McDaid's Football Special

It is with a degree of nostalgia and fondness that I replicate the article from the Irish Indo of last month featuring the great sports drink of our time - not Powerade, Red Bull or even Lucozade but wait for it ...... the McDaid's Football Special.

Jill and Marie were two of it's staunchest supporters, waiting eagerly over a long journey from Dublin and not permitting any wee breaks, until we had arrived at our Donegal destination and tasted the golden drink.

Let the Indo take over:

A SOFT drink made from a secret recipe that has been enjoyed for over 50 years by a select few is about to be launched nationwide.

Outside of north Donegal, few people have even heard of McDaid's Football Special, a cola-style frothy drink which is synonymous with Ramelton, the small heritage town where it is made. But owner Edward McDaid plans to take Football Special into the soft drinks premiership. "It is a strange product in many senses. Whatever it is about it, it seems to hit a memory button and conjure up pleasant memories of childhood, even with people who haven't tasted it before," he explained.

His father Jim and his uncles chanced on the unique combination of ingredients over 50 years ago and luckily his uncle Eamon -- who had trained in a soft drinks company in Belfast -- recorded the quantities so it could be recreated. "My father was a founder member of the Swilly Rovers Football Club in Ramelton and they were trying to come up with a soft drink that could be put into the cup after a win, instead of whiskey. "The fruit syrup flavours that are used are all fairly common and shouldn't belong together but they do," he said.

The base ingredient for the drink is indeed unique to Ramelton in the form of spring water from McDaid's very own underground spring well, less than 100 metres away from the production plant. Production Sugar, seven different syrups and a heading liquid are added to the water, which is then carbonated and bottled.

Edward is about to add a marketing and sales person to his six-strong staff and aims to rebrand and triple production at his plant as the product goes nationwide in June. Although business has been hit by the recession, he believes Football Special, and its sister flavours, banana, pineapple and cream soda, will go down well with fizzy drinks fans. "If Donegal people for all these years have been having this experience and enjoying it, could we be so different from everywhere else in the country?" Edward asked.

As for the secret recipe, as with Coca-Cola, its maker's lips are sealed. "Only myself and one other person know and we never travel on the same plane. I fly Ryanair and he takes the Swilly Bus," he laughed.

Chariots of Fire

Myself and the missus had the embarrassing experience of going for a weekend to Donegal with Gerry when he was going through his Chariots of Fire period.

Down the beach we'd go day after day (the same beach that Bomber Byrne got pummelled on three years earlier), the radio would get turned on to loud and he'd start running down the beach for hours on end like a madman. No doubt Jon and Vangelis were pounding through his cranium and he was dreaming of gold.



This desire to run stayed with him for many years and you can look for him now in any marathon, half-marathon or 10k that is being run in the greater Dublin environs. Sebastian Coe, principal organiser for the London Olympics, has been rumoured to have looked for him when searching for a role model for the over sixties.

The video recording I got of him on the beach in Donegal is old and grainy but I think it shows enough to give you a feel for the determination and will to win he had back in the early eighties.

Truly stunning.

For the day that's in it (2)

Easter Sunday is a notorious time for silent collections in the pubs around the border counties and a lot more come out wearing Easter lilies than went in.

Released under Freedom of Information laws thirty years after it was taken, the above photograph shows locals responding to the playing of "A Nation Once Again" in Dorrians pub in Ross na Kill, Co Donegal.

In those dark and distant days, misguided allegiance to the cause was commonplace and it was also relatively easy for a few dominant personalities to force less assured members of society to contribute large sums of money to the struggle. The picture above illustrates this - the cell leader is on the left and note the definite pointing of the fingers in aggressive support of the underlying lyrics in the rebel song. The two new members (the targets) appear uncertain, looking for guidance from the leader and the one in the leather jacket almost appears to be waving - quite pathetic. Can't see him lasting long in the organisation and I bet they took him down the beach and battered the shit out of him the following afternoon.

Easter Sunday 1980.

I'm the man who empties the toilet

This is the story of the Hurricane

When we were in sixth year, Bob Dylan magnificently championed the cause of Ruben Carter, the coloured boxer, who was the subject of a miscarriage of justice in the US and was wrongly imprisoned. Carter was nicknamed the Hurricane and Dylan's song of the same name remains a classic.

What we didn't know at that time was that we were players in a drama of our own, one which bore frightening resemblances to Carter's case in the US.

Stephen Byrne came from the wrong side of the tracks - Dublin's Northside - but for whatever reason socialised with the elite from one of Dublin's poshest schools, Rockbrook College. Assuming their accent with ease, he mingled with them freely and soon was fully accepted by them - particularly as he had a motorbike (followed quickly by a car) and was a lot faster than the 46A on runs into the Trinity Buttery of a Saturday evenings. The friendship continued for a number of years until the privileged Southsiders decided enough was enough, and they made horrific plans for Easter 1979.

On that fateful weekend they made Byrne drive his own red Toyota Corolla car to Donegal and while there, set about victimising him in an appalling and unrelenting manner - difficult quiz questions, rigged draws to make him empty the toilet bucket, designated driver assignments at nighttime and the sleeping bag position furthest away from the fire. It went on and on.

The sadistic treatment ended on the Sunday afternoon when they coaxed Byrne into an ill-chosen boxing match with one of their own, streetfighter Hartnett. It was a mismatch of David and Goliath proportions. Hartnett, a cornerboy from Stillorgan, was an experienced boxer who had learnt his trade with the famous Bollard brothers, notorious in Dublin's gangland warfare of the fifties. The bout on the beach in Portsalon that afternoon lasted a mere four minutes with Hartnett landing two fierce piledrivers below the belt and rupturing Byrne's left testicle. Byrne fell onto the golden sands, his dreams destroyed.

The event was captured by Robert Capa the Magnum photographer (who first made his name on the beaches of Normandy covering frisbee competitions) and is reproduced below.

Byrne never recovered from the humiliation, retired from public life and became a recluse in the mountains of Wicklow.

Where the Mountains of Mourne sweep down to the sea (2)

One of the reasons John O'Farrell decided to emigrate.

We knew him when he was nothing

Ok he may be Managing Director of the highest profile consultancy practice in Ireland but there was a time when we were afraid to put him up in front of strangers. In dem days you'd be seriously afraid he might vomit all over the boardroom table.

This sad picture was taken in Donegal one Easter weekend when the management consultant's cousin was too busy passing around the collection box to help the drunken one into the car. Gerry and myself helped out, thereby gathering valuable brownie points to buy the Ryan family's silence one particular evening many years later. More to come.