After reliving all those happy days for Irish poker, we got bad news on Thursday.

John Skally Kalmar phoned me before 10 am. Had to be horrible news at that time of day. It was. My good friend Kevin O’Connell had left us. I had spoken to Kev and had a proper laugh on Tuesday. I told him I’d be representing the Sporting Emporium at IPT Galway the first weekend of January 2026. He loves Galway and Galway poker, and despite being in bad shape health-wise, signed up immediately. He was going to Goa via Doha the next morning. Doha was as far as he got.

I had so much fun with Kev since we met in Ryan’s pub in the nineties.

The funniest episode was about 15 years ago on New Year’s Eve in Galway.

A bunch of international and Irish players gathered to have fun on New Year’s Eve in those days. That year we attended a concert in The Quays. It was great until some clown spilled a drink over Mickey May’s coat. He and Kev got into a heated discussion and decided to take it outside. Jesse said we should go and help Kevin. I asked him what help he was going to need. He’d probably run away. Eventually he persuaded me to go in case Kev was badly injured. We did. No Kevin. Nobody. No blood. We tried to get back into the gig. No chance. We had words. Jesse vanished. I took off alone on the long cold walk to Salthill and our hotel. At breakfast the next morning we found out what happened. Kev had opened the back door at the gig. He sportingly waved his opponent through first and slammed the door behind him!

Kevin thought it was the funniest thing ever. Me, not so much.

Rest in peace, my friend. An English player suggested that the first thing Kev would do on reaching the next life was find The Devilfish and collect on their live-longer bet. He didn’t fancy his chances of getting paid. Me neither.

Photo credit: Mickey May