DJ CAREY, the disgraced former Kilkenny hurler and former manager of the IT Carlow Fitzgibbon Cup hurling team, was sentenced to five and a half years in prison on Monday afternoon. His rags to riches to rags story is examined in detail by Carlow author Eimear Ní Bhraonáin, in her book The Dodger: DJ Carey and the Great Betrayal, published by Merrion Press last Thursday.
“We wanted to respect due process. The book was due to be published as soon as he was sentenced,” Eimear said, regarding the apt timing of the book’s release.
Ms Ní Bhraonáin spent nearly three years and conducted over 100 interviews to get to the bottom of Carey’s financial scams and fake cancer claims that dated back as far as 2003.
Several scenes and recollections in the book take place on Carlow soil, at the Lord Bagenal Hotel in Leighlinbridge and at Carlow Golf Club.
“He was incessant. He was in Carlow Golf Club with a laptop a lot, drinking tea and telling people about his cancer, so he may have targeted people there”, said Eimear.
However, she said that “the ones who are on record and who are strongest” aren’t from Carlow; they’re from Wexford and Kilkenny.
Carey (54) pleaded guilty in Dublin Circuit Criminal Court in July to ten counts of dishonestly inducing people to pay him money for cancer treatment. The court heard on 31 October that Carey had defrauded 22 people out of a total of almost €400,000 between 2014 and 2022, of which just €44,000 has been repaid.
At the Circuit Criminal Court in Dublin yesterday (Monday), Judge Martin Nolan said he “could not imagine a more reprehensible fraud”.
Carey joined SETU (formerly IT Carlow) as ambassador for hurling in 2013. Eimear said his colleagues remember their confusion over a trip Carey took to the Super Bowl in New York in 2014, when he was millions of euros in debt to AIB and asking businessman Denis O’Brien for financial assistance.
Ms Ní Bhraonáin decided to investigate his story after hearing persistent rumours of Carey’s misdeeds while presenting at KCLR. “I didn’t know what was true and what was false. I would have just heard he wasn’t well and I didn’t quite understand initially.”
She wrote a front-page news story in the Irish Independent in 2012 about Carey having blood clots on his brain. “I often wondered afterwards … only when everything was coming out. You’d have questions about everything he says now because his credibility is in doubt.
“At the time, absolutely every check was done and when the horse’s mouth is telling people in a corporate box in Croke Park that he has brain tumors, you’d be inclined to believe him, wouldn’t you? It was all so hard to believe.
“We all loved DJ, he was so accessible. He was so nice, but actually ultimately that’s what made him a very good con man. We didn’t see him coming. We were blinded by him.
“It’s just hindsight that makes everything seem clear all of a sudden.”
The Dodger: DJ Carey and the great betrayal by Eimear Ní Bhraonáin is published by Merrion Press and is available nationwide.
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