I'll never forget my last time in Croke Park with my Da before he died of mystery illness

*You can listen to the audio version of this story read by the author at the bottom of this article

I was stopped in my tracks by a Facebook memory the other day. It was from June 1, 2013. "Heading to Croker for Offaly v Kildare. Hoping for a good showing from the lads," the post read. I'll never forget that day as long as I live because it was the last time I was in Croke Park with my father.

It was the June Bank Holiday weekend and my father got offered last minute hospitality tickets to the game through work. I was born and raised in Offaly, but my dad was a Kildare man, having spent much of his childhood in Kilshanroe. We couldn't turn down the opportunity. We barbecued the day before and the sun was shining on the Sunday. I had a new Offaly jersey bought for the occasion. It was the dream Bank Holiday.

We headed for Dublin and parked in my father's usual spot on Parnell Street. We walked out to Croke Park in a hurry, keen to get there early to enjoy the swanky hospitality suite. It was my first time there, so I was taking it all in; the dark wood floors, framed memorabilia on the walls. It was a far cry from the endless concrete walls and ramps of the lower tiers. A novelty for sure.

"This is the way to do it", my Da said as we sipped a pint and gazed out over the blue skies and immaculate pitch. It was glorious. Unfortunately for me, Offaly lost out on the day but my father was suitably smug with his 'Up the Lilies' taunts on the way back to the car. We walked back to Parnell Street and hit the road home. Four weeks later my father was in an induced coma in St James's Hospital. He died before the year was out. This is a man who never missed a day of work sick in his life. He prided himself on it, and instilled it in us as kids.

I'd been to Croke Park many times as a child and never without my Da. The first time he brought my twin brother Barry and I, we were on the hill for Offaly v Wexford in hurling in the year 2000, probably the dying embers of that great Offaly team of the 90s I wish I could remember. I don't recall much of the match either but fog horns were big at the time and we got wool plaited headbands in the Offaly colours on the street outside. I kept mine for years after until it frayed so much it fell apart.

ABOVE: My brother Barry and I with my Da as children

We were there many times over the years, often as a family but in latter years, it was just my father and I. No one else was interested in a soccer match between Ireland and Montenegro during that time Rule 42 was lifted. We were at the Ireland v Italy World Cup qualifier a few days before too back in 2009. I remember the Italy game like it was yesterday.

We had barely taken our seats when Liam Lawrence pulled a free kick across the outside of the 18-yard box and Glenn Whelan stepped up to it like Maximus in the Colosseum and buried it to the net past Gianluigi Buffon. The crowd went berserk; Italy were the world champions at the time. 

We lost it altogether near the end when Sean St Leger headed in a Stephen Hunt cross to put us 2-1 up with five minutes to go. I remember hugging my father; an arm in arm, mid-jump, type of hug. I think we hugged the people behind us too, such was the outpouring of unbridled joy in the stands - for all of two minutes.

We conceded an equaliser before the end and myself and the father walked a half hour in the wrong direction when we left the stadium, but other than that, it was a great night. It's an amazing memory to pick up now and again, like you would an old photo album. I still have the match programme.

Two match programmes from days and nights in Croke Park with my father

For some reason so many of the memories I call to mind of my father are sports related, and he wasn't a big sports man per se. He didn't even own a pair of runners. He liked watching sports though; GAA, rugby, soccer and F1 mostly. My mother and sisters will attest to the intermittent screaming of Formula 1 cars acting as the soundtrack to our Sunday afternoons when we were kids, followed by the familiar punchy tones of the Sunday Game intro music.

He knew I loved sport, playing GAA and soccer as a kid, poorly I might add, but we bonded over that. I think he bigged up his interest for my sake at times. He was there when I scored my one and only goal for Edenderry Town FC against our arch rivals Arlington in the KDSL Cup quarter-final one year. I was 13 years of age. Having never scored a goal before, I didn't know how to celebrate. I just stood there in disbelief that it had gone in and my teammates surrounded me and tapped me on the head and back. My Da pointed at me from the sideline as if to say 'well done'. I probably didn't get a touch of the ball for the rest of the match, but I know we won.

I was just delighted he was there to see it. He was understated always, and never got too flushed over anything, good or bad, but he had this nodding smirk of pride. I got it that day as he approached me and we walked to the car after the match. His father, my grandad, had the same beaming look. We bought the Offaly Topic that week and there it was in all its glory, my first proper mention in a sports report. "A Shane Forde cross found its way to Justin Kelly who buried the ball to the net in some style." I should have framed it. After an underwhelming one-goal underage soccer career, that day was certainly the highlight, and it had little to do with the sport at all, although I still have the medals.

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My first time in Croke Park without my father, and since his death, was with my then girlfriend, now wife, and her mother, for a Donegal match in 2016. We were back in the hospitality section thanks to my now mother-in-law's family connections in Donegal but it brought it all back to me, I remember. I had a lump in my throat as we walked up and admired the shiny floors and plush set-up. I was thinking of my Da's words just three years earlier: "this is the way to do it." I think I even said it myself on that occasion. It hit me that he'd never be in Croke Park again and somehow that brings home to you the ultimate reality that you've managed to squirrel away in your mind.

PICTURED: My wife Dearbhla and I heading to Croke Park in 2016

I hadn't realised the affinity I had with Croke Park and my father until that day. Each time we'd been there came flooding back to me like a Sunday Game highlight reel. There is something nostalgic about that stadium for so many people, from sporting glory and heartbreak, to childhood memories like mine when the sport didn't really matter. Family days out, sandwiches in tinfoil, rows with my brother and sisters in the car; they're all there in the memory bank together.

My father died on November 25, 2013 with a rare disease called sarcoidosis, for which there is no known cause or cure. It can affect any organ but it took his lungs with severe scarring. He hadn't smoked for 25 years, ate healthily, but still ended up in A&E in Tullamore in late June 2013 with a bad chest infection, three weeks after walking from Parnell Street to Croke Park and back again with me. He never got home again and spent months in hospital, including six weeks in an induced coma at St James's Hospital in Dublin. We were given bad news on more than one occasion but somehow he woke up and we thought we'd sprung a miracle like Seamus Darby in 82'.

We sang to him at his bedside. God help him; none of us are singers really. The nurses must have thought we were mad, but they had connected with us as a family in the few months we'd been in and out, rarely within the visiting hours. A few of them even came to his funeral. We thanked God for answering my mother's many prayers and for simply being able to chat with him again. My parents were able to mark their 30th wedding anniversary and he did well for weeks, but it wasn't meant to last. He died on November 25, 2013. He was 49 years old. I was 22.

The last time I was in Croke Park, I cried in the stands with my entire family at the Garth Brooks concert in 2022. The Dance and Unanswered Prayers got us all that night and again Croke Park delivered a moment both beautiful and cruel. So many of our joyous journeys there over the years had been soundtracked by my father's Garth Brooks tapes, and here we were, blubbering our way through two of his favourites. Yet, there was something comforting about it all the same. 

L-R: My siblings Laura, Barry and Arlene, myself and my parents Irene and David at a wedding in 2007

I look forward to bringing my own kids to Croke Park some day. My wife and I are due our first baby in July. She is from Kildare too so the baby might even get to wear my Da's colours as well as my own. He taught me a lot of things in life, but cherishing those days is top of the list.

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