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League of Ireland Horse Racing TV Listings GAA Fixtures The Video Review Sport meets news, current affairs, society & pop culture Rugby Weekly Extra Dive into all the news and analysis 3 times a week The Football Family Weekly insights from the week’s big talking points Advertisement More Stories DJ Carey.INPHO A pitiful end to the story of one of the greatest - and most marketable - hurlers Successful people admired DJ Carey and he leveraged that admiration. 8.01pm, 3 Nov 2025 Share options Declan Bogue WHERE DOES SYMPATHY enter the tale of DJ Carey? Perhaps it does not. It would be an odd thing indeed to consider the various indiscretions whereby Carey targeted contacts and defrauded them with claims of severe illness, yet say on the other hand, ‘Ah but, he was some player’. There are victims in this story; Carey is not one. That said, we would lack a certain humanity if we didn’t feel sad at the conclusion brought today as he was sentenced to five-and-a-half years in jail. To those old enough to remember the hurler at the start of his inter-county career, and to have witnessed what he did on the field in the years that followed, and to see where he has ended up… well, it’s a desperate and sorry tale. It feels almost too much on the nose that Carey played in his first All-Ireland final in 1991, losing to Tipperary in the first year the GAA permitted jersey sponsorship. Instantly, money was in play for a conservative association. A wider media and commercial world built up around the games. It would be a few more years before Guinness would commence their sponsorship of the All-Ireland hurling championship but even then, big companies were sizing up the games and its appeal to a mass audience. And they knew all along that the man in the arena was the most marketable. At that point, Carey was brand new. He made his debut for Kilkenny while still a pupil at St Kieran’s College. Carey as a pupil of St Kieran's before playing for Kilkenny seniors.Billy Stickland / INPHO Billy Stickland / INPHO / INPHO In 1990, he had made his scoring debut for Kilkenny in championship hurling. It was a free against Offaly and the scoreline at the break was Offaly 3-7 Kilkenny 0-1. Carey didn’t even get to walk down the tunnel with his head hung low, having been replaced after half an hour with the pre-game warnings that he needed to get “stuck in” still ringing in this artisan’s ears. By the time he retired with five All-Irelands, nine All-Stars, and two Hurler of the Year awards, he embodied the old piece of advice Steve Martin used to give to up-and-coming comics: be so good they cannot ignore you. As he went about compiling the first sightings of a GAA highlights reel, marketeers sat up. Here was the Irish everyman, with added sporting genius. He was available to endorse products and well able to chat to whatever media was going. He could strike a clean drive off the tee, and had a background playing handball, where he also excelled. In that climate, it wasn’t long before he began recognising his worth. After starting out in sales for Cadbury’s and moving onto Three Rivers Oil, in 1994 at the age of 24 he founded DJ Carey Enterprises, providing hygiene products to the hospitality sector. You’d imagine that the thrill of haggling over the price of toilet rolls would soon wane, but it gave him access to a whole load of golfing, schmoozing and hotels. He was a founding member of the Gaelic Players Association and lobbied for sponsorship for players. In 2000, he was one of 10 top players to sign up a promotional deal with Marlborough Recruitment through the GPA. His image was used to sell crisps, boots and energy drinks. Advertisement Yet, earlier, in 1998, he had enough of top-level hurling. He wanted to walk away at the end of 1997, having lost an All-Ireland hurling semi-final to Clare, and the county hurling final to Dunnamaggin. He called county board chairman John Healy and told him he was done. Healy managed to stave off this for a few months but Carey had made his mind up. He was a hurling superstar and belonged to the select band of people whose fame meant national recognition through just his Christian name initials: D.J. A certain distance developed between him and other players. While others would happily end the season with a day or two on the beer, moaning about team managers and the like, Carey was more likely to be found mixing in other circles, his devotion to golf held against him long before anyone had made flags about Gareth Bale. And so, he quit. Carey playing golf with former Italy striker Daniele Massaro.Andrew Paton / INPHO Andrew Paton / INPHO / INPHO The news was announced on Radio Kilkenny. The Irish Independent had led with it that morning, and then Carey had brought RTÉ reporter Brian Carthy into his home to announce it live on Morning Ireland. All of this backed up what some teammates would say of Carey: his was a deep need to be liked and approved of. Would any other player have announced a retirement to the nation? In Denis Walsh’s book Hurling: The Revolution Years, published in 2005, Carey