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00:01Growing up in County Kilkenny, hurling was everything.
00:06You go to any pitch, the guys playing it,
00:09they have so much pride in their parish.
00:11They're representing their parish first of all,
00:13and then they're representing their county.
00:17Hurling is a religion in Kilkenny.
00:21And I suppose we here in Kilkenny
00:23had the privilege and the honour of watching him
00:26and what he did for Kilkenny.
00:29He was just that extraordinary individual.
00:32He just, he just enlightened the whole place.
00:35I remember my first game, going to see him.
00:37I can remember it as if it was today.
00:40He was probably one of the smallest guys on the field,
00:43that he was just that bit different.
00:45He just was, for a little fella, he just could get that ball.
00:51I honestly cannot remember not having heard of him.
00:54He was just that enormous amount of fame,
00:57known by his initials.
00:59DJ Kerry!
01:04DJ Kerry! DJ Kerry!
01:07Dennis Joseph Kerry.
01:09When the pressure was on, Kilkenny could rely on DJ.
01:12I think he was the greatest superstar of my era.
01:15He just had it all.
01:19He had the skill, he had the speed and, you know, he had the cunning.
01:23He was the hero so many times in terms of turning matches and the scores.
01:27Still DJ Kerry!
01:29Oh, he's got it!
01:31DJ Kerry!
01:32DJ's in there waiting!
01:34A goal!
01:35I can still picture him on that TV, scoring the goals, going for the high ball.
01:40I can still see him, you know, and he was, he was, he was God.
01:45DJ is God.
01:46In God we trust, in DJ we believe.
01:48If he was a professional today, he'd be worth 50 million.
01:54The right team would be worth nothing.
01:56Nothing!
01:57In more ways than one, he was the George Best of Kilkenny.
02:00He had that extraordinary ability to touch the hearts and minds of people
02:05with an ability that was beyond comprehension.
02:07But the sad part is, John, where it has gone to.
02:11And where he's got himself to.
02:14Judge Martin Nolan sentenced him to a total of five and a half years in jail,
02:18saying he couldn't imagine a more reprehensible type of fraud.
02:23There was a certain belief that if someone was that good at hurling,
02:27that they were decent people.
02:28Because there was something about the discipline needed to be a good hurler
02:31and the inherent decency that that suggested.
02:34Like a good hurler was a good person.
02:37DJ Carey is accused of inducing 23 people to pay him money
02:42after he had fraudulently claimed to have cancer.
02:45DJ Carey had a remarkable career as a hurler
02:49and nobody would take that away from him.
02:51We didn't just love him, we trusted him.
02:53We're blinded by our heroes.
02:55He is the ultimate hitman and we mean that in the nicest possible way.
03:00DJ Carey.
03:02Most people have no idea what a bad person that man is.
03:09Very evil type individual.
03:12A con man is somebody who is very plausible
03:15and comes along and convinces you to part with your money
03:18for something that isn't true where it isn't the case.
03:20And DJ did that.
03:21Yes, of course, definitely he's a con man.
03:24No question about it.
03:26He's a nice con man.
03:27He's a nice con man.
03:28Ha, ha, ha, ha.
03:29He's a nice con man.
03:31He's a nice con man.
03:32This is a nice con man.
03:33He's just a nice con man.
03:34He just has a good idea.
03:36He's a kind of a man.
03:38He's a nice con man.
03:39He's a nice con man.
03:42I've been waiting, really, for the last two and a half years to get to this point.
04:01Wondering, would he plead guilty at the last minute?
04:05And that's actually what happened.
04:08Hi, I'm just outside. I was so sorry, I had no reception in the building.
04:13Now he's pleaded guilty, it changes things, you know, so I said all that to him.
04:17So I was relieved because I've gotten to know a lot of the victims.
04:22As soon as it was over, talking to them, and they're relieved, their sense relief.
04:26These are decent people.
04:29I am an accountant. First time in my life I had a bit of money.
04:32And here I go and give 17 grand away to a stranger without checking anything.
04:37It's embarrassing.
04:39It was very convincing.
04:41We were in the throes of our own struggles, and I kind of said,
04:45Jesus, sure, what else would you do? You'd help someone out.
04:48She was happy to be able to help someone.
04:51I gave him 5,000, and that was it, and I forgot about it.
04:55I absolutely never, never occurred to me that I didn't have cancer.
04:59There's a lot of people out there who still don't believe that D.J. Carey's a bad guy.
05:04And that's the frightening thing.
05:06I didn't hear her name, so because she was paid back, I don't...
05:10D.J., finally, the law caught up with him.
05:13And I think that he had nowhere else to turn.
05:17He was cornered.
05:18So he obviously accepted the deal that was done.
05:22So instead of facing 21 charges, he pleaded guilty to 10.
