“Asking a girl out in public?” It was like climbing Everest ‘
Now in Series 21, TG4’s Laochra Gael is developing an incredible record of defying taboos in society than most other sports-oriented programs.
Starting with Terence ‘Sambo’ McNaughton this Thursday to kick off the new series, one would have thought it was a somewhat quirky choice for a national audience.
That’s until he brings you back to his world in grade school. Mercilessly abused, beaten, ridiculed and ultimately ignored by teachers because of his stuttering. Isolated among his peers and unable to speak to anyone, seeking solace in a hustle and bustle, a wall and a bullet.
At one point in the program, McNaughton remembers a teacher guarding him in front of the class, hitting him with a book behind his head whenever he stutters, when the memory triggers his tears.
“To be fair, my elementary school was only a few yards from the hurling ground. You talk about chalk and cheese, ”he says now.
“I hated every minute of school. I loved going to the hurling ground. From during the day, being in school, being a stranger to be made fun of, to going to the hurling pitch where I had a goal.
“You didn’t need to communicate there. That was the beauty of the game for me. You could play alone.
“I am not having any illusions. I needed the Cushendall Hurling Club more than they ever needed me. It saved me. He adds: “To be honest, I don’t know where I could have ended up without the Cushendall hurling club. I don’t know what my life would have been like and I’m afraid to think about what it could have been. I believe it with every fiber in my body.
“I had no education. No trust. No communication skills. Like, what was my future without screaming? ”
His first meeting with his wife Ursula is touching. She was at a ball in Cushendall. He couldn’t bring himself to ask her to dance. Fortunately, her niece went to make the introductions.
“I couldn’t talk to him. If someone asked me the time, I would walk past them. I could have been alone in the house and when the phone rang, I couldn’t answer, ”he explains.
“Asking a girl out in public?” It was like climbing Everest. It was never going to happen. It’s not about whether I would or not?
“People don’t understand that every time you stutter some people shake their heads, others stamp their feet. Some play with their hands in their pockets. You have to do this, all these thoughts go through you, the emotion builds up and then… I would be in tears of frustration. He adds: “I remember my mother found around £ 1.50 in my drawer. It was money back then. She thought I stole it.
“There was a hubbub at the time and I got a slap in the ear, where did I get the money from?
“These were people who gave me money to go to the store, and I couldn’t go to the store. I couldn’t go there. I couldn’t go get ice cream. Money was absolutely no use to me. In time, he would become one of the most recognizable howlers to ever emerge from Ulster, aided by the unusual nickname of a team of unusual nicknames and characters.
But in his own environment, it was no blessing. He reveals how he was threatened by the UDA who left him with a bullet on his windshield with his name on it, and how the RUC warned him to leave Belfast as his name was on a Loyalist paramilitary results list .
His contemporaries such as Dáithí Regan express their disbelief that their opponents have to go through hardships such as being stopped and arrested for hours at army or police checkpoints.
“Honestly, I thought about the notes that had been left for me and my name on a bullet, I thought it was just a dick where we were working,” he said of the time.
“But that was back when Sammy Wilson was saying the GAA was the sporting wing of the Provos, the IRA at stake, all that shit. It was a different world. It was really, really. Thank goodness it’s gone. “