Author and journalist Eimear Ní Bhraonaín, whose book on DJ Carey named "The Dodger" is now the best-selling book in Ireland, told the Irish Echo that she believes the former Kilkenny hurling star sought financial help from people whom he met during his trips to the United States.
Explained the Carlow born writer: "DJ travelled to the Super Bowl in 2014 and he was at the U.S. Masters in Augusta in 2015. He had many acquaintances there through hurling and handball. To date, nobody in the U.S. has admitted to giving Carey money.
"DJ knew top sports personalities including American football coach Brian Kelly. He was pictured with Kelly during a visit to Ireland in July 2019." she explained.
Explaining the background Eimear said: "In 2019, St. Kieran’s College and Kilkenny GAA’s Development Programme needed the diaspora’s help to fundraise. This was no ordinary fundraiser. All the stops were pulled out. They set their sights on the Big Apple as they wanted to up the ante in raising funds for a hurling development at St. Kieran’s College. They came up with a plan for a corporate dinner in the United States. The event would be attended by hurling royalty.
"It was billed as an event to explore the key attributes which drive success in sport, business and life developing Ireland’s future leaders through our national games. It certainly looked good on paper. The Ireland Funds, a global philanthropic network, got involved in promoting the GAA fundraiser entitled ‘Leadership in Sport. Lessons for Business.’
"A fee of $20,000 was charged for a platinum table which secured attendees a separate intimate pre-event reception with Brian Kelly, who was then the Dick Corbett Head Football Coach at the University of Notre Dame, and the then Kilkenny senior hurling manager, Brian Cody. The platinum package also came with cocktails and a dinner reception in an 'intimate setting with a Kilkenny player to join guests at your VIP table.'
"Those in attendance would include Brian Cody, Henry Shefflin, Tommy Walsh, TJ Reid, Ann Downey, Angela Downey, Cillian Buckley and Richie Hogan. What really got tongues wagging was how the organisers had managed to land one of the biggest names in American Football coaching, Brian Kelly. How did they manage that? Sources said DJ was the common denominator. He knew Kelly and got him there.
"DJ Carey’s face was prominent on one of the early posters to promote the event, and to his right, these words appeared: 'A deep hunger to achieve, a culture of teamwork, dedication, commitment, honesty, humility, attention to detail provide the basis of any advancement.' Although DJ was initially in the promotional material for the event, he did not actually go. However, the fundraisers and people involved were surely impressed by how easily he got Brian Kelly to come along.
"Apart from the platinum table for $20,000 there was also the gold package ($10,000) or a silver ($5,000) on offer. The event took take place on November 11, 2019 at the Metropolitan Club on 1 East 60th Street, New York.
"A gold package ensured you were wined and dined with a Kilkenny player at your table. The silver package meant you could enjoy cocktails and dinner but it was not enough to secure a Kilkenny hurler at your side.
"A few months before this event, Brian Kelly was pictured holidaying in Ireland in July 2019. In one of the snaps, he’s posing with a hurl flanked by Brian Cody on one side, and DJ Carey on the other. They are all smiling in the sunshine and DJ is holding an American football. In another, he (Kelly) is giving a talk to the Kilkenny hurlers with DJ Carey pictured behind his shoulder, looking on.
"Brian Kelly served as head football coach with the University of Notre Dame from 2010-2021. A report on the legendary college football coach’s trip appeared on Independent.ie dated Sunday, July 21, 2019. It stated he was in Ireland for a 'family holiday just over a year from when he is due to return with his Notre Dame team to face the United States Naval Academy at the Aviva Stadium.'
"Apart from playing some golf, the article said his 'main Irish sporting appointment was a hurling one where he met with Brian Cody and DJ Carey.' DJ was the Kilkenny under 20s coach at the time and invited Kelly to a team practice session and a light puck around head of their Leinster final. Carey’s team beat Wexford in that final.
"Carey had asked Kelly to talk to the players and said he could immediately feel his presence in preparing his team for battle.
"Carey revealed that he was fascinated with how Kelly’s responsibility for his college team went way beyond just American football. Notre Dame is a top academic institution and part of Kelly's role is to ensure the players meet their grades both on and off the field.
On meeting Kelly, DJ described it as a “great honour” saying Kelly was extremely down-to-earth.
"He showed a great enthusiasm and interest in the sport of hurling and hopefully his Notre Dame team will get to experience the sport when they visit next year. Kelly did not get to return with Notre Dame for the fixture in 2020 as due to the Covid-19 pandemic, it did not go ahead in Dublin as planned," Ní Bhraonaín said.
As for the book itself, "The Dodger: DJ Carey and the Great Betrayal," here's my review.
A few weeks ago, as former Kilkenny hurling legend DJ Carey was led away to begin a five-and-a-half-year prison sentence for defrauding friends, family, and fans of more than €400,000, The Dodger, journalist Eimear Ní Bhraonáin’s forensic account of Carey’s double life was about to hit the shelves.
It is a book that feels both timely and extraordinary, arriving at the very moment when Ireland is reckoning with the unraveling of one of its greatest sporting heroes.
There was a time when DJ Carey didn’t need a surname. To generations of GAA supporters, he was simply “DJ” the lightning-fast forward with the velvet touch, the smiling face of Kilkenny hurling’s golden era.
Five All-Ireland medals, nine All Stars, a career so dazzling it seemed to belong to a different plane entirely. But behind the genial grin and the handshake-for-everyone persona, Ní Bhraonáin reveals something far more complicated: a man adept not only with the hurley, but with illusion.
Ní Bhraonáin, a former broadcaster with KCLR and a national journalist with the Irish Independent has followed Carey’s story for many years. Her experience is vital as it allows her to write "The Dodger" with the restraint and precision of someone who knows her subject and her community too well to sensationalize it.
Her approach is neither gleeful nor vindictive. Instead, she traces the slow corrosion of truth in Carey’s life ... from adolescent excuses to the devastating deceit that saw him pretend to have terminal cancer as a pretense of soliciting money for fictitious treatments in the United States.
The book is built on over a hundred interviews comprising of victims, teammates and friends and it is to the author's credit as a chronicler of events that she records how many of them still speak of DJ with an uneasy tenderness. That tone is Ní Bhraonáin’s triumph: she captures not only the betrayal but the bewilderment of those who adored him. In their eyes, he remains the young man who’d stay late after matches to sign hurleys for children. How, they ask, could that same man look a lifelong supporter in the eye and take their savings?
Ní Bhraonáin doesn’t offer easy answers. What emerges instead is a portrait of a Walter Mitty figure whose lies grew in tandem with his fame, protected by those who found it easier to look away. The dodges, she establishes, began small with feigned illnesses and mushroomed into the latest financial cons which now sees him reside behind bars. Each time, the pattern was the same: charm, sympathy, and the quiet exploitation of faith and friendship.
What makes "The Dodger" stand apart from the day’s headlines is not its detail, though the research is exhaustive, but its empathy. Ní Bhraonáin understands the communal heartbreak of this story: how in Ireland, sporting heroes are not distant idols but neighbors, work colleagues and sometimes deceivers.
As DJ begins his five and a half year sentence, the book stands as both indictment and elegy: a mirror held up to the dangers of hero worship and the fragility of trust. Ultimately, The Dodger is not just about DJ Carey’s fall, but it's the mirror reflecting the Ireland that helped him climb so high, and the silence that saw him sink so low.
"The Dodger" is available on Amazon