05:27And what was interesting for me watching him as he stood there in the dock
05:31was that when each charge was put to him one by one
05:35with the person's name or the people's names involved,
05:38he had to say the word guilty.
05:41Guilty.
05:43Guilty.
05:57Gourdin is just a half an hour outside Kilkenny City.
06:03It really is a beautiful scenic place.
06:08It's a small community, rural community.
06:11A great community spirit working together,
06:14and working for everybody in the community.
06:16If Mother Teresa had been born in Kilkenny
06:21and hadn't made the Comoggi team,
06:24She would not have been to kill any people.
06:27If you know what I mean. That's the culture.
06:31Yeah.
06:35Everybody knows about hurling and everybody wants to talk about it.
06:39And the love of hurling is endemic.
06:44You could just go into a shop like on the Monday after a match
06:47and you'd hear people saying, what did you think of that?
06:50And they don't have to say, what did you think of the match yesterday
06:52that took place at three o'clock or ever?
06:54People knew what you meant and everybody had something to say about it,
06:57whether they were there or not.
06:59The whole thing just consumes the county.
07:06On a sunny day, Gorn, it's an absolutely idyllic place.
07:11But there's very little in it in terms of, if you're thinking about the 1970s,
07:15farming and hurling. They were the two big things.
07:19There was the church as well.
07:21But certainly for DJ Carey, hurling was his religion.
07:28I think I had the hurling in my hand all the time.
07:30As soon as I had spare time, I think the hurling was in the hand.
07:34Society led to that because there wasn't really much to do in a small country village.
07:40Hurling was what we did.
07:42We're talking about a little chap. Say he was four or five years old and he had the hurling in his hand and he'd go all the way to school, say a mile and a half with the Schlitter balancing it on the hurling.
08:01He'd hurl in school when he'd arrive before the classes start. They'd be hurling at one o'clock and they'd be playing during their lunch break.
08:10So I would say a lot of the day was taken up by hurling.
08:21When he was growing up, I wouldn't say he had an easy life.
08:24They called him the little fella at times because he was so small in stature towards his classmates.
08:31As you can see, he's not exactly professional.
08:37The big grin.
08:40This is the most interesting picture probably because it's the first time that I have a picture of DJ playing in the school league under 13 championship.
08:50Again, you can see how small he is.
08:53We would play a hurling matches after school on Wednesdays.
08:56And as often as not, DJ might be absent that morning.
09:00But we never worried because we knew he'd turn up at the school field.
09:05He had his priorities, right?
09:07He never, he never missed a match.
09:10First time he played hurling for the county under 14.
09:14A simple life, a country boy from a very humble background.
09:19There were times when the family struggled, but there were people in the GA community that looked out for them.
09:24DJ's mother actually ended up getting a job as a cook in St. Ciaran's College.
09:30Which is a very prestigious secondary school which DJ attended.
09:35That's where his hurling career took off.
09:38At the time, Ciaran's College was known as the hurling school.
09:44The minute you walked in the gates of St. Ciaran's College, you could just see and feel the atmosphere.
09:50We went there first to hurl and second to get an education.
09:55Word started to spread about Ciaran's College had quite a good team.
10:01Then there was word about there was this little fella.
10:04He was really, really something special.
10:07People that might be only going to senior matches that you'd meet, but suddenly they were going to underage matches.
10:13A great ball in there, and it's in the net. It's a great goal there for St. Ciaran's College by DJ Carey.
10:19The word coming through was, did you see this guy DJ Carey?
10:23That time he was commonly known as the Dodger. He could weave and dodge around rocks and lads trying to get the ball out.
10:34He was just able to tip the ball out and he'd have it gone four or five metres ahead of him.
10:38And he'd gone and still had to be looking for the ball. For a small guy, he had that toughness. But it was his skill that marked him out. He could do things with the ball.
10:49People said, wait till he gets on to the county team.
10:53If you went to Ciaran's, you had a very good chance of playing with Kilkenny teams.
10:58But what entered our head at that time was to make the team that you were trying to make.
11:03Probably one of the greatest pieces of advice I ever got was, you know, if you can get a jersey from one to 15, you take it.
11:12The first big break came in 1988 when St. Ciaran's College won the All-Ireland Colleges Final.
11:28And that was massive for DJ. People of great prominence had watched DJ Carey play because he was different.
11:38And some of the skills that he showed on the field, we hadn't seen before.
11:43They were really staggered by the display. And certainly others that said, you know, he was some kind of a wizard.
11:51I said to myself one day, I don't need to teach this guy anything really, because he had everything.
11:55Temperament, he had skill, he had timing, he had everything.
12:00I think when he gets a hurling stick in his hand, he becomes a different person.
12:04It's like a different world. And I think just for the sheer pleasure of it, I think he does it.
