Brendan 'Bradas' O'Donnell flying the Donegal flag at Croke Park and many other venues

Donegal may be infrequent visitors to Croke Park in the last few years but one Donegal man is a regular feature at the venue for all the big games.

Brendan ‘Bradas’ O’Donnell was behind the camera bringing the games to the TV coverage and was one of 19 camera men on duty at the Dublin-Kerry clash on Sunday last.

The Glenties man is now one of the most recognised and experienced camera operators in the country and you can find him at many sporting events as well as covering news markings and he has also been heavily involved in filming documentaries for TV.

But while he regards the work as a hobby, it can also be demanding. Recently, he was on duty in MacCumhaill Park on Saturday, 24th June when Donegal hosted Tyrone in the All-Ireland preliminary quarter-final at 4 pm and less than 24 hours later at 1.30 he was providing the pictures for TG4 in Fraher Field, Dungarvan when Waterford hosted Meath in the Ladies All-Ireland series game.

For Sunday’s All-Ireland final he left Glenties at 5.00 a.m. and wasn’t home on Sunday night until 11.30 p.m.

But the gentle giant takes it all in his stride, seemingly unfazed by anything that is thrown at him. “Thank God for Spotify is all I’ll say. Once I have the tunes on  I’ll drive anywhere, or throw on Joe Brolly’s Podcast, or Shane Todd, the comedian.  It keeps you going.  Or you might ring somebody on the hands free and talk to someone.

The nickname ‘Bradas’ has stuck from National School. “The story behind it was that we used to call Joseph McLoone, Jofas, and it used to drive him insane. He then threw out names on all of us and mine was Bradas. I don’t know where it came from and it stuck to me, and I use it all the time now. Martin Doherty was called Doc and his name stuck too,” says Brendan, who says Glenties would be a place where everyone has a nickname.

When you stick ‘Bradas’ into a Google search, you get a result which says it has a Netherlands connection meaning ‘bro, friend’, which is quite apt.

His interest in cameras and video, he says, can be traced back to his mother, who had a camera when few were available and her interest rubbed off on the oldest in the family, the late Michael ‘Jack’ O’Donnell and also on the youngest of the nine siblings, Brendan.

“Our mother had a wee box brownie of her own and she always took photographs.  She would always get a family portrait taken every year.

“There were always photographs around the house.

Brendan with Damien Ó Dónaill of RTÉ Raidio na Gaeltachta at the All-Ireland final

“But my interest in video came through the Glenties Video Club,  I think it was around 1981 or 1982. Glenties had its own TV station. It was a piped TV deflector system and everyone could get it. We could get  the English stations from Limavady. It was very modern and ahead of its time.

“There were people involved like Richard McCafferty and John McSwiggan who kept it going. They bought a video camera and when they went outdoors it was powered by a car battery. They used to cover the Harvest Fair, some football matches, parish leagues, concerts, Communion, Confirmation.

“We thought this was fascinating because every Thursday, they started off with the local news with Ann Fletcher reading the local news. Then, and they should sue RTE about it, they were the first to come up with TeleBingo, which funded the station.

“The broadcast would end with the Big Movie and it may have been a bit dodgy with some of them pirated, because the first time most of us saw ET was on the Glenties Video Club.

“That’s where I got the interest from the still images to the moving ones.”

But the journey to where he is today was not straightforward.  “When doing  my Leaving I went to my  Career Guidance teacher at the time and I asked could I do a TV Production course and he said, ‘there’s none of them courses in Ireland, here, have a fag’.

“I didn’t even smoke! That was the advice I was given.”

Brendan ended up doing different jobs for three or four years but still had the yearning to get involved in the media. “I got chatting to a few people and Francis Byrne of Kilcar was a big help to me, in fairness. He told me about a course in Kerry and I applied and I got it. That was in 1997.

“I got my own camera at that stage that my father, God rest him, encouraged me to get. He was a big influence along with my mother, to push me on.”

Everything then seemed to fall into place, including becoming the official video operator for Donegal GAA, now spanning 20 years.

“We (Naomh Conaill)  won our first league title in 2002 and I was filming the games for the lads. I was working in Derry at the time.  Charlie O’Donnell of Kilcar saw me doing it and said we need somebody to do county games. And it mushroomed from that.”

While he still loves to do local stuff, nowadays his time is taken up with documentaries and life TV. “I still like doing local stuff and I do live streaming when possible with Joe Brennan, who is a tech wizard.

“I've been lucky enough to do documentaries for RTÉ and TG4 and I’ve been around the world and met many well-known people.  I’ve met (Ian) Paisley, Gerry Adams  and Martin McGuinness.

“I did a documentary with John Hume, which was really interesting. I was out in Strasbourg with him for a week and one of the highlights was on one of the evenings, we were out every evening, we went into a bar and I got to know him very well. I asked him to sing ‘The Town I Loved So Well’ and he did it and that was special and a great memory to have.

“To be in the presence of someone who was so special to this country, to be in there shooting the breeze with him.”

While he remains pretty laid back, between editing and filming, he is kept busy, from doing Northern Ireland soccer internationals to the Fleadh in Mullingar, the Mary from Dungloe for TG4 on Sunday next and up to Larne on Monday for an Irish League game for Viaplay (formerly Premier Sports).

Among those for whom he does a big portion of work are Nemeton and TVM, outside broadcasting companies based in Waterford and Cork.

He has got to travel the world, Africa, the US and all over Europe, sometimes doing work for US TV channels but he says there is a gang of freelancers and there is always good banter.

“Even on Sunday, there were a few from Dublin, q few from Kerry and there was plenty of banter beside the OB trucks

“It’s just a paid hobby, because I love it.”

On Sunday last he was on the low camera at the Hill 16 end. “You are literally on the pitch and you can hear the noise behind you from the Hill.”