told the story about his mini-retirement. “I done it because I was playing a game I love, and constantly knocked. People were spreading stories. I was supposed to be fighting with this lad, that lad, the other lads. “I was continually being knocked for doing something I wasn’t paid to do and putting in such a huge effort.” He continued, talking about how GAA players were under a casual but implicit pressure to run around the country doing favours for others. Managing Carlow IT.Evan Treacy / INPHO Evan Treacy / INPHO / INPHO “The odd day, you’d get diesel money and then more often than not you’d get a trophy that’s probably worth a hundred quid or more – which is big money. But you’d prefer to have got the money’s worth because you’re after going there. I don’t care, unless you’re born into money a few bob for everyone comes in really handy.” In 1998, after six weeks and a reported 25,000 letters sent pleading for him to return, Carey was back with Kilkenny. He wanted this, but he didn’t want it. In the end, like many more, he just went along with it all. The seduction of being the centre of attention must have had an appeal, but still, people were reading him wrong. Two days before the 2003 All-Ireland hurling final when they beat Cork, The Daily Mirror newspaper led with a story, complete with quotes from Carey’s sister Catriona, about his marriage to Christine breaking down. That night, Eamon Dunphy, a friend of Carey with Kilkenny roots himself, used some airtime of his TV3 chat show to appeal to Sunday tabloids that, “It’s not too late to row back,” without directly referencing it. The broadsheets covered it too, nonetheless, trying to affect an air of causal indifference and blaming society’s obsession with celebrity, while they devoted a chunk of their papers to it. With sons Sean and Michael after the 2003 All-Ireland win.INPHO In 2013, he granted an interview to The Sunday Times when he laid out a life that was far from a Robin Askwith ‘Confessions of a Hurler’ that some may have believed. “I married the first girl I ever kissed. I dated the second one for nine years. But I’ve often heard your man is great with the women. I’d jump into the ground, I’d be that shy. I’ve often heard it, and said to myself I wish I was. In my whole sporting career I’ve never in my life been approached by a girl in a flirtatious sort of way,” he said. He wasn’t hail-fellow, well-met. But he was used to being admired. Successful people admired him and he leveraged that admiration. Then he started telling people he was sick. Seriously, gravely sick. The money kept coming one way, and lies and deception flowed the opposite direction. In the 2013 Sunday Times piece, he was living in his house in the K Club. His family relationships had fallen apart. He said that his health was deserting him, that he had clots on the brain and two aneurysms. He told stories of hard luck. How he hadn’t enough money to buy enough diesel to go down to Kilkenny and visit his sons. His electricity was turned off. His oil ran out. He had no car, but for car dealer David Buggy loaning him one for a year. The fall from grace was wretched. “I’m not a religious person but I’d go to church two or three times a week. I’d light a couple of candles and say can I put that behind me now, rather than say can I do this and that in the future. There’s great relief in that. “I would say, hand on heart, I was never depressed. Sad, yes. Suicidal? Definitely not. But how far away is anyone from it? I often lay there hoping morning wouldn’t come. Not that I didn’t want to wake, but you knew the phone is going to start ringing at eight o’clock in the morning with fellas looking for money. “The only thing I can control is me. You go from there and get your confidence back. No one can ever take away my five All Irelands. A person in business can make a few bob and lose it. But no one can ever take my achievements away. That’s a starting point for me.” With his business in tatters, he was left living in a house in the K Club with the banks circling overhead. He bounced around various locations, notably in Ballsbridge before eventually ending up in Kilkenny. He kept up appearances. Carey on the golf course.Cathal Noonan / INPHO Cathal Noonan / INPHO / INPHO His demise was akin to how Ernest Hemingway described how you go bankrupt: ‘Two ways, gradually, then suddenly.’ The details, grisly and lurid, are all laid out superbly in the recently-published The Dodger, Eimear Ní Bhraonáin’s shocking book of Carey’s downfall. At the start, he targeted blue-chip types, looking for six-figure sums. By the end, he must have cut a wretched figure, sitting in hotel lobbies with a pot of tea long gone cold in front of him, inviting himself into others’ company, spinning yarns for smaller sums of money. He is left with nothing. He left others with nothing. It’s a tragedy all round. Declan Bogue Send Tip or Correction Embed this post To embed this post, copy the code below on your site Email “A pitiful end to the story of one of the greatest - and most marketable - hurlers”. 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