John O'Mahony (Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

Ba mhaith liom míle fáilte a chur roimh Mícheál Ó Muircheartaigh. Is cuairteoir cáiliúil, speisialta é. Tá meas faoi leith ag muintir na hÉireann air. Micheál is heartily welcome to Seanad Éireann to mark Seachtain na Gaeilge. I am more than familiar with meeting him over the years, mainly in Croke Park and around the country, and I am delighted to meet him in this setting. He has visited more dressing rooms on tension filled all-Ireland days than any player or manager in the country. What some people here may not know is that over the years he has also been a trainer. For many years, he trained the Kerry and Mayo players in Dublin. He got great credit for Kerry winning all-Irelands, and he is the only man I know who never got any blame for Mayo not winning the all-Ireland. This is unique in itself.

He has been an excellent ambassador for the Irish language over the years, officially and unofficially. He has been instrumental in giving people pride in our native language and has had a huge influence in popularising and promoting the Irish language, our native tongue, over many years. I am not a fluent Irish speaker, but he gave me the love of the language to send my children to Coláiste Iascaigh and the Gaeltacht in Galway over the years. I am proud to say some of them are now fluent Irish speakers because of this. His influence has been paralleled by TG4 and Raidio na Gaeltachta, on which he has been many times. They have also popularised our language, games and culture over the years. Guím rath Dé air agus ar an obair fhiúntach a dhéanann sé.