‘The really brilliant memories are few and far between – but that was one’

BY KIERAN McCARTHY

IT’S just after 12 in Los Angeles on a Thursday afternoon, yet Brian Carmody chats with a fondness for home that suggests he could be perched on a high stool in downtown Skibbereen.

The sun pouring in the windows is a tell-tale sign he’s not in Skibb, but his connection to home is there – and that’s important to him.

It’s almost two decades since he left Skibbereen to build a hugely successful new life in America, yet his attention to detail makes it seem like it was only yesterday.

‘There is an old adage you hear from emigrants quite often, it’s that the memory you have of home is the memory of the day you left,’ he says, and Brian departed West Cork shores less than 12 months after helping O’Donovan Rossa’s footballers scale county, Munster and All-Ireland summits.

‘The memory of Skibb that week after we won the All-Ireland: the characters, the joy, the stories,’ he says. 

‘I have had an amazing life and built a whole other thing here, but the really brilliant memories are few and far between, the real highlights – and that was a gift that nobody could have imagined.’

These days Brian is the co-founder of international production company Smuggle. He has hit incredible heights as a producer, winning Emmys, Tonys and Cannes Lions Grand Prix and Palme d’Or awards, yet his medals from that dream 92/93 season stand out on their own.

‘Very few get to win anything. Even fewer get to win a county. Fewer again get to win an All-Ireland. The club has won one county senior title ever, and because of that we treasure it,’ Brian explains.

‘There is a competition we get involved in, the world production company championships in Cannes. The first time we won it, it blew my mind. The second time, I felt we were going places. The third time we won it, I thought now we have shape to what we are doing. We won it again last year. We're the third company in the history of the competition to win more than three. In a sense I know what it’s like to be a Nemo Rangers and win county title after county title, but when you only have one it almost means more because it points to the magic of that group. It’s an incredible bond that we share.’

That Rossas team was special, he says. It just had something. An x-factor that’s hard to quantify. 

‘My first memory of feeling that something was going to happen was the morning of the county final when we were doing a warm-up at the Barrs before we went to play Nemo,’ Brian recalls.

‘That morning I just felt something was going on and I knew we were going to beat Nemo. I don’t know what it was; there was some sort of energy in that team. Something just felt right that day.’

Brian was 22 at the time. He had started in the opening rounds of the championship, but lost his place. He came on as a sub in the second half against Nemo; he wanted to be part of this special adventure. In college at the time and living in Carrigaline he recalls studying on a Wednesday for an economics exam, the same day Rossas played a challenge game against Duhallow in Ballyvourney. It was an easy decision: he threw his gear into the car and pointed it west.

‘I wanted to play the match, I wanted to make that team,’ he said, and he was back on the starting 15 for the All-Ireland finals against Éire Óg of Carlow. Brian remembers being more nervous than ever before for the drawn final in Croke Park. Rossas never found their rhythm that day. He felt more comfortable for the replay at the Gaelic Grounds. They won 1-7 to 0-8. At the final whistle he fell to the ground and cried.

‘Of course it was partly the win but I think more than anything it was because it was all over. We'd had a journey that we might never have again and it was over,’ he explains.

The outsiders, quoted at 33-1 to win the county title in 1992, had gone all the way. A club that had never won a senior title before had now won the lot. Little wonder this is the stuff of legend.

‘Some of the greatest stories, David and Goliath being one, are about the underdog,’ Brian says.

‘There is something very motivating about being the underdog, and how you go about your work, how you see yourself, how you grow inside yourself and how you surround yourself, because you know if you come out the other end the explosion will be unbelievable. It’s the same in my own work: a small company that started from nothing. 

‘There is almost an arrogance to the underdog because you have to outthink, outstrategise, outwork, outfeel in order to get out the other side. You are not supposed to win; that’s the rule. That’s why I go back to that memory in the Barrs that morning of the county final, I felt we had done all the things to get there and it was finally coming to its fruition. That came from being part of the journey for that season, seeing how it came together, how fellas gelled, watching how the subs put in as much of an effort as the starting team, what Gene O’Driscoll brought to that team, what John Evans’ wisdom brought to that team, Kevin O’Dwyer was incredible in goal, Frankie Mac, Joe O’Driscoll, unbelievable. Brian O’Donovan, Neville Murphy. Skinner, he was unbelievable for that team.’

Even though Los Angeles is now home, Brian’s connection to Skibbereen endures. He was part of something very special. A one-off season that won’t be repeated. It’s a tale fit for Broadway: the underdogs who won it all.