After scoring a goal, Joe Brolly used to blow kisses to the crowd. But his love for Gaelic games and Irish culture runs much deeper than fleeting hand gestures.

With a vocabulary the size of Croke Park, Joe is hilariously funny, insightful and interesting to talk to. The Dungiven native spoke to The Sunday Journal from his holiday home in Connemara about his father's internment, being part of the Derry All-Ireland winning team of 1993 and family life.

Joe was born in June 1969. At the age of age of four his father and current Sinn Fein MLA Francie Brolly was interned by the British Government.

Now a Belfast based barrister, Joe remembered with remarkable detail the moment his father was taken away.

"I was born in the Roe Valley Hospital in Limavady," said Joe. "My father was interned when I was very young but I always remember our house in Dungiven being full of people and music.

"My mother was the All-Ireland singing champion at the time and my father was a folk singer with a band called The Roe Gems.

"My mother was from Coalisland and she met my father when he was singing with The Roe Gems. I think it was somewhere exotic like Swatragh.

"He swept my mother off her feet. I suppose you could say that The Roe Gems were the epitome of glamour around Dungiven at that time," he said laughing.

"They were engaged within a few weeks and were married after a few months. They then moved to Dungiven to start a family.

"Life in Dungiven was great. Our house was full of all things to do with Gaelic football, music and Irish culture. My father was a fluent Irish speaker so it was very much an Irish household.

"At that time there both Derry and Dungiven had great football teams. We had a small garden and my father put up goal posts that he built himself.

"I was totally fanatical about Gaelic games and we used to play matches in the back garden.

"All the young fellas from Station Road would have came along and we always managed to have 15-a-side. We were only young but we still managed to get everybody into the garden. I always insisted that we sing the national anthem before throw-in.

"I suppose you could say that my childhood was very Catholic and I suppose it would have been something that Éamon de Valera would have been extremely proud of."

Joe recalled the morning that his father was taken away.

"We were woken up one morning and when we looked out the window we saw my father being put into the back of a white transit van. Nobody told us anything - he was gone.

"There was a big round up in Dungiven that morning. They took three school teachers and the blacksmith Tommy Farren.

"My father told me years later that they were all sitting in the back of the van and one of the boys said to Tommy 'what are you doing here?.'

Tommy said that 'they were making up the numbers and that's why he had been lifted," he said laughing. "Two weeks later, they brought Tommy back and said: 'Sorry Mr. Farren we have made a terrible mistake.'"

He continued: "Although my father was gone there was no sense of great loss because he wrote to us two to three times every week. My mother was able to do most of his cooking and send in his food packages.

"His letters were magical and my father was a very inventive man. There was no great sense of hardship or struggle. It was a very happy household and I don't think that there was anything amiss.

"I remember going to visit my father one Christmas Eve. Myself and my brothers were dressed in our cowboy outfits and we were shooting the screws with our cap-guns - that was my single contribution to the struggle for Irish freedom.

"We had no phone in our house and I remember Don Semple, who ran the shop next to our house, coming in and saying to my mother that he had got a phone call and she had to go and pick up my father.

"My mother was very excited and he got a heroes' welcome when he came back to the house. I remember sitting on his knee that night and he was eating a big bowl of oxtail soup.

"When he was released we just back into the groove. He would take us to all the matches and my upbringing was all about Gaelic football, hurling and music."

Joe's love affair with Gaelic games was to be nurtured whilst attending Dernaflaw Primary School in Dungiven. The then principal was former Tipperary minor hurler, Pat Holloway and All-Star Peter Stevenson was a teacher at the school. Joe also followed the talented Derry team of the 'seventies.

Managed by his uncle, Liam Hinphey, Joe said that watching Derry gave him determination and desire to play for both his county and his hometown.

"Dernaflaw Primary School was a nursery for Gaelic football and hurling. The headmaster was a man called Pat Holloway who hurled for Tipperary.

