Kieran Quinn speaks to The 42 about a unique career in music and GAA.
TWO MEN ARE sitting at a bar in the town of Easkey on the Monday after the Sligo’s unlikely success in the 2007 Connacht football final.
“That was a great thing ye did,” he says. It’s not hugely profound, but it’s enough to reaffirm the magnitude of Sligo’s achievement. Ending famines in sport have far reaching effects, some of which the players will never see. And sometimes, they get a glimpse into what the triumph means to those around them.
He spent his teenage years as a boarder at the famous Clongowes Wood College in Kildare where his father once attended. Known more for its association with rugby, Quinn didn’t have many chances to develop his Gaelic football skills during his time there. Former Ireland and Leinster star Gordon D’Arcy was in Quinn’s year but the Sligo man never developed a taste for the Gilbert ball.
“I can bring it back to one moment: I remember hitting a ball with the outside of my boot into the corner-forward to a fella called Shane O’Neill. Shane was a bit older than me and I hit the ball straight into his chest. He turned and stuck it over the bar, and he ran out to me, grabbed my two cheeks and just said, ‘Quinner, that was unbelievable.’ Just to get that reinforcement from someone a bit older and someone who you looked up to, it was just a moment I’ll always remember.
“That was a great trip. We stayed a few days afterwards and had a bit of craic, and did a bit of extra training. It was our equivalent of going to Portugal or Spain for a training camp. I remember a sing song in the hotel lobby one night, and it definitely brought us closer. Through his self-taught methods, Quinn also learned how to play The Cranberries anthem Zombie, and with the help of some school mates, he learned how to perform Bohemian Rhapsody by Queen. He wanted to showcase their arrangement of the rock classic at a school concert and relied on the help of a supportive music teacher to have their version included in the running order.“I remember her having my back when it came to getting these things included in the programme.
Donall Farmer / INPHO Tommy Breheny was a very understanding manager for Quinn. Donall Farmer / INPHO / INPHO “There was definitely a bit of slagging but it was all good natured. I never got an inkling that it was causing any friction or bother. They came to my gigs and came to support me. Any time there was a piano in a hotel lobby, we’d sit down and have a sing song? It was a positive thing overall.”
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