MacAuley follows the advice of Oscar Wilde: Be yourself. Everyone else is taken. On the field he is known for his bravery. Hence Joe Brolly’s description of him, ‘He would put his head where you wouldn’t put up a crowbar.’ In 2019 he was part of the Dublin team that won the historic five-in-a-row. The 2013 Footballer of the Year, is also a man with a strong social conscience. He is an ambassador for Concern Worldwide. His career is based on the empowering work that he does in the north inner city with the North East Inner City Initiative. This initiative reaches out to people in these communities that he describes as ‘struggling through a river that people are swimming down and it can be a dangerous river.’ His work is trying to give ‘branches for these children to cling onto along the river.’ MacAuley explains that it is good to find role models. He strives, through his work with North East Inner City Initiative to get as many people on a better road as possible through sustainable projects. It has a huge emphasis on educational programmes.
He explains that it is really important when empowering people that, ‘You don’t just give them shiny things because they don’t feel a part of it. Give projects.’ For MacAuley, he wished for a career that drives him to get up in the morning but more importantly, one that ensures that he can sleep soundly at night. Earlier in his career was told to retire at 20, due to an injury which lead to a two year break of football. In that two years he took an insurance job which taught him that he would never like to work a 9-5 desk job again, ‘My most vivid memory of my time there was being at the photocopier one day and meeting a man who was 45 and had been with the company for more than half his life at that stage. I remember thinking to myself: This is not going to be me.’
He always got along with kids and wished to be a primary school teacher. His own primary school teacher was somebody who changed ‘for the better’ the course of his career. So, he went back to college at 21 to study Irish, while at the same time he won the All Ireland. Sadly, his dad passed away the first year of teacher training. He worked in a school in Tallaght filled with ideologies and ‘hoping to change the world.’ It’s easy to be a bad teacher’, he muses, ‘but it takes effort and enthusiasm to be a good one.’
In ancient Rome the big question was: VIis mutare aliquid magis excitando tuum? Do you wish to change to something more exciting? MacAuley had his own version of this question. After his stint in the classroom MacAuley became a sports and engagement manager with the North East Inner City Initiative and got the perfect outlet for his social conscience. As a Concern ambassador Michael Darragh brought joy to Syrian refugees during an eye-opening visit to war-torn Iraq. There he met families who had only just become refugees after airstrikes by Syrian government and Russian forces killed 20 civilians. MacAuley recalls the plight of young Syrian refugees there.
‘It’s heartbreaking to hear their story and, unfortunately, their story is 10 a penny over there. People have been hearing about the Syrian crisis for 10 years now and I don’t think are really reacting to it at all. I’m just trying to raise awareness that these kids were just like kids anywhere in Ireland. They need our help.’ He told the heartbreaking story of one of the families he met to illustrate the bigger story. ‘The family spent their last five years in captivity from a well-known terrorist organisation. These are 10-year-old and 15-year-old boys who grew up like that. Their father has been missing for five years. They have one meal a day. They’re sleeping in one blanket in the heart of the winters.’
The refugee camps he visited had extremely limited educational and recreational facilities but the children still managed to recruit the Dubliner into leading some much-needed sports activities. The excited children were thrilled as the Ballyboden man played football, volleyball and other games with them. The sun shone down on the games – but this good weather was not set to last for long. Within days, heavy rain fell and lasted for the next four months.
In the Barderash camp, where 14,000 refugees were living, MacAuley and Concern employees watched mothers and children queueing for kerosene and blankets that would help them survive the upcoming winter. The Dublin star highlighted the hardships and challenges these young people faced on a daily basis, despite the brief moments of reprieve they had during his visit. He has also urged the Irish public to help the struggling people he met and the thousands of others who are also based in camps around Iraq.
MacAuley’s mission with Concern strikingly dramatizes the poverty of the modern world, perilously ruled by self-interest and economic power. His power is in the capacity to stir our resolve and strengthen the collective will to change. He never doubts that a small group of committed people with ideas and vision can change the world. Why? It is the only thing that ever has. He embodies what is best in humanity because he lives by the motto that giving in its purest form expects nothing in return.
John Scally’s book The People’s Games: A GAA Compendium is available in all good bookshops now.
