{"id":492162,"date":"2026-06-10T09:06:13","date_gmt":"2026-06-10T09:06:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/492162\/"},"modified":"2026-06-10T09:06:13","modified_gmt":"2026-06-10T09:06:13","slug":"darragh-o-se-westmeath-was-a-blessing-for-paidi-after-all-the-hurt-kerry-caused-him-the-irish-times","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/492162\/","title":{"rendered":"Darragh \u00d3 S\u00e9: Westmeath was a blessing for P\u00e1id\u00ed after all the hurt Kerry caused him \u2013 The Irish Times"},"content":{"rendered":"

There\u2019s no doubt what the story of the football championship<\/a> has been so far. It\u2019s Westmeath<\/a>, by a distance. Five games, five wins. Any team that goes to extra-time in three matches in a row and wins them all is having some run of it. Whatever happens from here on out, they\u2019ll be talking about this summer for years to come.<\/p>\n

For me, Westmeath football will always be connected to P\u00e1id\u00ed. I was thinking about him recently and the spin he\u2019d be knocking out of this run they\u2019re on. I have no doubt he\u2019d be above in Mullingar doing preview nights, making sure to take full credit for his part in it all. Sure didn\u2019t I open the door for ye, lads? Mark McHugh might struggle to get a mention!<\/p>\n

Even now, when you\u2019d go and visit P\u00e1id\u00ed\u2019s grave, there\u2019d often be scarves left there from different counties. Outside of the green and gold of Kerry<\/a>, the ones you\u2019d see most often on it would be from Westmeath. It\u2019s 21 years since his last game as their manager, but that link is always going to be there.<\/p>\n

I can remember clearly the first day I realised he was going to actually go and do it. He was very down after what happened with Kerry. It wasn\u2019t managed well by the Kerry county board. If they were moving on from him, there was a way to do it \u2013 they\u2019d been dealing with P\u00e1id\u00ed long enough to know how he should have been handled. He felt disrespected and he was sore about it.<\/p>\n

\u201cThat\u2019s me done, lads,\u201d he said to us. \u201cYe\u2019ll never see me in a dressingroom again.\u201d He went on holiday to Spain and by the time he came home, he was down to be the Westmeath manager. I\u2019d have been talking to him every day at the time but even so, it came completely out of the blue.<\/p>\n

\"KildareKildare manager Mick O’Dwyer (left) and Kerry manager P\u00e1id\u00ed \u00d3 S\u00e9 on the sideline during a 2002 All-Ireland SFC qualifier. Photograph: Morgan Treacy\/Inpho <\/p>\n

I was in the car with him one day around that time. He had recently got a new mobile phone \u2013 it might have been the first one he ever had. A call came through for him and he made a big show of going, \u201cYou\u2019ll have to excuse me now, I must take this call\u201d.<\/p>\n

I was paying him no attention and leaving him at it. I only tuned in when I heard him demand the helicopter. \u201cYou do realise how far it is from Ventry to Mullingar,\u201d he said. \u201cI\u2019ll need a chopper on a regular basis.\u201d<\/p>\n

I can still hear him saying it. He put a big emphasis on the word \u201crealise\u201d, really driving it home to whoever was on the other end of the line that it was non-negotiable. I was in fits laughing in the passenger seat. I was very suddenly aware that not only was this going to be happening, but that these fellas above in Westmeath had no idea what they were letting themselves in for.<\/p>\n

He loved the whole adventure. For one thing, it allowed him to show people that he knew his football.He knew how to get a dressingroom playing good stuff and pulling in the one direction. Nobody in Kerry would ever think managing the county team is an easy gig, but you\u2019d come across plenty of fellas from outside the county who\u2019d be saying, \u201cCry me a river. Sure with all the footballers ye have, managing that team is a piece of cake.\u201d<\/p>\n

Going to Westmeath and winning a Leinster title with them was great for P\u00e1id\u00ed because it showed people he could do it. Perhaps most of all, he showed himself he could do it. <\/p>\n

I remember talking to him during his first league campaign when Westmeath didn\u2019t win a game until the last round. \u201cWe\u2019ll be fine,\u201d he said. \u201cOnce I get these fellas into gear . . .\u201d But I knew by talking to him that he really meant, \u201cOnce I get my head around what I\u2019m after taking on here …\u201d<\/p>\n

\"PáidíP\u00e1id\u00ed \u00d3 S\u00e9 (centre) celebrates after his Westmeath team beat Dublin in the 2004 Leinster Senior Football Championship quarter-final at Croke Park. Photograph: Eric Luke <\/p>\n

The big thing about managing in Westmeath was that it gave him leeway to do things he would never have dreamed of doing in Kerry. The famous fly-on-the-wall documentary would never have even been mentioned in Kerry. He wouldn\u2019t have asked for it, he wouldn\u2019t have allowed it. If any player had so much as suggested it even as a joke, he\u2019d have got thick with them for disrespecting the green and gold.<\/p>\n

But with Westmeath, he thought it was worth trying. Just as when they qualified for the Leinster final, he said the players would all have to be measured for Hugo Boss suits. He\u2019d never have got away with that in Kerry. Not a hope. But being outside of his home county freed him up to try things. If they came off, they came off. If they didn\u2019t, they didn\u2019t.<\/p>\n

Playing against his team was a big deal for us as his nephews. We missed him in the league the first year because An Ghaeltacht made it to the All-Ireland club final. But we were there in 2005 all right and we lined out against them in Tralee. Marc was injured but Tom\u00e1s and I played.<\/p>\n

We knew the way he\u2019d have been thinking and he knew the way we\u2019d have been thinking. Above all, he knew we would be going into a game against him aiming to be the best players on the pitch. Under no circumstances could there ever be an accusation thrown around that the \u00d3 S\u00e9s took it easy on Westmeath because P\u00e1id\u00ed was managing them. Couldn\u2019t happen.<\/p>\n

We won the game comfortably enough. Tom\u00e1s scored a goal and I scored a point. I think it was probably the only point I scored in the league that year! Afterwards, we were talking to the Kerry trainer Pat Flanagan in the dressingroom and he couldn\u2019t get over how well we had played. But it was never going to be any other way.<\/p>\n

P\u00e1\u00edd\u00ed finished up that summer but he had a great time doing it for the two years. He always had a sweet spot for Westmeath after it and he\u2019d be loving what they\u2019re doing this year. He\u2019d be telling them where to get the Hugo Boss suits. He might even be telling Mark McHugh that he should be insisting on a chopper of his own.<\/p>\n

You do realise how far it is from Kilcar to Mullingar . . .<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"There\u2019s no doubt what the story of the football championship has been so far. It\u2019s Westmeath, by a…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":492163,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[110979,61,60,112],"class_list":["post-492162","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-sports","tag-football-championship","tag-ie","tag-ireland","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/492162","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=492162"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/492162\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/492163"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=492162"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=492162"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=492162"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}