12:09It's All-Ireland Under-21 hurling. Again, it's DJ Carey.
12:13The star of Maniac Kilkenny win, and that's a beautiful pint by Carey.
12:17From a promising minor in 88, to an actual senior player in 89. Then in 1990, Kilkenny won the league that year, and he began to make his name in doing so.
12:34He was, being described as the next superstar of hurling.
12:41DJ Carey, a shot, and a goal! Yes, the finish by Carey, the goal!
12:47The hype was building, and you could kind of see and hear this train coming from a long way off.
12:54So looking back over his life, I'd say there was a sense of grief in the household.
13:05There were two children that died quite tragically.
13:10DJ had an older brother who died in a cot death.
13:14And then he had a brother who died on the farm in a farming accident when he was three or four years of age.
13:20So I'm sure this had a profound effect.
13:22DJ was different to the other teammates.
13:29There was a little nervousness. He'd get jittery.
13:33DJ wasn't sitting at the back of the bus with the boys having the crack.
13:38His upbringing, he was clean living. His lack of interest in drink.
13:43He wasn't interested in that kind of stuff.
13:46He wouldn't let the team down. He was an excellent team player.
13:49But he didn't have the same rapport with the team and the people his age.
13:57If you scratch the surface, you realise that there were times when he cut a lonely figure.
14:02He spent hours outside the family home practicing, trying to hit the perfect spot that he picked out on the gable end.
14:12I think DJ has very few people in his inner circle.
14:17I think growing up, there was an unselfishness in me.
14:24Probably in life in general, that's the way I am.
14:29But growing up, when you play with bigger guys, you're not really able to run through them.
14:34And by in large, you're not really able to run around them. You have to learn over time.
14:39Unless you're the toughest, the hardest, the most skillful, the fittest, the fastest, you won't be champions.
14:46It's as simple as that.
14:50There's always a certain madness. No matter how cool a guy is, there's always a certain madness.
14:54And the big thing was to hit the chimney. I don't think that will ever leave.
15:11The word was out about him. The speed and the alertness.
15:16There was an electricity about when he got the ball.
15:18People would half stand up or sit up in the stand when a movement would start with him.
15:25The individual scores he got and things he did on the pitch.
15:30He was courageous in his decision making, you know.
15:33John Hoyne has trapped it through the centre.
15:36He took the ball. Good God to him, actually.
15:38He was an unstoppable force.
15:40And I suppose, for a defender who was trying to defend against him,
15:43trying to anticipate where he was coming from or where he was going,
15:46was just something that was out of the extraordinary.
15:49After him there was Oli Baker.
15:52DJ steadying himself, turning it in beautifully and putting it over the...
15:55Incredible, incredible, incredible player.
15:58He had a turn of pace and a turn of speed and a touch that you couldn't coach.
16:03He just had it, he's in space.
16:10If anyone, if they're new to the game, if they really want to see a game properly...
16:14Go down and look as closely at eye level as you can to that game,
16:20and there's where you're really going to see it at its best.
16:27He was probably one of the first that actually moved around the field.
16:31Like he could be found in the middle of the field rooting out a ball
16:34and it's gone to somebody else.
16:36But he'd be on the edge of the square within seconds,
16:38and when the ball was delivered in.
16:39And I would have remembered, you know, the crowd in the stand from all clubs clapping him after maybe a score.
16:45He was a superstar.
16:46He's preparing heels to Paul McKillen.
16:49He did.
16:50The best one was the ball against Antrim.
16:53The super reflex reaction of the crossbar.
16:58Gathering in around the house, sweeping across the ball.
17:00The skills that we saw, the star quality, they're the kind of highs you can't capture again.
17:09That's what makes Hurling the best game in the world.
17:20He was kind of becoming known beyond Kilkenny.
17:26If you were a Hurling fan, you were hearing about D.J. Carey.
17:32In 1992, All-Ireland, in the final against Cork, it was a wet day, a greasy surface.
17:40The force of the cross towards D.J. Carey looking for the first score of the match.
17:43They got a penalty before half-time.
17:46Kilkenny were finding it hard to stay in touch.
17:49They really needed a goal.
17:52And D.J. being D.J., he took his run-up,
17:55connected with the ball,
17:58and, of course, it kicked up off the wet salt,
18:01and beat all the guys on the line.
18:12A goal!
18:13And D.J. Carey!
18:15I'd only score two more goals in the second half.
18:18D.J.'s goal from the penalty was the one that kept them in touch
18:22and gave them the platform for the second half to go and win it.
18:26D.J. Carey, the champions at 1992.
18:31D.J. Carey, the champions at 1992.
18:33D.J. Carey, the champions at 1992.
18:36D.J. Carey, 20 minutes out.
18:39D.J. Carey was an age hurler of the year in 1993.
