30 Facts About Michael O'Hehir

Michael O'Hehir is still regarded as the original 'voice of Gaelic games'.

Michael O'Hehir subsequently trained the Leitrim football team that secured the Connacht title in 1927 and he served as an official with the Dublin Junior Board.

Michael O'Hehir was educated at St Patrick's National School in Drumcondra before later attending the O'Connell School.

Michael O'Hehir later studied electrical engineering at University College Dublin, but he abandoned his studies after just one year to pursue a full-time career in broadcasting.

Michael O'Hehir never played football, but he enjoyed a distinguished hurling career with the St Vincents GAA club in Raheny.

Michael O'Hehir became fascinated with the radio when he received a present of one as a child.

Michael O'Hehir had just turned eighteen and was still a schoolboy when he wrote to Radio Eireann asking to do a test commentary.

Michael O'Hehir was accepted and was asked, along with five others, to do a five-minute microphone test for a National Football League game between Wexford and Louth.

Michael O'Hehir went on to commentate on the second semi-final and that year's final between Galway and Kerry.

The last few minutes of Michael O'Hehir's commentary included him pleading with the broadcast technicians not to take him off the air.

Michael O'Hehir's pleas were successful and the Irish people could listen to the game in full.

In 1944, Michael O'Hehir joined the staff of Independent Newspapers as a sports sub-editor, before beginning a seventeen-year career as a racing correspondent in 1947.

Michael O'Hehir's racing expertise was not just limited to print journalism as he became a racing commentator with Radio Eireann in 1945.

Michael O'Hehir's application was accepted and he provided commentary for the Cheltenham Gold Cup.

The BBC bosses were sufficiently impressed with Michael O'Hehir to offer him further commentaries.

Michael O'Hehir subsequently became a staple of the BBC's coverage of the famous annual Grand National steeplechase.

Michael O'Hehir later confessed in an interview that it had been his inability to identify the colours on his card when inspecting the riders' silks in the weighing room prior to the race that had led him to question rider John Buckingham who his mount was.

However, in the 1969 Grand National, Michael O'Hehir made a horrendous error stating that eventual winner Highland Wedding had fallen at Bechers Brook when a horse called Kilburn fell.

Michael O'Hehir only covered three TV Grand Nationals, afterwards he would continue to cover the race for BBC Radio until 1981.

In 1961 Ireland's first national television station, Telefis Eireann, was founded and Michael O'Hehir was appointed head of sports programmes.

Michael O'Hehir's skills did not just confine him to sports broadcasting, in November 1963, he faced his toughest broadcast.

Michael O'Hehir was asked by Telefis Eireann to provide the commentary for the funeral.

Michael O'Hehir's commentary won widespread acclaim in Ireland and showed a different side of his nature.

Michael O'Hehir later described it as the most moving and most demanding commentary of his career.

Michael O'Hehir was known in the United States prior to this as he had worked with ABC as a racing commentator.

Michael O'Hehir later provided commentaries for other non-sporting events such as the reburial of Roger Casement in 1965 and the celebrations marking the golden jubilee of the Easter Rising in 1966.

In 1975 Michael O'Hehir was honoured by The Late Late Show with a special tribute show.

Michael O'Hehir was replaced by Ger Canning on television, and on radio by Micheal O Muircheartaigh.

Michael O'Hehir had hoped to return to broadcasting one day to complete his 100th final; however, this never happened.

Michael O'Hehir returned briefly in 1996 when his autobiography, My Life and Times, was published.