Brady bunch hold court

KEEPING IT IN THE FAMILY Talented handballers Oisín, Finnian, Cian and Tiernan Brady from Ballintubber are pictured at the handball alley in Carnacon.

Feature
Oisín McGovern

“THEY’RE Paul Brady’s nephews.”
Ballintubber brothers Finnian, Oisín, Tiernan and Cian Brady have heard those words many times. Their surname is the most feared of all on handball courts – and rightly so.
With five world titles in his creaking trophy cabinet, Paul Brady is widely regarded as one of the greatest handballers of all time.
With a name that’s as Cavan as they come, Paul’s nephews have Breffni blue blood flowing through their veins.
But knowing by the green and red jerseys on their backs, these Bradys are Mayo to the backbone.
They’ve already a handsome medal collection to their name – three 40x20 Connacht Juvenile B Championships and two runner-medals at various grades.
The lads regularly travel outside Mayo for competitions, where their surname is immediately recognised.
“It’s just the Brady name, straight away they are dreading it,” the eldest brother Oisín (16) tells The Mayo News.
Slowly, that name is as becoming as synonymous with Mayo as it is with Cavan to the handball fraternity.
It’s largely down to their father Ger, who made the move from Mullahoran to the west around the turn of the millennium.
His four sons all don the red and white of Ballintubber, in addition to the handball, some swimming and even play a bit of soccer.
Their dad brought his love of Gaelic games with him and has been a selector for the Ballintubber senior football team for many years.
It’s clearly a sport-mad house, but how could they miss it?
We could talk football with Ger all evening, but we’re here in Carnacon Community Centre’s ball alley to talk about the bit of rubber his sons are belting off the walls in front of us.
Ger’s introduction to the blue ball was far away from this state-of-the-art indoor alley, with cinema seats and a glistening backwall.
Back in his day, he and his brothers learned the game outdoors on a single 60x30 wall.
It would often be cold and wet. More time was spent looking for the ball than hitting the thing. But they enjoyed it all the same.
“Different times now, so it is,” says Ger in his unmistakable Cavan drawl.
He and his younger brother Danny only really got their first taste of indoor handball when they went to St Pat’s in Cavan town.
Little did they know that the greatest handballer of his generation would pass through these doors just a few years later when their brother Paul got his first real introduction to handball.
A talented Gaelic footballer who played senior for Cavan for some years, Paul had little heed on handball until Fr John Gilhooly took him under his wing in first year.
At this point, did the Bradys realise just how good their brother was?
“Not really. To tell you the truth,” Ger reveals.
“Underage and growing up it was only when he went to secondary school that he started to play the game, because up to then he hadn’t really played much handball.”
Ger may not have seen the potential in him, but he certainly saw the dedication.
Every Saturday without fail, his mother would drop ball into practice his shots and swings in St Pat’s.
No one knew it at the time, but that humble 60x30 wall became the forge for a bank vault of county, provincial, national and international silverware.
“For a full summer, literally every Saturday, Paul would spend the full day hitting the ball up against the wall, learning the skills and the different shots to take. His dedication time was amazing,” Ger explained.
“I suppose no, we didn’t really realise he was going to be. As he always says himself, in the early years he lost more than he actually won. He stuck at it and he learned from it and just kept going and kept going and eventually he made the breakthrough at minor age and from then on he just took off.”
Unsurprisingly, Oisín, Cian, Finnian and Tiernan are all ‘in awe’ of their uncle Paul, who’s given them a fair few tips over the years.
We ask their father if they dream of one day reaching the same heights as their uncle.
Ger maintains that school and football are a particular focus for these lads – just like other boys their age.
However, Ger notes that every one of them took up handball at a younger than their uncle.
Who knows what they might yet achieve, but what do they want to achieve?
We put the question to the lads.
“Become All-Ireland champions if we could,” Finnian replies with a quiet confidence.
What about the rest of them?
“Handball is dying a small bit,” says Oisín “so just to keep it up and trying to build handball back again in the GAA.”
Wherever there’s a Mullahoran Brady, handball is never going be far away.