18:43So here was proof that the hype hadn't been misplaced.
18:48All the people who saw him back in Goran when he was young
18:51knew what they were talking about.
18:53This was it. He had arrived.
18:54The day after an All-Ireland win, it really is something very special.
19:07The flags in the street and the local radio, everyone talking about it,
19:11and something that gives people such joy here.
19:14That week after an All-Ireland win, they'd go around all the schools with the cup,
19:18and the big excitement was that D.J. would be there.
19:19D.J. would be there.
19:20And that was amazing.
19:21D.J.! D.J.!
19:31You almost felt like you had met him, because you felt like you had witnessed someone
19:36giving their all.
19:38So you almost felt like you knew him, even if you didn't.
19:40I mean, in Kilkenny, when we had no Kardashians, these fellas, you know, they're like gods.
19:47And the young ones would absolutely be mad about them.
19:52He had an aura about him then that was just beyond comment.
19:55Like, people just flocked around.
19:58So I just happened to be looking at it. He just picked me up and said, hello, how are you?
20:02So I was blessed.
20:05I remember one time queuing for tickets for an All-Ireland and DJ turned up.
20:10But I remember he went to queue along with everybody else.
20:14And everyone said, no, DJ, you don't have to, you go on, you know, you go on and get your tickets.
20:19No, no. And he was insisting he'd queue, you know.
20:22So everybody just basically was delighted that he was there, you know.
20:25You could go home and tell everyone that DJ was in the queue and that was a big deal, you know.
20:28Well, you've all done very well and I'm delighted to call forward the prize winners.
20:33I was involved in Hurland so much that it kept me out of an awful lot of trouble.
20:37It keeps me healthy, you know, it keeps me in good shape.
20:40You're kept out of any scrapes that are going on around the town.
20:43He was fantastic with people, you know, even as a young guy, his interaction with the kids.
20:49He visited schools, you know, presented medals.
20:52A great ambassador for the sport.
20:54Still only 27 years old and already a legend, DJ Carey started the day with an activity he loves dearly.
21:01Meeting and inspiring young hurlers.
21:03Maybe something that I said or someone else said will help you on the road to your success.
21:08Thanks very much.
21:09The energy he gave to the schools and the visits he would have paid to small clubs and how he had time to go to the weakest of clubs and deprived areas and give time to them.
21:23But I mean, you hear stories of him ending up up the north now, up around Antrim.
21:27And I wasn't sure if he went down around Tipperary or that, but he would have been very welcome there.
21:32So in the 90s, early on as a young man, he met Christine O'Keefe.
21:43They married in 1995.
21:45Christine was a lovely, ordinary country girl.
21:49And a lot of people thought she was very good for DJ because she'd ground him.
21:53You know, when he's traveling here, there and everywhere and dealing with the pressures of fame, that he could always come home to Christine.
22:01They had two young children.
22:05A few years into the marriage, the boys came along and Christine kept things going at home for him.
22:12She must have found it hard because there were such long periods of time when she wouldn't see DJ.
22:19DJ was training in the evening.
22:22He was working all day.
22:23He was traveling at night to medal presentations and he wasn't at home very much.
22:28This is probably by 90th or 100th since September.
22:32It's just night after night after night.
22:37Oftentimes it's very difficult for All-Ireland Champions to make a promise and then they want to carry out that promise.
22:43And it leads on then into mid-season and then an odd injury is picked up and you're having the pre-season work done.
22:49And you're that bit softer and fellas are praising you and clapping you in the back.
22:54And then when the real championship thing comes around, your focus, even though you think your focus is right, it's not really right.
23:00TJ, a very, very amenable guy.
23:07He never knew at the time when to say no.
23:11He would be going to medal presentations a few nights a week when he should have been or might have been at home, either having a domestic life or resting.
23:25You can make sure that he wasn't making money out of these medal presentations.
23:33That's the guy TJ was at the time.
23:36He was just a good, amenable, helpful guy.
23:40There was a lot going on in his life in terms of finances.
23:44DJ Carey Enterprises was his main cleaning company, which he set up the year before he got married in 1994.
23:52Was it the right thing for him to do? Did he have the business acumen?
23:56He was employing between 15 and 20 people at that stage in the business.
24:01He was a man under pressure.
24:03He never had a very, very good, to my mind, confidant.
24:11Someone would say, look, go to that medal presentation, but that's enough.
24:17You have to say no, you have to draw the line.
24:20And at the time, he never had that, and that was certainly a problem.
24:25Basically, the pressure had got to him.
24:28He retired in 1998.
24:35It was a WTF moment before WTF moments came along.
24:40The news that DJ Carey is to retire is by far the biggest sporting story in years to hit this proud county.
24:46There was shock in Kilkenny.
