Eamon Dunphy – Soccer Pundit

Eamon Dunphy is an Irish TV soccer pundit, radio broadcaster, newspaper columnist, and author. He has also done other TV work including a short-lived chat show on TV3 on which he interviewed Roy Keane. He is also a former international footballer and he won 23 caps for the Republic of Ireland.

Eamon Dunphy is one of the most controversial characters in the Irish soccer world and is probably admired and disliked in equal measure. His pronouncements right throughout his career as a soccer pundit, particularly while on RTE television, appear to have been designed to dliberately shock or anger members of the viewing public. While this is a widely held view Dunphy maintains that his views have always been earnestly held but that it is his forthright and outspoken approach is what shocks.

Eamon Dunphy – Childhood & Family Background

Eamon Dunphy, born on August 3rd in 1945, is from the Dublin northside suburb of Drumcondra. His background was quite humble and up until the time he left home at the age of fifteen he and his family lived in just one room. This room was shared with his father, mother and his younger brother Kevin. Eamon and his brother slept on the floor. The family were regularly under the threat of eviction which his mother fought resolutely. His parents were devout catholics and he attended mass every day, and the family said the Rosary each evening. His father was a major supporter of trade union activist and Irish Labour Party founder Jim Larkin. His mother was a feverent Fianna Fail supporter and Dunphy was named after the former Irish Taoiseach, Eamon De Valera.

Eamon Dunphy’s father, who was the son of a Kilkenny man, was a builder’s labourer but was unemployed for a number of years. For a period he worked for former Taoiseach, Bertie Ahern’s father in All Hallows College in Drumcondra. In his latter years he worked as an orderly in Richmond Hospital. Dunphy’s mother was from Limerick and was very resourceful making the family’s income stretch to cover the needs of the family. Both of Eamon Dunphy’s parents died in the early-to-mid 1990’s.

Eamon Dunphy attended St Patrick’s National School in Drumcondra where he was a good student and where his teacher Mr. Hayden, from Leitrim, was a significant influence on the young Dunphy. In those days secondary school education was not free and due to his family circumstances this was not an avenue that he could pursue. Despite his dimunitive stature, which he attributes to the fact that he began smoking at the age of eight, he was quite an accomplished footballer. His schoolboy friend, Dessie Toal who introduced him to smoking, also introduced the schoolboy Dunphy to soccer. His footballing ability was to provide Eamon Dunphy with the springboard for the rest of his career in sport, jornalism, and the media in general.

Eamon Dunphy – Adult Family Life

Eamon Dunphy’s first wife is Sandra and they have two children, a boy – Tim, and a girl – Colette. Eamon and Sandra were married in 1965 however they split up in 1984. Coutesy of the arrival of his daughter’s son Braiden, Dunphy became a grandfather in 2004. On the 25th September 2009 Eamon Dunphy married his long-time partner Jane Gogan in a church on St Stephen’s Green in Dublin

Eamon Dunphy Football Player – Eamon Dunphy & Saipan – Eamon Dunph’s Autobiography
Eamon Dunphy Quotes

References :

Who Stole Our Game: The Fall and Fall of Irish Soccer; Daire Whelan (2006); Gill & Macmillan Ltd
The Team that Jack Built; Paul Rowan (1994); Mainstream Publishing Company (Edinburgh) Ltd
Eamon Dunphy Wikipedia Entry
TV Interview; Eamon Dunphy & Ursula Halligan (2010); TV3, Dublin, Ireland