Peter Stevenson taught the primary fives. Peter was a life force and we hurled in the morning, lunch time and in the afternoons.

"The likes of Brian McGilligan learned their trade at Dernaflaw and he went on to become on the best hurlers in the country. Had Brian been from Cork or Kilkenny there is no doubt that he would have won an All-Ireland. We had great teachers at Dernaflaw and the community spirit was brilliant."

He continued: "I remember going to Croke Park a few times to see the great Derry teams of the 'seventies. My uncle Liam Hinphey was the manager and there were a couple of Dungiven lads in the team. They had a fine team and I think they were unfortunate to be around at the same time of the good Kerry and Dublin teams. We followed those boys around for a few years and it was all systems go regarding the football. It was football morning, noon and night."

Joe went on to attend St. Patrick's Armagh boarding school where he would spend seven happy years. Unsure of what it was he wanted to do an 18-year-old Joe listened to the advice of one of a careers teacher and applied to study law at Trinity College Dublin.

The former Derry corner-forward admitted that he found the experience of studying law quite easy and revealed that after graduation he was presented with a firm offer to play club football in Dublin.

However, both Derry and Dungiven were never too far away from Joe's heart and returned home to, what he described as, "the tender embrace of the brilliant Eamonn Coleman."

"Because I had been away for so long I had to work a lot harder because I was an unknown. I think some of the boys thought I was a bit mad because, as a footballer, I was a bit loud, brash and emotional.

"I remember my first game for Derry was against Cavan in the national league. We had a young team and I remember that the great Jim Reilly was marking me.

"I remember the team played really well that day and I ran riot. I think I might have scored seven points from play. The headline in the paper the next day read 'Coleman's Babes Cause a Stir.'

"We had strong characters across the pitch. The likes of Ciaran McKeever, Damian McCusker in goals, Henry Downey and Tony Scullion were all examples of the leaders we had within the team. These were men who could achieve anything in life. They had determination and were tough minded. We had to solve problems on the pitch and be strong in the face of adversity.

"In 1992 the only thing that held us back was complacency. We lost to Donegal in the Ulster final but it didn't hold us back because the following year there was a great sense of destiny – we were getting closer.

"There was an unbreakable sense destiny about the team in 1993. I don't remember ever thinking we would lose a game. Obviously the semi final against Dublin was the toughest game but we remorsefully reeled them in half time and eventually beat them by one point.

"When we beat Cork in the final I couldn't help but feel that all the hard work, leadership and natural ability had come together – it was a great feeling and I will never forget it."

Eamonn Coleman died in June 2007 after a long battle with Non-Hodgkin lymphoma. It was clear when talking to Joe that Coleman was a man that he admired and respected. Joe spoke fondly of the Ballymaguigan man and enjoyed talking about the exploits of 1993.

After the emphatic three point victory over Cork in 1993 Joe would go onto win two All-Star awards in 1997 and 1998 respectively. Joe, now 39, currently plays for St. Brigid's GAC in Belfast. He finished off the interview by talking about his hopes and ambitions for the future.

"I just want to keep blasting on," he exclaimed. "I am really enjoying life at the minute. I have a great family, a job I enjoy and I get paid to talk about football on a Sunday – sure you can't get much better than that.

"I love having the opportunity to write about Gaelic games because it is something that I would be doing even without the money – that's how much I love it.

"I've got five children under the age of eight with my wife Emma Rose but one of my ambitions is to have another five different children to five different women," he said laughing.

There are so many sides to Joe Brolly. Barrister, father, journalist, footballer and pundit are but a few. Each role has its duties and responsibilities but, admirably, Joe brings his enthusiasm and unique insightfulness to everything that he does.

If there is a God, he most certainly broke the mould when he made Joe Brolly. Derry for Sam in 2008? What's your thoughts Joe?
n Joe lives in Belfast and is married to his wife Emma Rose and they have five children together.