24:48The favourite player, the guy that everybody had the jersey with his name on your back,
24:53and all of a sudden, dramatically, DJ Carey announced he was resigning.
25:03How he could give up the game that he loves so much overnight, I don't know.
25:09I've never been one for controversy.
25:12I've got on with the game on the field, but as far as I'm concerned, my hunger is gone.
25:17And if I haven't got that, well, then if I go out in the field, I'm letting down both myself and the person beside me,
25:23and the people who are selecting me.
25:25And I felt that by doing that, everyone was being let down.
25:28And I said, now is the time to do it.
25:32Asher, we were disappointed when he announced it then, and we felt that he had more to offer.
25:37And, you know, look, he had given so much, he had given so much, and he had to be jaded, he had to be tired.
25:43Like, he was playing from a very young 12 years of age.
25:46Not many people's careers go on and grow and grow and grow and continuously grow.
25:51He's at the top of his game. He's the top sportsman in the country.
25:54And he epitomises all that's good in the GA in terms of the image he portrays, particularly to the young people.
26:00So he's a huge asset to the GA, and that's why I believe he himself must come back because I think he owes it to an awful lot of people to come back.
26:13I think he lapped up the attention. He loved it.
26:16He had six weeks where the postman's back was broken and gone because he was delivering bags of letters to the house.
26:22Schools and classes wrote to him.
26:25Letters came from all over the world saying,
26:28Please, DJ, will you go back and play for Kilkenny?
26:34I think he was having some kind of a personal crisis.
26:38That he'd hear people saying things about him, that he wouldn't perform on the big days, and these kind of whispers got to him.
26:47So there was a huge media narrative about all this, and a press conference was called.
26:52Now, after careful consideration and support from his family, other players, and thousands of letters, especially from children, DJ is back.
27:01It was an astonishing change of mind. But was it a mistake?
27:05In my mind, I made no mistake. That's the way I felt at the time. The reason I felt that way, I can't tell you.
27:13Outside of the game, I have nothing. I don't drink or smoke. I have my own business. I have my own house. I have my own family. And that's all that matters to me.
27:25Lo and behold, you know, after getting so many headlines a few weeks earlier for his retirement, and dominating the airwaves everywhere, six weeks later, he's back in.
27:36DJ was absolutely aware that he was in an amateur sport, and I have no doubt that it weighed heavily on his mind.
27:48When you consider everything that he put into it, and here he was, slogging and training three, four nights a week, and playing matches, and he wasn't getting any cash in the bank for it.
27:58DJ seemed pretty adamant six weeks earlier that he was done. There was talk, how much did he get? Who was looking after him?
28:09The dogs on the street were asking questions about Avonmoor, which was a huge Kilkenny company, would have been the main sponsor for the GA locally.
28:19Of course the main sponsor wants the star player, so you can't blame people for speculating and saying, well, how much did Avonmoor give him to get him back?
28:29Now, in terms of the press conference, those questions were asked. That was knocked on the head.
28:36DJ Kerry's not one of those players looking for money. In fact, and this is a fact, he has only claimed his expenses up to July of last year. He's actually due expenses.
28:44It was absolutely outright denied by the Kilkenny County Board. No inducement of any sort was offered to DJ Kerry to get him back playing.
28:53I'm going to become very thick-skinned from now on. The criticism I don't mind, but the rumours that start out there, it's not going to be listened to any more.
29:05There was jubilation when we heard he was out and he was back and, like, people flocked again to see him training.
29:14So when he came back at the time, I think all the stars aligned. Brian Cody came in as manager, so a clean slate, a new start.
29:28Top Cat DJ back on Hurling's big stage. Kerry's comeback, a huge boost to Kilkenny's All-Ireland ambition.
29:35We pride ourself on trying to win All-Irelands and we hadn't been winning one for a few years. You know, it was just to get that one more.
29:42Bear in mind, DJ had played in the previous two or in finals, 1998 and 1999, and lost them both. Had not played well in either.
29:57Pipped at the post by Offaly a year ago and now heartbreak against the young guns of Cork.
30:03For some of the players, the emotion was too much. I'd certainly be expecting DJ to step up a year. He didn't score.
30:11This defeat was worse than losing last year's final. The Kilkenny players, selectors and fans really wanted to bring the Lee McCarthy to the banks of the Knorr.
30:19They didn't go for us and, you know, we'll go home disappointed again, but there has to be a winner. That's the cruel part about sport.
30:28That question is always there. Could I have done something different on that occasion?
30:36He was going into an All-Ireland final with more pressure on him than possibly any player in whirling history.
30:46The tension throughout Kilkenny all week was palpable, but so too was the fans' confidence that this team would not go down in history as having lost three in a row.
31:07And the Cats fans were hoping for an inspired display from who else but DJ.
