16 April 2015
By Bryan T. Smyth
bryan@TheCork.ie
RTE Sports Commentator and Broadcaster Marty Morrissey has been named April
Cork Person of the Month, to mark his contribution to sport, especially GAA
Sport, over the years.
Marty, born in Mallow, told Brendan O’Connor on a recent Saturday Night
Show ” I am very proud of my Cork blood and my Mallow roots, and although a
Clareman, I am deeply honoured at receiving this award”.
Mallow’s Michael O’Neill, now living in Dublin but a frequent visitor and
activist in Mallow, nominated Marty Morrissey for the award.
“Marty’s mother was Mallow native Peggy Twomey and his father taught at a
local Mallow school. The family finally settled in Clare, where Marty’s
father came from” said Mr O’Neill.
Marty Morrissey said, at the recent Cork award ceremony ” Yes, my father
came from West Clare to teach in Mallow and rented a room from the Barrett
family, just around the corner from that famous mallow pub “The Mouse Trap”.
He met a young hairdresser, who was a cousin of the Barretts, Peggy Twomey
and the couple later emigrated to the Bronx, New York. However, my mother
insisted on coming back to Mallow, for me to be born in the local Mount
Alvernia Hospital “.
“I rang my mother, over in West Clare, to tell her of this award and she
was very emotional that her home town and county should honour the family
in this way” added Marty.
Marty Morrissey did return from Clare to Cork to study at UCC and also got
his broadcasting breaks and starts in Cork, at the local Cork Multi-Channel
TV and RTE Radio, Cork.
His name now also goes forward, with the eleven other Persons of the Month
chosen this year, for possible selection as Cork Person of the Year. If
chosen, he would be the first person ever, to be Clare Man of the Year and
Cork Man of the Year in the same year, or indeed any year.
