ROUND 1
Muhammad Ali was Irish. Honestly.
How’s that for an opening punch?
Sure, he was born and lies buried today in Louisville, Kentucky. And he’s the greatest sporting hero of the 20th Century; the greatest ever who put on a pair of gloves; adored and missed by millions around the world; provoked, cajoled and joked with us.
But he’s Irish.
ROUND 2
United States President Barack Obama is Irish too. And he, like Ali, came to Ireland to visit his ancestral roots. And this hook from left field will put you on the ropes: The three-time champion of the world came to Ireland in 2009 to visit Ennis in County Clare to commemorate his great grandfather, Abe Grady. Back in the 1860s, when the US was being ripped apart in its Civil War, Grady left his home on Turnpike Road and headed across the Atlantic. He eventually settled in Kentucky, met and married a freed slave woman, and they had a daughter, Odessa Lee. She met and married Cassius Clay senior. And in 1942, along came Cassius Clay junior. The rest is history.
ROUND 3
Ali turned my loving gentle grandmother into one swearing, hot-blooded, fist-fightin’ woman who would hoot and holler at every punch he ever threw on our old black-and-white Bush telly as I sat in the lino floor of our family living room. Granny and Grandad didn’t have a television, but she was there every fight night, ducking and diving, bobbing and weaving to every jab he threw against Sonny Liston. That was February, 1964 — and I remember it clearly. It’s drummed into my head. She was near fully deaf, my father was half deaf, and the telly was turned up as far as it would go.
And every fight thereafter, Granny and Grandad came around to our house to watch Ali floating like a butterfly, stinging like a bee — and playing havoc with the volume on our old TV.
ROUND 4
My Auntie Mary took me to see Ali fight at Croke Park in Dublin. This bit I had to google: July 19, 1972. That would have made me 11. I just remember everyone cheering, there were fireworks and I had to stand on the seat in one of the stands to see anything. I remember the lights and cheering for Cassius Clay. I couldn’t figure out in my nearly 12-year-old mind why he had changed his name. He was a boxer, the best I ever saw in all my young years then — and every year since. Something to do with politics.
ROUND 5
Something to do with politics was also happening on telly in Northern Ireland. The children on our street used to play ‘Catholics and Protestants’ instead of ‘Cowboys and Indians’. Just like they did on telly, we used to throw stones at one another. And my big brother Tony would come and beat us until we stopped — just like the British Army did on telly. But when Ali came, we just played boxing. All that stuff on telly didn’t matter.
ROUND 6
I waited for hours outside the Gresham Hotel, but I never got Ali’s autograph. I didn’t see him, but I saw Alvin ‘Blue’ Lewis, the boxer who was brave enough to get in a ring with Ali. The greatest boxer of all time won in the 11th round with a technical knockout. When I saw Lewis, he should have been renamed Al ‘Black and Blue’ Lewis for the pummelling he took. I was sore I didn’t get his autograph either. Not as sore as him, I’d bet.
ROUND 7
I would have loved to see Ali in his prime taking on Donald Trump, the dope that’s roped into running for president of the US. Trump taunted Obama with a tweet: “Obama said in his speech that Muslims are our sports heroes. What sport is he talking about and who? Is Obama profiling?” Give Ali his due — and grace. For those of us who watched him age and were pained by his every move, his knockout response to Trump wanting to bar Muslims from the US was a beauty: “Speaking as someone who has never been accused of political correctness, I believe that our political leaders should use their position to bring understanding about the religion of Islam and clarify that these misguided murderers have perverted people’s views on what Islam really is. I am a Muslim and there is nothing Islamic about killing innocent people in Paris, San Bernardino or anywhere else in the world.”
ROUND 8
I remember the surprise as I watched television in Toronto at the opening ceremony of the 1996 Olympics in Atlanta on July 19. I think I cried as it took every ounce of his determination to concentrate long enough to light the Olympic flame.
ROUND 9
Why did he keep fighting when he should have stopped? Anyone who made as much as a dollar out of his ‘fights’ in the waning days of his career should feel ashamed. The Larry Holmes and George Foreman bouts give me a bout of headaches.
ROUND 10
Ali was right not to go to Vietnam. It wasn’t his fight. Making that bold, courageous decision to be a conscientious objector turned him from a sporting icon into a real-life hero. The children on our street never played ‘Vietnam’ — it just didn’t seem fair. And too much to do with politics.
ROUND 11
I watched the documentary When We Were Kings last Sunday night. It’s easy to forget those great moments. The boxing legends, the names from the past: Liston, Joe Frazier, Foreman, Henry Cooper, Jerry Quarry, Michael Spinks. Haven’t we all aged down those years, alongside Ali?
ROUND 12
Auntie Mary has lost her mind. Granny and Grandad are long gone. So too is Dad. And big brother Tony. And now Ali. But weren’t the memories good? The bell rings for us all. Ding, ding.