31:14It's the excitement around DJ. It's the story. When DJ does his thing so spectacularly, it's the impact on the crowd. We'd call it the DJ factor.
31:24When the All-Leinster All-Ireland got underway, Kilkenny quickly raced ahead. DJ Carey producing one of his true classics. Carey blasted his shot past Stephen Byrne.
31:37There was a huge excitement when he was in form. He'd be heading for goal and you knew something special was going to happen.
31:46The Cats couldn't have hoped for a better start with goals at plenty. And the fans were dubious.
31:54There was always something special there. And the excitement that was there, not only on the day in the stand watching him, but in the county.
32:03You know the way Maya Angelou says, you don't remember what someone did or what they said. You remember how they made you feel.
32:08And he just made us feel wonderful. Every single time.
32:12The young Ireland's club man pounced again for Kilkenny minutes later.
32:16Niall Claffey did enough to keep Henry Sheflin's effort out, but there was no denying DJ.
32:22To put the icing on the cake, people sitting up in the stand had picked a team of the millennium, which did not include our superstar.
32:31And by half time I think they were gone into hiding. Because he played a star game that day, you know.
32:37But by half time Kilkenny had clinched goal number three. Charlie Carter capitalising on who else but DJ's darting run.
32:45Even the most faithful must have felt the title was heading north side. Kilkenny's seven year wait for the Liam McCarthy Cup was over.
32:54This extra special train arrived in Kilkenny city to a fanfare of noise. The players were mobbed by family, friends and supporters. The crowd's joy made up for the disappointment of the past two years.
33:20Any day you win an Ireland is a special day. And it was always Monday evening at the train station.
33:26The train would be coming in and the bangers would be going off and then the parade down John Street, the open top bus.
33:32Again, DJ would be at the centre of that. Everyone wanted to get a hurl sign by DJ or get their jersey signed.
33:39Their arm pushed out that they wouldn't wash for a month because they got DJ's signature on it.
33:45He had the world at his feet really. You'll hear people saying it all the time. People called him a god and a giant and a hero and all sorts of things.
34:03But also, I can't say that I know anyone who said they were a friend of his. I think that there were a lot of people who played with him.
34:10There were other lads, you know, that they weren't big stars like DJ. But you know, they did well out of the hurling in the end.
34:15Like they got jobs on the basis of their reputation and people looked out for them and they were able to be successful and given opportunities for that.
34:23Ideally, those players should be paid and given money and rewarded for putting people in the stand and, you know, putting that effort in.
34:32But realistically, it's not there. If you're to try and professionally pay an inter-counted senior hurling team, you know, you have a real problem because you only have 35 or 40 people that you're going to have to pay and pay very well over a 10 year career.
34:47They do make incredible compromises, but it's part of what they are. Hurlers up and down the country give their time, massive amounts of their time to their parish and community to play hurling.
35:00But I sometimes think it must be a little bit galling to be at the top of your game, giving of their all for maybe 10 months of the year.
35:10And amateur or professional, they are professionals in everything but picking up a paycheck.
35:18It's very hard for say Americans even to grasp this. DJ Carey is a guy who sat down and had lunch with Tiger Woods, trying to explain the GA in terms of, no, actually, we don't make any money from this.
35:30We get the profile, we have to hold down a full time job. And this is where the dynamic changed maybe a little bit because money is talked about a lot by DJ Carey in his interviews.
35:45No one can stay going for six, seven, eight, nine months, you know, and come off a building site or come off a tractor on a farm or wherever they are.
35:53And, you know, they're losing out on money maybe and they shouldn't be. Things have to change.
36:00Players from around the country gathered at City West this evening. The issue of endorsements and player imaging rights will be discussed for the GPA's AGM.
36:09Around the time of the inception of the Gaelic Players Association, where players had come together, including DJ Carey, to negotiate a deal so that they'd get some money off the field for appearances.
36:22In the mid-90s, hurling became cool. You had the Guinness sponsorship. It brought it to the ads. It brought hurling to the billboards. It brought hurling, I think, into the sitting rooms of the nation in a way it hadn't been before. They were kind of pushing the door. They were trying to open the door.
36:49Six of the country's leading GAA players were today unveiled by sportswear company Puma, who have contracted each player individually to wear their boots and carry out promotional work.
37:00This was 20 years ago. There was a lot of resistance. They had to do a lot of things or fight for things that we now take for granted.
37:10DJ was obviously one of the figureheads.
37:13I would be hoping that eventually all players in all counties will have some sort of endorsement deal. And, you know, there'll be no one become millionaires out of it.
37:23This is what we're looking for. We're not looking to get paid to play.
37:27There is no doubt that there are ways that players can be looked after. You can wrap your arms around them. You can make sure that maybe they have good clients for their business, that there's other ways that people can take care of people who they know and they like in Ireland.