With 19 cameras covering the final on Sunday, the change from the 1970s reflects the modern era. “There would have been three cameras then, maybe four or five for an All-Ireland final.”
 Brendan pictured with Paddy Crerand outside Old Trafford

YOUNGEST SPORTING MEMORY

Brendan’s youth was a happy one and his earliest memory is of travelling to games with the late Michael ‘Jack’, going to see him playing for Naomh Conaill and at training as well as playing out the front in Ard Patrick.

“We would be down at training, but when they were playing they didn’t train much, maybe for the championship, go off the beer for two weeks and think they were fit.

“I made my debut for the U-12s when I was eight. I scored two goals and I remember the second one, on the River end, against Ardara. One of the Briodys, he was standing behind the goal and I hit him on the head. I  can even remember it was a wet Thursday evening.”

National School memories include running home at 12.30, drink your dinner and get back up for the last 15 minutes to play a game of soccer in a small space. “It was that tight, you couldn’t turn a sweet in your mouth.”

Secondary school at the Comprehensive was just over the wall. “Some were in at 7 or half 7. We could get up about 9 o’clock and dander in  for the bell.”

No wonder he is so laid back.

“Even to this day, one thing I don’t do is rush.”

School life was good and in the Comp basketball and Gaelic was to the fore with the combined forces of Ardara and Glenties and a few from Leitir.

“We won the championships all the way up and we won at basketball as well. We had great teachers, the likes of Harry Reid and Dave Mulhern  at Gaelic and we had Manus Brennan and Brian Flannery, God rest him, at basketball,” says Brendan, who said they actually coached themselves in their final year at basketball and won the senior men’s final with a panel of six.

“We ended up beating Ballyshannon in the final, Stephen McKelvey scoring the winning basket with two seconds to go.” The six were Adrian Brennan, Gerry Doherty, Stephen McKelvey,  Patrick Roarty, John Gildea and Brendan.

“John Gildea was part of the panel but he was small at the time. We always say we taught him how to catch a ball through basketball.”

ELEMENTS

There are times when Brendan’s job can be testing, especially working in all sorts of weather.

“That’s why the boot’s always full with waterproof gear and jackets.  It goes back to the age old thing,  when  the elements are against you, when doing sport in particular, there’s very little you can do unless God comes down himself.

“It’s Ireland and facilities in certain places are not built for TV work. People might not understand that but there is little you can do when the rain and wind is coming at the camera.”

He has been that lone figure on a crane hoisted above a sporting venue. “I was up in Omagh one time and I could see Errigal. You could be stationed anywhere, on the pitch, in the stand. You are mostly given instructions, whether that be main action, close ups, close up of scorers, all different jobs.

“There is a good variety and I have done most of them. But overall it’s a privilege for me, getting to see games,” says Brendan, who added that one of the most unusual occasions was filming All-Ireland finals during Covid.

“The most surreal one was the All-Ireland hurling final; you could hear every puck of the ball; every shout of every player and manager. There was no one there but us and players and managers.”

The occupation has afforded Brendan the opportunity to work in different venues in every county in Ireland and in stadiums he didn’t know even existed.

“I’m busy and very lucky, but I don’t push myself but if anything comes in I gladly take it. If I have a quiet period my wife, Yvonne, is able to give me plenty to do around the house. She is also my rock.”

TOGO

Asked what would be the stand-out or unusual work assignment he has encountered, he doesn’t have to think for long.

“Probably going out to Africa with (Brendan) Devenney about two months ago. We went out along with Carole Wickham of Plan International to Togo. Brendan has done savage work with the charity and the money goes primarily to the young girls. They are trying to eradicate the practice of young girls getting married at 11. 

“They haven’t much out there, living in shacks and wee huts but extremely happy people.  And you look at us,  we have a lot more but we’re not happy and extremely stressed. You don’t see much stress out there.

“I would say that was the most unusual job I was on to  date.”

And as regarding the outstanding sporting moment he was involved in filming.

“I  would have to go parochial and I would say 2005 when we won our first senior championship. Thank God for the tripod, once the final whistle went I  zoomed the camera out and let a big roar out of me, and nearly fell off the roof of the MacCumhaill Park Press Box.”

Brendan also has his own special sporting moments including winning an U-12 final against Ardara. “It wasn’t the fact of beating Ardara, it was the first that the club had won in years. We had a fantastic time with that.

“But a sad fact from it was that by the time we were all 35, there were five of that squad dead. Mark (McGuinness), God rest him, who will be 25 years gone now on the 3rd of August, he was one of them.”

And being in Croke Park working when his neighbour, Jim McGuinness, managed Donegal to All-Ireland success in 2012 was special for Bradas.

“Filming there in 2012 and seeing someone you grew up with and out on the green playing football with, and he was a lunatic when he was a young fella, a madman, but a good one.

“He is a prime example of someone, if you have got a skillset and you work hard on it.  That’s what he did, especially after Charles passed, God rest him. He always would have dedicated in his own mind, he wouldn’t have said it publicly, he would have dedicated successes to Mark and Charles because they would have been massive influences on his life.”

And Brendan is extremely proud of the fact that he was involved as cameraman in a documentary made about McGuinness after the 2012 success. “Myself, Alan Foley, Michael Harte and Emmet Harte were involved. I had a load of behind the scenes footage.

“That documentary is very personal and I would be very proud of that with four Donegal people working on it. It is a good record to have of that journey (in 2012).”

Brendan also has retained all the footage of what he has worked on locally since acquiring the camera, which will be invaluable as time passes.

For now, Brendan remains busy, the blue and white of Naomh Conaill close to his heart and he would also love to be on camera duty soon again in Croker with Donegal on the field.