He’s back. After a decade of railing against a host of Irish football’s inadequacies; the blazers, the players, even the fans; Roy Keane has jumped the fence, baby! Diarmuid O hAinle, author of It Started with a Handshake, reacts to the Corkman’s return and says Keane owes us one.
The furore over Rory McIlroy’s decision on who to represent at the 2016 Olympics has prompted Diarmuid o hAinle to explore an issue which has existed for footballers on this island for decades.
Review: Mick McCarthy took over at Ipswich Town last week and confirmed he would have said yes to a return to the Ireland job. His arrival at Portman Road drew the inevitable links to Roy Keane’s time in charge of the Tractor Boys. For Irish people, one name usually follows the other and the word Saipan is never far from the lips. Diarmuid O hAinle’s stunning new book It Started With a Handshake takes us back to 2002 but asks what if it had all turned out differently?
It was the hand-shake that tremored around the world. Now two giants of Irish football have been reduced to miniature. To celebrate Diarmuid O’hAinle’s stunning book on arguably the national team’s most momentous period, the 2001 Lansdowne Road embrace between Mick McCarthy and Roy Keane has been depicted in Subbuteo form.