Who is Brendan Mullin? The one-time golden boy who today was jailed for three years

The golden boy is now a man of autumn. The auburn hair has greyed. The face bears the scars of forgotten battles.

Once upon a time he was the Brian O’Driscoll of his era, a blue blood who graduated from Blackrock College, then Trinity College and next Oxford University. On the field, he was a winner, too, capped by Ireland at 21, a Triple Crown winner at 22, a British and Irish Lion at 26.

This month 40 years ago he made his debut in the most exciting Irish rugby team the sport had seen in 36 years. Garrett Fitzgerald was Taoiseach, Los Angeles had just hosted the Olympics and little Simon Harris was two years away from being even a twinkle in his father’s eye.

Read more: Former Ireland rugby international jailed for stealing €567k from Bank of Ireland

READ MORE: Former Irish rugby international found guilty of stealing over €500,000 from Bank of Ireland

Today, as a 61-year-old man, Brendan Mullin, a man who was once in high demand at rugby dinners, was ordered by Judge Martin Nolan to take his porridge. It is hard to think of any other Irish rugby player who has fallen from grace quite like he has.

To get an idea of who the man is and what his status once was, we need to recall how Ireland fought hard to become a Republic.

Yet even after getting independence it retained its sporting royalty. The GAA gave us Ring, Heffernan, O’Dwyer, O’Shea, JBM and Spillane. Soccer offered up Giles, Big Jack, McGrath, Keane.

And long before rugby gave us O’Driscoll, O’Connell and O’Gara, there was Gibson and McBride. Sandwiched between those two eras came Ward, Campbell and Mullin.

He was the blue-eyed boy. Born in Israel, raised in Raheny but educated on Dublin’s southside, Mullin was an outside centre renowned for his decision making. Those qualities didn’t follow him throughout his sporting afterlife, certainly not 11 years ago, when as managing director of Bank of Ireland’s private bank, he stole hundreds of thousands of euros.

His punishment is three years in the clink where he will have criminals and his thoughts for company.

Once, as a player, he kept company with the greats. Mark Ella, Michael Lynagh and David Campese were on the Australian team he made his debut against, the latter two opposing him when the Lions toured Down Under in 1989.

In 1985, as part of a young, exciting Irish side, he won the Triple Crown, at a time when that was considered an achievement rather than an afterthought. At the first rugby World Cup, he was a star, scoring a hat trick. At the time of the second World Cup, he was an agitator, forming a delegation who stared down the IRFU over image rights.

The rebels won that fight.

But from international rugby for two and a half years, citing work demands.

By the time the 1995 World Cup came around, he was back in situ, claiming the set-up was more professional than before, hence his reappearance in a green shirt. This was when he got his record breaking 17th try, becoming Ireland’s leading scorer.

Then professionalism arrived into the sport and four years later O’Driscoll came along. That record of Mullin’s was never going to last long. Denis Hickie, Shane Horgan and O’Driscoll smashed it.

Yet the Mullin name remained to be held in high esteem.

Luke Fitzgerald, a grand slam winner in 2009, talked about a length of the pitch chase that Mullin gave to try and catch Emile N’Tmack at the ‘95 World Cup. “That never say die attitude, that inspired me,” said Fitzgerald.

O’Driscoll, too, often referenced Mullin as a go-to figure that he wanted to emulate.

For context, when BOD made his Ireland debut in 1999, the then Ireland coach, Warren Gatland, was asked whether the new kid on the block was another Brendan Mullin?

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The reason the Mullin name never veered far beyond rugby’s borders was because of the era he played in. Those 17 tries were worth about 37 today because they came at a time when Ireland were awful, losing every game they played in 1992, losing twice to Namibia in 1991.

And with so many fine players coming after him, from O’Driscoll to Sexton, and with so many big wins being recorded, the grand slams of 2009, 2018 and 2023, it seemed likely that the name Brendan Mullin would be forgotten.

And then it was discovered that he had stolen just over €567,000 from the Bank of Ireland on dates between 2011 and 2013.

He misused that trust and so three years behind bars awaits the one-time golden boy. Famous again, but for all the wrong reasons.

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