Galway ex-pat’s story proves truth is stranger than fiction

A Different View with Dave O’Connell

If a novelist invented a character like Ambrose Gordon, some editor somewhere would rake the manuscript with red Biro – because this is one case of the truth being too incredible for fiction.

But the story of Ambrose, with enough drama to make The Crown seem like the Angelus, is indeed now down on paper – and the title of his biography, Sex, Flights and Videotapes, really covers all bases.

The latter two cornerstones require a small explanation for those unfamiliar with the story of the Killimor native and Galway hurling prospect, who made his home and life in London.

Because while his life’s path could be similar to that of millions of Irish people before and after him – emigration, working in construction and moving on to become landlord of a string of Irish bars – the flights and videotapes tell a different tale.

In a nutshell, Ambrose may have left home but he never left hurling and he has been the driving force behind the sport in his adopted city, a six-decade association with the St Gabriel’s Club, so familiar to many fellow Galwegians who followed in his footsteps.

And before satellite television was a thing, these GAA-mad exiles tuned in to home from the high hills around London or Dagenham or Coventry, where they were able to pick up a medium-wave radio signal, so Micheál O’Hehir could tell them how their home county was going on a championship Sunday.

Then came The Sunday Game, a staple of the sporting week, although only if you lived in RTÉ-land – until Ambrose had a light bulb moment.

Hence, the videotapes of the book title. They were recordings of The Sunday Game and the flights were the ones he made to Dublin every weekend to collect the VHS tapes from ‘a lovely lady called Kathy’ who lived next to the Sunnybank Hotel, where Ambrose based himself every Sunday night.

For more, read this week’s Connacht Tribune.

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