The superlative achievements of Paul Brady have been well-documented but are worth repeating. In an era where the standard of play has never been higher, Brady has strode the global and national stage like a colossus. Lest you be in any doubt, here it is in black and white: Paul Brady is, quite simply, the greatest Irish handballer ever to lace a pair of gloves, a multiple All-Ireland, US and world champion.
2009 marked arguably the greatest year of a great career, in an age where the term is bandied around all too cheaply.
First up was the All Ireland senior championship. Brady was sensational in marching through the field and demolishing methodical Dubliner Eoin Kennedy 21-10, 21-4 in the final last March. Next up was the US Nationals in Los Angeles in June when Brady shocked the world by annihilating eight-time champion David Chapman in the final of the Open Singles.
While Brady's victory was no surprise to handball fans - the dual star has been ranked as world number one since 2005 - the manner of it and the level of his domination was incredible.
Brady's astonishing 21-3, 21-6 final win last June was the second part of a historic treble for the county, with St Pat's stalwart James Brady romping to victory in the final of the B Singles the previous morning, while Patrick Clerkin teamed up with Tipperary's Ger Coonan to take the A Doubles on Sunday afternoon.
Paul Brady's achievement in keeping each opponent to single digits in four rounds of handball is unprecedented in the 55-year history of the event and has lead to much debate among the handball fraternity as to whether the 29-year-old Cavan man, who has now won five US Nationals in succession, is the greatest ever to play the sport.
Brady defeated Abraham Montijo of Tucson in the round of 16 before blowing away local hero Marcos Chavez, a top ten player who has competed on the world stage for a decade, on a 21-9, 21-6 scoreline.
In the semi-final, the Cavan footballer gained revenge on the player who defeated him last October in the US Open, Luis Moreno, demolishing the American in two 21-8 games.
In the decider, watched live on the internet by a global audience estimated at around 20,000, Brady turned in the greatest performance of his career to hold Chapman to just nine points over two games.
The American, widely regarded as the best player of his generation before the arrival of Brady, retired at just 29 three years ago but came back to dominate the American scene over the last 12 months.
Even with the assistance of a partisan home crowd, however, he had no answer to Brady's onslaught in the final.
"I'm absolutely delighted to get through it," said Brady, who linked up with Tommy Carr's senior football panel on his return said immediately after his victory.
"I knew how tough it would be to retain my title but I was confident, I had prepared well. I'm delighted with the win; this has been my goal for the last few months and I'm just thrilled to take my fifth title.
"It was always going to be tough against Chapman; he's one of the best players in the world but I really wanted to win that and I think my performance showed just how hungry I was," added the Mullahoran native.
In the B's, James Brady had superb wins over Californian Jerry Puga, Mexican Jair Cano and Jaime Murillo, also of California, before beating Sal Duenas of Santa Ana 21-3, 21-5 in a super final showing.
Clerkin, who lost an agonising 11-10 tiebreaker to eventual champion Fergal Collins in the semi-final of the A Singles, came through three tough doubles matches, culminating in a final win over Victor Perez and Pat Jarviz of Lake Forest, Chicago.
Surely, we felt, this year couldn't get any better. When Brady tore a quad muscle training a few weeks before October's World Championships, it seemed that the fairytale was over, the run finished, the favourite set to miss the tri-annual event which has been called 'the Olympics of handball'.
How wrong we were. Brady and long term doubles partner Michael Finnegan ensured that Co Cavan continues to dominate on the world handball stage by overcoming adversity to win the two most prestigious awards in the game at the World Championships in Portland, Oregon .
Struggling with the injury which threatened to rule him out of the tournament, Brady stormed to success in the Open Singles, defeating Texan Allan Garner 11-7 in a tense tiebreaker in the decider.
Meanwhile, with Brady restricted to singles only because of his injury, Kingscourt's Finnegan teamed up with Dublin's Eoin Kennedy to come through three tough rounds to win the Open Doubles title, beating Robbie McCarthy and Brian Carroll (Westmeath/Meath) in the final on a 21-18, 21-6 scoreline.
"It's taken a while to sink in, particularly because I've been in so much pain since the final," said Brady.
"The injury has really taken its toll on the rest of my body and my next goal is to deal with getting physically right again."
Brady spent three years preparing for the World Championships (which drew 1,000 entries), but the injury he suffered cast a major doubt over his participation.
"I couldn't train for two weeks and my confidence was very brittle," he explained.
"I played one training game a few days prior to the championship, but mentally it was very difficult to remain focused on the games and not the injury."
The 30-year-old opened the defence of his world title against American Eric Hilgren, and while his movement looked visibly restricted, Brady managed to pull of an emphatic victory.
"I suppose in the first game I was trying to adjust to the heavy strapping and I felt the pain-killing injections wearing off, but thankfully I pulled through," said Brady.
"The pain persisted in all of the games and I began to struggle physically with playing daily so I received more injections and by the time the final came, my body was running on sheer adrenalin."
The final was not without drama. In the first game, the Breffni man recorded a 21-14 win, but Garner displayed some awesome killing to force a tiebreaker. In the decider, at 3-0 up, Brady was forced to take an injury time-out after colliding with the side-wall. Playing through severe pain, he managed to finish out the game and secure an 11-7 victory, and fulfil his three-in-a-row mission.
In the doubles event, Finnegan, who will surely now go down as one of the greatest doubles players the sport has seen, played some of the best handball of his career in his novel partnership with Kennedy and having overcome an early scare in the final, the Cavan-Dublin duo dominated the second set.
While the duo of senior stars deservedly took the headlines, 2009 was a stellar year for other players too.
Adrian Smith and Senan Gilchreest went all the way to the All Ireland final in Under 15 doubles, while James Brady took first in Ulster Junior Singles and teamed with Patrick Clerkin to win the corresponding doubles.
Raymond Cunningham, a member of Cavan's heroic 1997 Ulster SFC-winning team, made a welcome return to handball, taking the inaugural Kingscourt Open title at the tail end of 2008 and retaining it in December 2009.
The Ulster championships are in full swing again as you read, with Kingscourt, St Pat's and Virginia players preparing in earnest and a number of promising juveniles preparing for the next step in their careers. Paul Brady and Michael Finnegan, too, look poised for further success in 2010. And so the cycle goes on… Tweet

Most Read Stories