Tim O Cruadhlaoich

A rud is annamh is iontach

[Kerry GAA @Kerry_Official]

🏐 Full -Time in Fitzgerald Stadium in the 2026 All-Ireland Senior Football Championship Round 3.

#WeAreKerry #CiarraíAbú

[United Arts 🔴⚪️⚫️ @UtdArts1]

🇾🇪Wishing a very happy birthday to the legendary Lou Macari who turns 77 today

Before he was ever a Red, Lou was part of Celtic's legendary reserve side known as the Quality Street Gang alongside Kenny Dalglish, Danny McGrain, and David Hay. These were some of the most talented young players Scotland had produced in a generation, and several of them would go on to replace members of the Lisbon Lions, the Celtic team that won the European Cup in 1967. Lou was right in the middle of that.

He made 105 appearances for Celtic, scoring 56 goals, and won three League titles and two Scottish Cups.

Then came the move that so nearly didn't happen.

🔴 He nearly ended up at Anfield!

Lou's desire to leave Celtic began when he went to Jock Stein to ask for a wage increase, telling him his father had died and he needed to support his mother. As he put it himself: "How I plucked up the courage to go in, to this day I still don't know." Celtic let him go. Liverpool were ready and waiting.

In 1973, Lou was courted by Bill Shankly and was a guest at Anfield watching Liverpool take on Burnley in an FA Cup tie. Coincidentally, United assistant manager Pat Crerand was sat close by, learned of Liverpool's intentions, and persuaded Macari to have talks with United instead.

Lou later described telling Shankly he wouldn't be signing: "I had to go back and tell the Liverpool manager, who is ferocious, no nonsense, who doesn't mess around, that I'm not going to sign for Liverpool. How do I do it? I'm a Man United fan. I knew George Best, Denis Law, Bobby Charlton... They might be fifth-bottom of the league, but they've got those three and I've got to be training with them next week."

Lucky for us, Lou was a proper Red before he signed.

Five days after that Anfield game, Lou moved to Old Trafford for £200,000, a Scottish record fee at the time. Shankly, with typical Shankly wit, reportedly remarked that Lou would only have been a substitute at Anfield anyway.

He scored on his debut against West Ham. The other scorer that day was Sir Bobby Charlton.

@LouMacari10

1/3

#LouMacari #MUFC #manchesterunited

[Tim O Cruadhlaoich @TippingTaig]

@FredMcNeill6 That's old Trafford in the background there was a rfb for lou macari's testimonials at OT

[Kerry GAA @Kerry_Official]

🏐 2026 Munster Senior Football Champions!

#WeAreKerry #CiarraíAbú

[Tim O Cruadhlaoich @TippingTaig]

@rfwalsh86 No mention of easter eggs or the easter bunny in the bible either lol

[Morgan O'Callaghan @MorgantheBriar]

You wouldn't want to be looking forward to a lie-in on Paddy's Day if living in Dingle 😁 Brilliant place for maintaining their traditions with each new generation embracing them! ☘️🥁🪈

[Manchester United @ManUtd]

Their spirit will never die.

The Flowers of Manchester, forever.

[🇾🇪 @ManUtdHeritage]

United parade the FA Cup around Wembley after beating Liverpool to deny them the treble (1977) #MUFC

[Tommy Rooney @TomasORuanaidh]

Dingle are All-Ireland Senior club champions, an incredible game of Gaelic Football - commiserations to a glorious St. Brigid’s team. That was something else. #GAA

[BUCHANAN: Dublin Time Machine @RobLooseCannon]

Adventurer Tom Crean was born in 1877 in Annascaul, Kerry. He joined the Royal Navy at 15, lied about his age and drifted steadily southwards until he reached the edge of the known world. By the time the so-called Heroic Age of Antarctic Exploration reached its brutal peak, Crean was already a veteran. He would serve on 3 major expeditions, under Robert Falcon Scott and Ernest Shackleton, and he would outlive many of the men whose names now loom larger in the history books.

Crean’s first great test came during Scott’s ill-fated Terra Nova expedition. By January 1912, Scott’s party was pushing south towards the Pole, supported by rotating teams who were ordered to turn back at set distances. Crean was part of the final support party, alongside Bill Lashly and Lieutenant Edward “Teddy” Evans.

They were just 150 miles from the Pole when Scott made his decision. Crean was ordered to turn back. The return journey was a slow collapse. Evans fell gravely ill with scurvy. He was disoriented, frostbitten and barely able to stand. Crean and Lashly tied him to a sledge and dragged him north across the Ross Ice Shelf, hauling a grown man for hundreds of miles in sub-zero temperatures. By the time they reached Hut Point, Evans was close to death and Lashly was near exhaustion.

