Tom Humphries

Tom Humphries was a sports journalist and columnist who wrote for The Irish Times. He lives in Dublin, Ireland and has two children from a former marriage. The Sunday World named him as the journalist involved in a child sex scandal involving a camogie player back in 2011, and a few months later, he had a heart attack while in psychiatric care but has since recovered. He has ghost written various sporting celebrities newspaper columns such as Donal Og Cusack.

Early life

Humphries was born in London^[1] and grew up in Foxfield, Raheny, in Dublin. He was educated at St. Joseph's Christian Brothers School in Fairview. He has a Bachelor of Commerce degree and a Higher Diploma in Education from University College Dublin (UCD). He ran unsuccessfully for the office of President of the UCD Student Union in 1986 but was defeated by Ulick Stafford. He entered journalism following a period of teaching.

Career

Roy Keane interview

His received international attention in May 2002, for his interview of Irish football player Roy Keane on the island of Saipan, while the Irish football team were preparing to take part in the 2002 football World Cup. Originally, Humphries planned to write an article based on the interview, but Keane's openly critical remarks about preparations for the World Cup and the attitudes of the team management, the players, and the Football Association of Ireland, led to the interview appearing as a verbatim transcript on the front page of The Irish Times (an almost unheard of action) and continuing inside the newspaper. The resulting furore caused Keane to resign from the squad before the tournament started, and he was also dismissed by the team manager, Mick McCarthy.

Writings

Humphries' first book was Green Fields: Gaelic Sport in Ireland, an analysis of the importance of the Gaelic Athletic Association in Ireland, a recurring theme of his work. He was the ghost writer of Irish football player Niall Quinn's autobiography, Niall Quinn – The Autobiography, published in 2002. It won the Best Autobiography category in the inaugural British Sports Book Awards,^[2] and was nominated for a William Hill Sports Book of the Year award. The book is not structured chronologically, but rather in the context of Quinn's career swansong, the 2002 World Cup in South Korea and Japan. A collection of his Irish Times and Sports Illustrated writings was published in 2004 as Booked! and was nominated for the William Hill Sports Book of the Year Award. The book's royalties went to Amnesty International. His book Dublin V Kerry was an account of historic clashes between the two dominant teams in Gaelic football of the mid to late 1970s. He co-authored Come What May, the autobiography of the openly homosexual hurler Donal Óg Cusack.^[3] Besides his regular sports reporting and feature articles, Humphries wrote a Monday column in The Irish Times called "Lockerroom". He detests the League of Ireland^[4] and rugby.

References

Bibliography

• Green Fields: Gaelic Sport in Ireland (Weidenfeld Nicolson Illustrated, ISBN 978-0-297-83566-0, 1996)
• Laptop Dancing and the Nanny Goat Mambo: A Sportswriter’s Year (Pocket Books/Town House, ISBN 1-903650-53-4, 2003)
• Booked! (V. Carefully) Selected Writings (Town House, ISBN 1-86059-212-0, 2004)
• Dublin V Kerry (Penguin Ireland, ISBN 1-84488-085-0, 2006)