First encounters

In conversation with FRANCES O'ROURKE

BERNARD DUNNE

was born into a boxing family in Neilstown, Clondalkin in 1980, had his first boxing match at the age of six, turned professional in the US in 2001 and won the WBA super bantamweight title in 2009. He retired in 2010. Now a boxing commentator, he presents Bernard Dunne's Bród Club on RTÉ, which aims to get 100,000 people over the next few weeks to speak Irish

‘I MET PAMELA IN 2000, the day after my very last amateur fight. I was away in Venice, came home and was out for a drink with my brother and friends. He introduced us, and that was it. She was my first real girlfriend. My life up to then was boxing. The only time we’ve ever been apart was when I went over to the States for about six weeks when I signed a professional contract.

“Pamela’s been my rock. Everything I do now I discuss with her, my plans, the media stuff, my decision to retire.

“After school, I got a scholarship to Trinity College; it all came about through boxing, I was studying biology. Then I got offered a contract to go to the States and I never looked back from there. It was something I’d always wanted: we sat down and discussed it, I said ‘let’s give it a couple of years’.

“We came home because we wanted to start a family and we wanted to do it at home: It was a gamble with my career but it paid off. One of the reasons I decided to retire in 2010 was so I’d have more time for the kids and Pamela. Adjusting wasn’t that difficult: I’m constantly on the go, out and about; I’m one of these fidgety people, can’t sit still. Pamela’s the complete opposite. We’re yin and yang.

“Where we live now, I’m three minutes from my Mam, Pamela’s three minutes from her’s in the other direction: it’s a great life for the kids, with all their cousins.

“My interest in Irish began when I was in the States, seeing how patriotic they were – I’ve even got the Irish flag in my back garden now. I got a book and a CD, began to self-teach. I wanted to rear the kids through Irish, so when I retired from boxing, I decided I’d take classes and talk to as many people as I could as Gaeilge.

“The response to the TV programme is very enthusiastic . . . there is a passion for the language. There’s five Gaelscoils in the Clondalkin/Lucan area, and long waiting lists. But there’s still a stigma about talking Irish on the street that I’m trying to get rid of . . . I want to see conversational Irish being used, people not worrying if they’re pronouncing things correctly, eventually it will come . . . it’s just cleachtas, cleachtas, cleachtas, practice, practice practice.

“I would like more children, Pamela and I debate it every so often. I never win, regardless of what we’re talking about. I may be a former world champion boxer, but I don’t win any fights in this house.

“Do people slag my Irish? Being what I used to be, not to my face. The language is for absolutely everybody. I’m a kid born and bred in Neilstown, Clondalkin, and the language is as much a part of me as of everybody else.

PAMELA DUNNE

is a clerical officer in the Department of Communications. From Ballyfermot, she worked in Liffey Valley Shopping Centre until she and Bernard went to the US in 2001, staying for three years. They married in 2006 and have two children, Caoimhe (5) and Finnian (3). They live in Palmerstown, Dublin 20

‘I GREW UP IN Ballyfermot and met Bernard in Coco’s nightclub in Tallaght. It was 12 years ago in April, a Mother’s Day. I was 21, and I hadn’t a clue who he was, but my Da gave him the once over when I brought him home, asked him ‘what do you do?’ When he said he was a boxer, that was it, he was very impressed.

“I did watch all his fights, mostly through my fingers. But I wasn’t worried about him getting hurt, it’s very controlled, there’s doctors in the ring. My concern was that he would win the fight.

“We were together for one-and-a-half years before Bernard got the contract to go to the US. I never had any hesitation about going. I would rather have been there with Bernard than alone at home without him. We lived in Santa Monica in California, in a one-bed apartment. The beach was seven streets away. I did a bit of work but I kinda had a holiday too, although it wasn’t all just lying on the beach. We had lots of visitors: the sofa bed was occupied a lot, and we had people sleeping on the floor. We also made some great friends there.

“We got married in 2006. I came home six weeks before the wedding, planned everything. We went on honeymoon to Marbella before going back to the States. I think it was our last real holiday.

“It’s all worked out. The children have a lot of cousins here, there’s seven within three years of each other. They all play together – and we have lots of babysitters.

“I’ve been in the Civil Service for seven years and had a couple of years’ career break. I love it; I work in the mornings, so I’m here when the kids come home. Do I want more children? No. But Bernard does.

“Who does the housework, the cooking? Me – Bernard will admit to that. I run the home – and it’s my home, my rules. Everybody asks was it hard having him full-time at home after he retired, but they forget his last fight was in September 2009, and by the time he announced his retirement in February 2010, he’d already been at home for nearly six months.

“I’m not good at Irish. Bernard has conversations where he speaks in Irish, whether I understand it or not. I’ll look blankly at him, then he repeats it in English. It’s very much an Irish household at the moment. But I’ve registered with Bród. Caoimhe goes to a Gaelscoil and Finnian to a naíonra. Now Caoimhe corrects me when I’m speaking Irish.

“Was I surprised at Bernard’s interest in Irish? It’s not something I would have anticipated, but, that’s Bernard for you, he gets something in his head and that’s it, he follows through on it.”