SUNDAYS HAVE BEEN rough, but Wednesdays have been the toughest for Paddy Barrett this year.
That is when his eldest child – just 17 months but still old enough – knows that his Daddy will be leaving.
The twins, now four and a half months, will already be asleep when it’s time for Barrett to get on the road back to Dublin from the current family home in Mayo.
“Torture,” the Shelbourne defender says.
He waits until the eldest is asleep before slipping out, but that rarely goes to plan. “He’s out the window screaming, it breaks your heart. It’s broken my heart. He knows I’m gone for a few days then.”
He usually makes it back by Saturday morning or early afternoon after games and will be gone again by Sunday evening.
Occasionally, “once or twice”, he has needed an extra day off approved by manager Damien Duff.
“Whatever that man does he seems to be hated for it by everyone else outside of our club, but he’s one of the greatest people I’ve ever met,” Barrett says.
“Now, don’t get me wrong, he’s a little bit like myself, he’s a little but humpy and sometimes you need to stay away from him, but when he’s in a good mood he’s the best person to be around.
“I’m probably the same, when I’m in a bad mood, just stay away from me. That’s ok.”
It has helped “mentally” that Shels have been battling at the top of the table, but it has still taken a toll. As the final fortnight of the season approaches Barrett knows two wins – against Drogheda United tonight and away to Derry City next Friday – will secure the title.
“It’s in our hands, if we win it then we deserve. If we don’t then we don’t deserve it. It’s simple.”
Despite all of the travelling and “the five new car tyres”, Barrett says this has been his “best year of football to date.”
It’s a statement backed up by being recognised by his peers in the PFA Ireland team of the season.
Rivals like Jack Byrne, Daryl Horgan and Chris Forrester also put him down as their player of the year.
A decade ago, when he spent half of the season with Waterford and the other with Galway, Barrett was included in the PFAI’s First Division team before Stephen Kenny signed him for Dundalk in 2015.
He’s 31 now and, as has become clear over the last 10 years, is one of the League of Ireland’s great characters.
Sean Gannon, his old Dundalk teammate and now alongside him at Tolka Park, got the nod from some but was not included in the Premier Division team for this season but was in 2014.
“I’m surprised he’s not in the one from 25 years ago too the way he goes on,” Barrett says. “I feel like he’s been around playing since I was born.”
Barrett’s personality is infectious off the pitch and has a mentality to match on it that helps put others at ease.
Even if an error in the recent home game with St Patrick’s Athletic that led to the visitors scoring got the Only Fools and Horse treatment from Duff and first-team David McAllister
“They’re little bunker,” Barrett says. “They come up with some elite stuff from that bunker they have.
“The manager says to me ‘do you want to see clips of what you did wrong or watch Only Fools and Horses?’ I said ‘Only Fools and Horses, of course’. The manager says to us ‘good answer’ and then Davy Mac has got a video of my face edited on to Del Boy’s just as he falls through the bar with music and voice overs going with it.
“It put all of us in a better humour going out to training.”
That moment came in a 10-game run without a win, yet Shels stayed top and settled some more nerves with a 3-1 win over Waterford at home last week.
“That was a bit of a burden off the shoulder,” he says. “Before that we had been coming in looking at each other like ‘what is going on? Why can’t we win? Why can’t we score and then we’re conceding sloppy goals’. That win has helped us relax a little bit and the focus is still there for us.
“There is noise from the outside, people saying Shels are bottlers, all of this nonsense. People talking as if we’ve thrown something away when we’ve had nothing to throw away. It’s up to us to take it now.”
Barrett describes this season, one in which Shels, Derry City, Shamrock Rovers or St Patrick’s Athletic could still conceivably win the title, as “the maddest league I’ve been involved in, it’s mind-blowing.”
Amid that drama some clarity has come with a new two-year contract signed on Tuesday night.
It means his other half and three kids will be moving to Dublin in the New Year as Barrett waits to see where the final road of this season leads for him and Shels.
