Episode 22: I Didn't Want to Leave: John Daly on Tipperary, Becoming a Dad, and Finding His Song in Chattanooga

The Immigrant Perspective · Oct 28, 2026 · 1h 32m

John Daly grew up in Bansha, a small farming village at the foot of the Galtee Mountains in County Tipperary. He is the second youngest of eight, raised largely by five older sisters, in a house his father, a trained blacksmith who later worked for the county council, had built onto with his own hands. Summers meant bicycles, total freedom, and his mother calling him home for dinner from what seemed like three miles away. Saturdays meant hurling on the field behind the school. John was good enough to make the Tipperary minor team at sixteen, and some of his happiest memories are early-morning…