Derry hero Johnny McGurk says he can never gamble again — or his life could spiral out of control.
The 1993 All-Ireland winner features in the final episode of the 20th series of Laochra Gael on Thursday night.
McGurk (56) says he found pouring over elements of his life “a harrowing experience.”
A gambling addiction led to McGurk defrauding his then employer of over €650,000.
In 2016 he was sentenced to 10 months in prison, of which he served five and a half.
It was a time he used to get the “shame and anger” out of himself.
After a decade of hell, the Lavey man, who is now coaching his club’s seniors and is in with Derry Under-20s, has his life back on track again.
But he says the trauma of what unfolded will never fully leave him.
“I felt if I was sentenced at that time at least it was some kind of closure on it,” he says. “I went to court and faced up to my sins as such.
“I felt at least if I got some kind of sentence it was a justification I had served my prison sentence.
“They had decided that was right in terms of the length of the prison sentence.
“It marked a bit of drawing the line, but it is something that is not going to leave me. It’s there and it has left marks and scars. I don’t think I will ever totally get over it. The fact of the matter is that I have to do what I can and move on.”
McGurk once lost €70,000 on a bet.
“Absolute despair and depression, to be honest,” is how he describes it.
“The thing about it is it was £60,000 but, do you know something, it could have been £600,000 for me because I had no realisation what I was doing to myself in terms of gambling.
“I would still face that with my gambling.
“If I was stood outside a bookmaker’s now, I could very easily walk in and if somebody gave me £300,000 I could very easily get rid of that £300,000 in a matter of minutes.
“I just have no capability of dealing with it. At the time, every loss that came was just real despair.
“I was just living in a world where you are just trying to hide from yourself.
“You were basically saying you weren’t there and you weren’t doing it. That is the only way I could deal with it.
“I was an absolute shambles at that stage. My mind was everywhere. I wasn’t sleeping. Just complete despair.”
After five years of heavy gambling left him broken, he faced a five-year wait for his trial. McGurk was left wondering what would happen to his children and to himself, although he says he had no fear of going to jail.
In jail he studied GCSE maths, which allowed him to help his sons with their exams. He now tutors in the subject.
“I suppose there was a certain degree of despair that I didn’t know what was going to happen to me,” he says. “I reached out. It kept going and it did not go to court until 2016, which was some five years on. There were 10 years, which I lost out of my life, basically.
“Prison life, I actually didn’t struggle a lot with it.
“At least in prison I knew exactly where I was heading and I tried to be as positive about it as possible.
“I had an opinion that I was going to do what I could in there.
“I did some computer work and tried to make sure that when I did come out, I had done something positive and it did help in terms of helping the children with their maths.
“I had no real fear in prison in terms of other inmates or things like that.
“I suppose being a Gaelic footballer and hurler, you maybe don’t have as much fear of those things as some people should have.
“I had no real fear of the inside of a prison or a prison cell.
“The shame of the thing probably more than anything else was a factor, but the actual experience of being in there didn’t really worry me that much. I took it okay to be honest.”
McGurk says he is “very good” and after working on building sites for a number of years he took up employment with local firm BA Components.
He has since moved on to work with P&K McKaigues (building contractors).
“I have now got a job there doing pre-qualifying questionnaires for tenders, so I have been very lucky,” says McGurk. “People have given me a wee bit of confidence back in my life with those jobs.
“I have got Helen and the children here and a great structure to my life. It’s probably the best I have been for a long, long time.”
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