Michael O'Hehir

His father, Jim O'Hehir, was active in Gaelic games, having trained his native county to win the 1914 All-Ireland title in hurling.

Michael James Hehir (also known as Michael O'Hehir and Mícheál Ó hEithir; 2 June 1920 – 24 November 1996) was an Irish hurling, football and horse racing commentator and journalist.

He subsequently trained the Leitrim football team that secured the Connacht title in 1927 and he also served as an official with the Dublin Junior Board.

O'Hehir was educated at St Patrick's National School in Drumcondra before later attending the O'Connell School.

He later studied electrical engineering at University College Dublin, but he abandoned his studies after just one year to pursue a full-time career in broadcasting.

O'Hehir never played football, but he enjoyed a distinguished hurling career with the St Vincents GAA club in Raheny.

O'Hehir became fascinated with the radio when he received a present of one as a child.

He had just turned eighteen and was still a schoolboy when he wrote to Radio Éireann asking to do a test commentary.

O'Hehir was accepted and was asked, along with five others, to do a five-minute microphone test for a National Football League game between Wexford and Louth.

His microphone test impressed the director of broadcasting so much that he was invited to commentate on the whole of the second half of the match.

Between 1938 and 1985 his enthusiasm and memorable turn of phrase endeared him to many.

He is still regarded as the original 'voice of Gaelic games'.

O'Hehir was born in Glasnevin, Dublin to parents who had moved from County Clare.

Two months later in August 1938, O'Hehir made his first broadcast - the All-Ireland football semi-final between Monaghan and Galway.

He went on to commentate on the second semi-final and that year's final between Galway and Kerry.

The following year he covered his first hurling final - the famous "Thunder and Lightning final" between Cork and Kilkenny.

Sports broadcasting in Ireland was still in its infancy at this stage, however, O'Hehir's Sunday afternoon commentaries quickly became a way of life for many rural listeners.

By the mid-1940s, O'Hehir was recognised as one of Ireland's leading sports broadcasters.

In 1944, O'Hehir joined the staff of Independent Newspapers as a sports sub-editor, before beginning a seventeen-year career as a racing correspondent in 1947.

His racing expertise was not just limited to print journalism as he became a racing commentator with Radio Éireann in 1945.

Even though O'Hehir's star was on the rise with the national broadcaster in Ireland, he applied to the BBC for a position as racing commentator.

His application was accepted and he provided commentary for the Cheltenham Gold Cup.

The BBC bosses were sufficiently impressed with O'Hehir to offer him further commentaries.

O'Hehir subsequently became a staple of the BBC's coverage of the famous annual Grand National steeplechase.

He would invariably pick up the commentary at the Becher's Brook fence and take the race to Valentine's Brook, a vital section of the race where many a favourite fell.

In 1947, he faced his most challenging broadcast to date when he had to commentate on the All-Ireland Football Final from the Polo Grounds in New York City.

More than a million people were listening to the broadcast back in Ireland and O'Hehir was the one link between the game in New York and the fans in Ireland.

The broadcast had to be finished by five o'clock local time, but the match ran late.

The last few minutes of O'Hehir's commentary included him pleading with the broadcast technicians not to take him off the air.

His pleas were successful and the Irish people could listen to the game in full.

In 1961 Ireland's first national television station, Telefís Éireann, was founded and O'Hehir was appointed head of sports programmes.

As a result of his influence, O'Hehir secured the broadcasting rights to the closing stages of the All-Ireland hurling and football championships for the new station.

As well as his new role O'Hehir continued to keep up a hectic schedule of commentaries.

Foinavon's famous victory in 1967 will be remembered as one of O'Hehir's finest moments in racing commentaries and won him great respect for the speed and smoothness with which he picked out the unconsidered outsider.

O'Hehir later confessed in an interview that it had been his inability to identify the colours on his card when inspecting the riders' silks in the weighing room prior to the race that had led him to question rider John Buckingham who his mount was.

Buckingham advised O'Hehir that Foinavon's silks had been changed at the last minute as his regular green colours were considered unlucky.

It was because of this chance meeting that he was able to identify the 100/1 outsider and carry the commentary.

He only covered three TV Grand Nationals (1967, 1968 and 1969), afterwards he would continue to cover the race for BBC Radio until 1981.

In addition to horseracing, O'Hehir also covered showjumping, including the Dublin Horse Show at the RDS in Ballsbridge.

However, in the 1969 Grand National, O'Hehir made a horrendous error stating that eventual winner Highland Wedding had fallen at Bechers Brook (2nd circuit) when a horse called Kilburn fell.