37:46From an early age, even young DJ Kerry, I mean, you can sometimes see evidence or you can see patterns emerge.
37:57You start examining things.
38:00There were times when he didn't have to go to school. He got away with murder. He got looked after. He got the best of everything in terms of his education.
38:11But there were times when he did things that if you weren't DJ Kerry, certainly you wouldn't get away with them.
38:21Doors would open because of who he was. And then as he got older then, that continued.
38:28One of the little perks that the Kilkenny hurlers got after winning in All-Ireland is that they'd get to go on a holiday abroad.
38:36I'm not sure why DJ was so involved. I think DJ was interested in golf as well at this stage.
38:44Everybody in Kilkenny wanted to go on this famous hurlers trip. So this would have been, they were planning for January 2001, after winning that 2000 All-Ireland Final, to head to Asia.
38:56How exotic. They were off to Bangkok, then they were going to go to the little seaside resort of Pattaya in Thailand.
39:06The wives were coming, the girlfriends were coming, the big entourage of supporters.
39:11But they clearly remember DJ Kerry organising the golf and the rounds of golf.
39:16And one fella said to me, and excuse my language, but he said he was a bossy fucker.
39:23My closest contact with DJ would have been in the golfing group in Thailand.
39:27He was kind of coordinating the horror golfers.
39:30He was certainly the leader on the golf course of the Kilkenny lads.
39:35But I don't think he had much say after seven o'clock at night. The rest of them went their own way.
39:42And he wouldn't have been in the bars or anything like that.
39:46I was heading off for golf at half six in the morning. And I would have met lads coming in the opposite direction through the door.
39:54But certainly not Kerry.
39:58I know people as well that were sitting at the breakfast one morning.
40:03And lo and behold, a young Thai woman walked in and took her seat at the breakfast table with DJ.
40:10Christine, DJ's wife, was there as well. And that this young woman had been recruited as an au pair.
40:16And then when we got back to Kilkenny and to Ireland, she was spotted at the side of the football field.
40:24And she was certainly seen out and about in the community.
40:29And she was introduced to people as DJ and Christine's au pair.
40:33A busy time for Tip's defence, DJ clearly on song.
40:37He and Kilkenny's scoring tally on the increase.
40:41DJ Kerry.
40:43So in the early noughties, in terms of Kilkenny winning that 2000 All-Ireland Final,
40:48things going really well on the field for DJ Kerry.
40:52That is the 250th point in DJ Kerry's inter-country career.
40:57It was Kerry who brought the curtain down on a classic.
41:00Brian Cody's side moving ever closer to an All-Ireland Final appearance.
41:04Things started to get really exciting for DJ.
41:07I was looking on thinking, this is incredible.
41:10And for me, the 2002 All-Ireland Final. Boom!
41:15We were saying it during the semi-final, but he's the man who had the courage to come back into the Kilkenny colours.
41:21Nicely down here towards Henry Sheffield.
41:24What a battle he's going to have with Sean McMahon.
41:26It's starting already.
41:28Thundering forward.
41:30Looking for the opening.
41:31Score!
41:32It's a goal!
41:33What a start that is.
41:35DJ Kerry with yet another championship goal.
41:38And only three...
41:40Early on in that, DJ comes on.
41:42But within a few minutes, he scores a goal into the back of the net in Croke Park.
41:47And after that, DJ Kerry is getting towards the absolute pinnacle of his fame.
41:54DJ Kerry!
41:57There's massive pressure on Kilkenny hurlers because the expectations are so high of the fans.
42:07To bring back the Liam McCarthy to Kilkenny, it's hard to explain that sense of pride that he must have had.
42:15So on the one hand, things look amazing.
42:19Things have never been better for him.
42:21But yet still, we have these issues in terms of, in his personal life, we have turmoil.
42:27It was about what was going on in his marriage.
42:30The difficulties in the marriage aren't written about in the newspapers until 2003.
42:35But it's clear in 2001 that something happened.
42:39We know the au pair arrived.
42:43There are people close to Christine that say she wasn't happy about the arrangement.
42:49DJ said he was trying to ease the pressure on Christine because he was here, there and everywhere all over the country giving out the medals.
42:57So maybe this woman would be able to help with the two young boys.
43:01Whatever happened, a source told me she changed the locks, the clothes were thrown out the window,
43:07the au pair went back to Thailand and that the marriage was in deep bother.
43:13Christine was really important in terms of running his day-to-day business, DJ Carey Enterprises.
43:19But once the marriage is in jeopardy, it's then that really Christine starts to step away from the company and enter his younger sister Katrina Carey.
43:31Katrina had a profile herself actually.
43:39She played hockey, she didn't just play, she had an international career for Ireland as a hockey player.
43:45But she got really involved in the running of the company once the marriage started to break down.