This is where Crean made the decision that defines his reputation. With no tent, no sleeping bag, and only two sticks of chocolate and three biscuits in his pocket, he set off alone for the final 35 miles to Cape Evans to fetch help. He walked for eighteen hours straight through a blizzard, navigating by instinct and memory across a white nothingness. He reached the hut just as a massive storm closed in behind him.

The rescue party returned in time. Evans survived. Lashly survived. Crean was awarded the Albert Medal for Bravery, one of the highest civilian honours for lifesaving. He accepted it without fuss and never spoke of it again. Scott, meanwhile, marched on and died with his polar party on the return from the Pole.

Shackleton’s Endurance expedition revealed his ability to survive disaster without surrender. The ship Endurance was trapped in pack ice in the Weddell Sea in early 1915 and slowly crushed over months, until she finally sank beneath the ice. The crew were stranded for over a year, hauling boats, supplies and each other across a landscape dissolving under their feet.

When the ice finally broke up, the men launched 3 small lifeboats and made for remote inhospitable Elephant Island. During the brutal open-boat journey, Crean effectively took command of one boat when the navigator collapsed, steering by instinct and experience through freezing seas.

Elephant Island offered no rescue. Shackleton knew that if they stayed, they would die. He selected 5 men to attempt a suicide mission. An 800-mile voyage across the worst ocean on Earth in a modified 22-foot lifeboat, the James Caird. Crean was an obvious choice.

For 17 days they battled the Southern Ocean, 60-foot waves and hurricane winds. The boat iced over constantly. Men bailed water day and night. Sleep only for minutes at a time. Crean took turns at the tiller and sang to keep morale up.

They made landfall on the wrong side of South Georgia. The whaling stations lay on the far side of the island, separated by unmapped mountains, glaciers, and ridges rising to over 3,000 feet. No one had ever crossed the interior.

They'd no tent or mountaineering equipment. They hammered screws through their boots for grip. For 36 hours they climbed without stopping. Faced with a steep descent and night closing in, they sat on their coiled rope and slid 1,500 feet down a snow slope into complete darkness. They reached the whaling station at Stromness. Within months, Shackleton returned and rescued everyone on Elephant Island.

Crean returned to Ireland, married and opened a pub in Annascaul called The South Pole Inn. He rarely spoke of Antarctica, even to his own family. He died in 1938, aged 61.

[Kerry GAA @Kerry_Official]

All Ireland Senior Club
Semi Final
Full time
Dingle: 1-26(29)
Ballyboden St Enda: 1-24(27)

All Ireland Senior Club
Semi Final . Full time score: Dingle 1-26(29) Ballyboden St Enda 1-24(27)

[mel roberts @melrobe08536915]

A Kildare jersey, Man United scarf and a Mani Celtic supporters club scarf. Never ever forgot his Irish roots whilst being as Manchester as could be.

Go easy Mani, those basslines will live forever

One love 💚🍋

[Tim O Cruadhlaoich @TippingTaig]

@martymac25 How do you tap into a state pension before you are 67?

[Tim O Cruadhlaoich @TippingTaig]

The good old days when United played 3 different teams on a Saturday afternoon and won everyone of them.

[🇾🇪 @ManUtdHeritage]

A United matchday at Old Trafford in the 1960’s #MUFC

[Ireland Football ⚽️🇮🇪 @IrelandFootball]

FT | IRELAND ARE GOING TO THE PLAY-OFFS!!!

YEEEESSSSS!!!!

[Tim O Cruadhlaoich @TippingTaig]

@PAWil62279712 Thought we would re-sign him on enhanced wages

[Tim O Cruadhlaoich @TippingTaig]

Up the kingdom #ciarraiabu

Kerry claim eight places on All-Star football team https://t.co/hrERdA5rtR

[John Ludden @johnludds]

Collyhurst Rd:
Well, the law chased after me and they put me in Number Three.They said you are a Collyhurst boy and you'll never get away from me.They said the next time you go sailing, it won't be the Mary Anne; Be down Collyhurst Road to Collyhurst Nick in a Black Maria van.

[Tim O Cruadhlaoich @TippingTaig]

@MoMo_2309 Missed the first few minutes what is wrong with the little girl?

[Tim O Cruadhlaoich @TippingTaig]

@scholesyno1 Thing is Tony do we keep on changing our manager every October and expect something different next October