Joe Brolly

Joe Brolly (born 25 June 1969), barrister, Gaelic football analyst and former player of the game for the Derry county team. A former regular on The Sunday Game (RTÉ), Brolly writes columns for the Sunday Independent and Gaelic Life.

From columns

 * It is a fact widely known that Kieran McGeeney's teams do not perform in championship. This tradition continued at Breffni Park yesterday, with Donegal playing a virtually perfect game.
 * Sunday Independent


 * For the second week in a row, Kieran Donaghy was better dressed in the studio than Jimmy McGuinness and Peter Canavan wasn't. Last weekend, Kieran gave a detailed analysis of a sending off he hadn't seen.
 * Brolly writing on the Sky Sports coverage for the Sunday Independent, 8 November 2020


 * American presidents come and go. Dublin endure. Their annual Leinster Championship run has become the easiest campaign in Irish life after the Healy-Raes', with more discipline.
 * Brolly in the Sunday Independent on the same date as the commentary on Donaghy, Canavan and McGuinness - as Joe Biden became the 46th American president, Dublin had not lost a championship game since Barack Obama was the 44th, remaining unbeaten throughout Donald Trump's time in office.


 * Boris Johnson said this week that he wants to unleash 'The Great British haircut'. Boris, who looks like what Owen Mulligan will in 10 years' time, likes to put 'Great British' or 'Great Britain' before his public pronouncements... Perhaps when Owen Mulligan was running amok against Dublin in the mid-noughties, selling them what Sean Cavanagh would describe as 'The Great UK dummy', a young Boris was watching, marched straight to the barber afterwards and demanded the full Mulligan.
 * On the subject of haircuts, in Gaelic Life


 * I asked one board member this week how much [Derry manager] Rory Gallagher is being paid. He said 'I don't ask, I don't want to know'. 'How is he being paid?' 'I don't know. As I said, I don't ask'. As part of the package, Rory is driving a sponsored 5 series BMW from JKC Motors. A Fermanagh man, or is it Cavan, or Antrim, I cannot put my finger on it, he was appointed by the previous board on the basis that he was a 'top rank professional manager'.
 * Writing in the Sunday Independent in 2020


 * In Derry, the board is currently in serious discussions about whether to enter a senior team into next year's championship... if Derry had not fielded a team in league or championship over the last five years, our absence would have been as memorable as Kilkenny's footballers... In a small dual county, in a vain bid to keep up with the Joneses, we have been spending over £45,000 a month on our senior teams... What has all this expenditure bought us? To Division 4. And now, Division 3 mid-table mediocrity.
 * Writing in the Sunday Independent on the same date in 2020 on the decline in Derry's status.


 * The one real anomaly in the League is The Black Death... They have continued to play the most horrible, defensive football the game has ever seen, oblivious to the trend towards attack based, non fouling football.
 * Brolly on Cavan in Gaelic Life

From social media

 * Great second half by Cavan. Always had a soft spot for the county ever since Pat Faulkner kicked me up in the air & Joe Dillon caught me over his head in the 1987 Ulster club semi final v Kingscourt.
 * Brolly on Twitter


 * Boys talking through their arses on TSG. It was a superb goal. The hip nudge to put Walsh off balance. The catch. The lightning fast, deft finish. The perfect timing.
 * Brolly disagreed with television analysis of Mark Keane's goal that knocked Kerry out of the 2020 All-Ireland Senior Football Championship in the county's first game.
 * Media coverage of the tweet

From interviews

 * Barry McGowan. Now he was an example of a really great footballer who was totally unheralded. For me, he was as good as Tony Scullion. He was in that mould.
 * Quoted in The Irish Times


 * Och, he knows what I think of him – I've said it before.
 * Speaking about Barry McGowan


 * The great Barry, the great unheralded maestro of Donegal football...
 * Again on McGowan


 * The world has increasingly become like the Rose of Tralee... We're either interested in the truth and in the facts of things or we're in Rose of Tralee world where no-one says anything and where, for example, RTÉ apologise because you and I took an entirely fair, but robust view of Barry McGuigan. I mean, apologising? And, of course, everybody knows the apology is false as well. Everybody knows, 'Well that's a false apology, obviously McGuigan has rung up to complain about this, the wee shite that he is'.
 * Speaking to Eamon Dunphy about a 2017 incident following a radio interview concerning a different Barry altogether.


 * He's so big, he has an arse like a bag of cement. You can't get near him when the ball comes in, yet he has the most delicate skills.
 * Giving thanks to Geoffrey McGonagle for helping him to score the winning goal in the 1998 Ulster final.


 * Tommy Walsh is a one-trick pony – if he gets the ball 40 yards from goal and you stay close to him he'll barge past you and head for goal, but if you stand off him and wait for him to come onto his left then he won't do any damage... Walsh doesn't have the speed of thought or foot to deal with proper, logical defending.
 * On the Kerry footballer in 2009.


 * And where in the country would you get anyone like Anthony Lynch, a warrior and a Gaeilgeoir? If my daughter said she was going to marry him I'd go down on my knees and thank the Lord. No dowry would be too large for the Lynch family.
 * Quoted in the Irish Examiner in 2009


 * 'What do people see in Canty?' a Kerry man texted me at half-time [of the 2011 Munster final]. 'I don't know' was my response. In fairness, Kerry people are very harsh judges of a footballer. Someone like Graham, whose strengths are his physique, athleticism and never-say-die attitude, underwhelms them. They have that in Kerry, but on top of that they have the skills. Graham does not.
 * Speaking on The Sunday Game in 2011.


 * Yes, I visibly propelled Michael Murphy into the air to catch that ball. My ability to deliver an All-Ireland to the highest bidder! I am a powerful man and people should be afraid.
 * Brolly admits he provided assistance to Donegal in their defeat of Mayo in the 2012 All-Ireland Senior Football Championship Final, though RTÉ's television cameras did not manage to capture either his dash onto the field or his interaction with the Donegal captain.


 * I got a warning... It said at 11 minutes past three on the day of the drawn All-Ireland Final you said to Pat Spillane, and it was put into quotes, 'Would you stop patting my arm?' 'This was grossly unprofessional and rude and cannot be tolerated'. I kid you not. I was also told that Joanne Cantwell had lost confidence in my abilities as an analyst.
 * On being dropped by RTÉ in 2019.

Quotes about

 * Brolly could cause a riot in a convent.
 * Quoted in The Irish Times


 * Joe Brolly is a person in pain.
 * A Ballina-based life coach has enrolled GAA TV pundit Joe Brolly as a member of the Knock Shrine Friends Association, after he singled her out in a scathing article about the wellness industry.


 * I used to think you were an awful shite.
 * A woman speaking to Brolly as he waited at the lights while cycling through Belfast. Quoted in The Irish Times, February 2013.