If This Is Rock and Roll I Want My Old Job Back …

Brassie, that man of many parts, played senior football for Shamrocks in 1999 when he was just plain Niall Breslin; Niall Horan stepped on to the Mullingar Shamrocks stage when Stars in their Eyes was our great annual fundraiser (it’s strongly rumoured it’s scheduled to return later in the year – all that has to be decided is will it be for one night or a weekend!) BUT only one Shamrocks officer has appeared on the cover of a rock album.

Back in the day when Mullingar Shamrocks were winning senior championship titles on a regular basis a song by The Saw Doctors called I Useta Lover topped the Irish charts for nine consecutive weeks in 1990 and the classic became one of the biggest selling singles in Irish music history. In the words of Conor Pope writing of the Irish Times, ‘it was only The Saw Doctors who had the wit and the balls to picture a woman going up to communion and then rhyme Sunday mass with “the glory off her ass” … I loved it and everything about it from the infectiously joyous music to the lyrics which were in equal measure irreverent, edgy, funny, creepy and beguilingly smart.’

And I Useta Lover was one of the favourite songs in Mullingar Shamrocks celebratory repertoire at the time when we were winning county senior titles with monotonous regularity with John Doran usually taking the lead vocals.

As a result of the success of I Useta Lover, The Saw Doctors released their first album If This Is Rock and Roll I Want My Old Job Back in May 1991, an album that includes several Saw Doctors classics including N17.

The cover of the album features the band members’ fathers in leather jackets and include Fintan Donnelly, the father of the band’s drummer John Donnelly who is pictured in the middle of the photo. .

The same Fintan Donnelly was secretary of Mullingar Shamrocks in 1969 and treasurer in 1972-74. Fintan spent the best part of decade (1967-77) in Mullingar where he was an employee of the Hibernian Bank (later Bank of Ireland) and played football for Shamrocks and hurling for Pearses. A hurling man first, the Clontarf-native began his GAA career with the Clontarf Brian Boru Club and also played with Raheny and Whitehall Gaels. Fintan was transferred to Ballaghadereen, County Roscommon where he was assistant bank manager and was involved in the GAA in Roscommon at County Board level, particularly with the Hurling Board.

John Donnelly retired from The Saw Doctors in 2001 and is now the Managing Director and Creative Director of Arcana, an events management company that includes the organisation of festivals in Spain, South Africa, Abu Dhabi, China, New Zealand, Brazil, the USA, Portugal, France and Galway for the 2012 Volvo Ocean Races and the creation of the altar, stage and show for the visit of Pope Francis to the Phoenix Park in 2018 amongst its successes.

He has also completed over 70 marathons and ultramarathons during which he raised over €500,000 for the Sea Change Foundation, a foundation which provides microcredit to development projects in some of the poorest places in the world. In 2006, Johnny completed the ‘Hot Cold Challenge’ which saw him complete the Sahara Desert Marathon, the North Pole Marathon and the Cape Town Marathon. He completed the Marathon Des Sables in April 2011 a six day, 254 km ultramarathon in the Southern Moroccan desert with competitors running six stages while carrying all their supplies for the duration of the event along the way. This event is considered to be one the toughest race on Earth.

So there it is: If This Is Rock and Roll I Want My Old Job Back, the Mullingar Shamrocks connection.