In The Blue Corner: Bernard Dunne

It wasn’t love at first sight. In fact, as is often the case, it took a spell apart for the world of Gaelic Games and his now beloved Dubs to even register with former world boxing champion Bernard Dunne.

Dunne, having narrowly failed to qualify for the 2000 Olympic Games in Sydney, left Neilstown, Dublin and the amateur game behind and made the bold move to chase his professional dreams in Los Angeles at the relatively young age of 21. The opportunity to train with the renowned and widely-respected Freddie Roach at the Wild Card Gym was too good to turn down.

A Dub to the core, Dunne struggled to adapt. He was supposedly living the dream, but he suffered from crippling bouts of homesickness throughout his time in California.

“I’d go home tomorrow if I could,” he said back in 2003, two years after relocating to the west coast of the US. “If it was possible to do what I’m doing here back home I’d be there in a flash. I’m here for one thing only and that’s to box.”

Like any lonely ex-pat, he latched on to anything that reminded him of home. Sport was always his passion and the satellite TV station Setanta Sports became an umbilical cord, his lifeline to home.

Although he played Gaelic football for his school, he demonstrated such a talent for the sweet science from a young age that there was only one sporting avenue he was ever going to pursue. “When I got to 15 I realised I was rubbish at everything else other than boxing,” he jokes. Gaelic Games though was a dormant, untapped passion that only came to life in the early hours of Sunday mornings of his first few summers in the US.

It was the era of Tommy Lyons – the Dublin manager who memorably coined the term ‘arse boxing’ – and Dunne was soon in thrall to the Dubs and the colour of those salad days in Croker and the aching reminders of his hometown.

“My earliest memory is ’95, of Charlie Redmond and Jayo. But even then I wouldn’t have been a huge GAA fan,” he says. “When I moved to the States I started to tune in to watch the games on TV over there. That was it. I just fell in love with the sport.”

He was smitten, but he didn’t find an adequate expression for his passion until after he returned home in 2005, undefeated in 14 pro fights, having signed a deal with Irish promoter Brian Peters that would allow him to set up base in Dublin.

It was then that going to games in Parnell Park and Croke Park became as much a part of his weekends as walking the dog. It was an outlet at a time when his boxing career began to take off.

He hit the big-time in November 2006, beating Esham Pickering to land the European Super-Bantamweight title and was feted at Croke Park the following summer, showing off his belt to the crowd at half-time in Dublin’s Leinster Championship semi-final win over Offaly.

“When I walked out with my European title in Croke Park it was amazing. The walk up towards the Hill, full of blue, it’s dreams come true. It really, really is.”

Nearly two years into his retirement following a rewarding professional career that would also yield a WBA world title in 2009 – after the never-to-be-forgotten war with Ricardo Cordoba in the O2 – Dunne is not sure if he would have gone through the same pain had the financial incentive not been so great. That’s where his respect for top-level GAA players stems from.

“I think it’s phenomenal. Would I do it? Would I sacrifice as much time as they do? It’s not just the training, it’s sacrificing time from family, friends and loved ones.

“They are professional in every sense of the word. They really are. Would I be as dedicated? We’ll never know the answer to that, but it would take a massive love for something to be as dedicated as that.”

Much of his immersion in the GAA is thanks to his long-time sponsor and friend Martin Donnelly. Dunne is now a regular fixture at the annual Poc Fada in the Cooley Mountains, which Donnelly supports. It was there he met then Waterford manager Davy Fitzgerald and was invited to talk to the Déise players during the 2010 season. Last Monday, he was in Croke Park to lend his support to the suicide prevention charity ‘Suicide or Survive’ whose logo will appear on the Dublin jersey for the opening games of the Allianz Leagues. He enjoys giving a little back to a sport that has enriched his life so much.

The most fulfilling day of all came last September when Dunne, with the great Kevin Heffernan at one side and Donnelly at the other, watched Dublin finally reclaim the All-Ireland title.

“It was great to be sitting beside two legends of GAA when Dublin won it for the first time in so long. It really was phenomenal.

“It was something hard fought for, hard worked for. It was something that was well deserved.

“Physically and technically Dublin are as good as any team. Mental strength plays a huge part in it. If Dublin lost last year it would have been devastating and so hard to come back from.

“But we have a young bunch of lads, the right man in charge. I think he will be saying to them, ‘OK, we won it last year, but that’s gone.’ It’s about winning this again and becoming champions again. I think we have such enthusiasm there that it is still all to work for.”

Dunne’s four-year-old son Finnian is at an age where plans for his sporting future are already being hatched. Boxing seems too brutal a legacy to bequeath to his own flesh and blood.

“I’m already thinking of what GAA club to bring him to,” Dunne says. “I would never bring him to boxing because to grow up in Daddy’s footsteps is a huge thing.

“If he wanted to that’s a different story, but I would never bring him down. I would let him be into every sport. I am already thinking of what club I am going to get him to join for the GAA.”

Dunne may have discovered his sporting passion late in life, but he’s not going to allow the same mistake to happen twice.

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