43:53Talking the talk ten days before the hurling season's showpiece.
43:57Kilkenny captain DJ Carey and Alan Brown of Cork meeting the media.
44:01The pair will be very much sought after in the coming days.
44:05The countdown to the All-Ireland Hurling final producing very different demands.
44:09There's a lot to be said for focus and everything else but sometimes it's good to get your mind off it as well
44:15because if you're thinking holy and solely about it, you wouldn't sleep, you wouldn't do anything.
44:19He may not be the God, but in hurling, he is God.
44:23Dennis Joseph Carey. DJ, come on!
44:29He refers himself to pressures.
44:31But again, there's contradictions with everything about him.
44:35DJ is somebody that often complains about the intrusion into his private life.
44:39Must be very hard to live up to testimonials like that.
44:43The media have to have something to go on.
44:45You have to be out and about for there to be that level of interest in you.
44:49In the days before the All-Ireland final in 2003, there was all sorts of stories flying around.
44:57There were journalists all over Kilkenny.
44:59They were asking questions about DJ's private life.
45:02There was kind of a suggestion or some talk that a story was about to break.
45:08The papers had decided they were ready to go with this story.
45:16They published the front page with the photograph of the boys and DJ's wife and an inset picture of DJ.
45:23And this was on the day of the All-Ireland final.
45:27Yes, the team's just being introduced to the crowd here at Croke Park at the moment.
45:34And significantly, Michael Dyken, the biggest cheer of the two teams, went for DJ Carey.
45:39It's been a rough week for DJ Carey.
45:41Will this impact today, do you think, on him?
45:43Obviously, it's been going on maybe for a while now.
45:46Maybe a little bit off-colour the last few matches.
45:48But knowing DJ, he's mentally very strong.
45:50He put that to the back of his mind during the match.
45:52And I don't think the papers or anyone should have commented this week.
45:55You know, it's a big week for him.
45:56And it's his own personal life.
45:58And it's no one's business.
45:59And I don't really know why the papers had to bring it up this week.
46:08This was absolutely scandalous.
46:10The public had a real interest in the story.
46:13But they were annoyed, maybe, on DJ's behalf.
46:16Was it fair, all these pressures, a sports star?
46:22It's an amateur sport.
46:23So why is everyone talking about his private life?
46:29Kilkenny County Board were furious.
46:31An unnamed official went as far as to say it was blatant sabotage.
46:37So, no doubt, they were relieved when Kilkenny won that All-Ireland Final.
46:43And Kilkenny with the title.
46:46The champions have retained the McCarthy Cup.
46:50They had a battle on their hands in the second half.
46:53But they met the challenge head on.
46:56Kilkenny the champions for the 28th time.
47:03It's a great pleasure and honour for me
47:05to accept the lead McCarthy Cup
47:07on behalf of this great Kilkenny team
47:09for the second year in a row.
47:11What's really interesting now,
47:25that mightn't have been so significant at the time,
47:28this rumour that had been sweeping
47:30the southern half of the country,
47:32the level of stuff that DJ was putting up with,
47:35the poor DJ.
47:37And that is, to be fair, that is the narrative that we all believed in.
47:41That he was up against it.
47:42That there were all these rumours.
47:43There were all these people saying these things
47:45about the great DJ Kerry.
47:47Why would they say them?
47:48But the line was that one of the vicious rumours
47:51related to him having cancer.
47:53And that is in the article in 2003.
47:57And it is mentioned as a rumour about DJ Kerry.
48:00Where does this rumour come from?
48:02Where did it start?
48:09Just very few hurlers have got into the game to be famous.
48:13And I can tell you, I am certainly not one of those.
48:17Without any shadow of doubt, there is a certain amount of pressure.
48:22You just try and block out whatever else is surrounding you.
48:26And I deal with life as much as I can in the same way.
48:30I like to think of myself as a sportsman on and off the field.
48:34I think the mind will always be sharp.
48:38The mind will always keep you thinking.
48:40The mind will always keep you questioning.
48:43And when, you know, you are in a spot,
48:46can there be a right decision made?
48:48We have a great county board!
48:49I would hate to think that I went through a career
48:52that I pulled a dirty stroke on anyone.
48:54I would hate to think of anyone.
48:55I would hate to think of anyone.
49:24Because I did not want to think of anyone I would hate.
49:26And I do not want to think of anyone.
49:27Different Creed
49:32People like to think of someone.
49:33They may already know him,
49:35but I thought he was showingered and that he made.
49:37We refuse to see him,
49:38even though he has purposeful,
49:39but I really want to speak of him.
49:40The way that he experiences through things
49:41was it weren't possible.
49:42The frame was struggling.
49:44It was really hard to think of people.
49:45You never thought the things that he could continue.
49:49The Force has Whitaker nor fossil...
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