The Galway Races held a one minute silence yesterday for Colm Murray, one of the most popular journalists to cover sport in this country, who passed away yesterday after a three year battle against Motor Neurone Disease.
I had the pleasure to know Colm over many years of reporting on racing. His emergence into the field of sports, and the sport of kings in particular, coincided with my own time as a PR representative with Ladbrokes and Coral and then as Head of Sponsorship with the Tote.
We sponsored the Cheltenham Gold Cup and this was always a high point of Colm’s year. In that he was no different to many tens of thousands of Irish who would descend on the Cotswolds every March dreaming of victory and intent on having a great time.
I can still see Colm’s head tilted to one side as we spoke of possible Irish winners, the likely opposition they would face and the merest hint of a bet at slightly over the odds.
Rarely has so much pleasure been derived from that idea of being, even for an instant, close to the inside track. His reporting from the yards of Willie Mullins or Aidan O’Brien was always just the right side of breathless in his admiration for the work of those he was reporting on.
It translated as well to other sports from soccer at Italia 90 with Jack Charlton to the Paralympic Games in Sydney 10 years later or the summer beat of the GAA in his sporting round up slots on RTE News.
Colm was much more than a reporter of facts. He was a storyteller who wove human feeling into what he often alluded to as being superhuman effort. The public loved his enthusiasm and his ability to look less seriously when needed at events that he was bringing back into our living rooms.
Yesterday’s news of his death, though not unexpected was still like a physical blow. From a personal perspective there was also a sense of deja vu. A little over ten years ago my grandfather rang me to say how sorry he was to hear that Colm Murray had died. It was a shock to me at the time and an even bigger one when I saw him reporting the sports news later that evening. A delightful case of mistaken identity and Colm had the grace to laugh about it when I told him some months after.
In some ways it put him on a level with Mark Twain and the same storytelling gene was present in both as well. His reports were always enjoyable to watch even though on more than one occasion the tumble of words never quite seemed to know where they were going. He always got there in the end, and he brought us along on the journey.
Tributes have rightly come pouring in from across the world of sport. From racing, from RTE and from Paralympics where Liam Harbison tweeted that Paralympics had indeed lost a special friend.
It really feels that way today. Sport can be a very serious business. It is also a magical one with the power to lift a nation. The ability to capture that, and to build towards it through the medium of words and pictures is something that came naturally to Colm Murray.
His bravery and willingness to lift the curtain on his terrible disease were perhaps borne of his exposure to sport and his passion to explain. He was a gentleman, a joker, a journalist and a young boy at heart with a love of sport and people. He will be sadly missed and when Cheltenham comes around next March, a little piece of it will not be the same.
Farewell Colm and thank you.
Our Video of the Day today is an RTE tribute to Colm Murray.
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