says with a wry smile when I ask if he is still haunted by the dark side of his character. Earls has won 96 caps for Ireland but his fiercest battle as a rugby player has been with bipolar disorder. The 34-year-old, who has played 186 games forsince his debut in 2007, calls his destructive alter-ego “Hank”. It echoes the way in which, in Me, Myself & Irene, Jim Carrey played the part of a state trooper who, after a mental breakdown, developed a different personality called Hank.
That arresting line comes from his compelling autobiography which paints a vivid picture of all the obstacles Earls has overcome. He grew up in Limerick’s close-knit but sometimes dangerous neighbourhood of Moyross. As a working-class man it has taken him years to adjust to rugby’s privileged world. He felt embarrassed by his ignorance of the shallow niceties of etiquette and by a deeper struggle to read and write.
“The doctor sent me to a [psychiatrist]in Cork who said: ‘I think you are bipolar so keep an eye on your emotions and come back in a few weeks.’ But I was so fed up I told him I wasn’t leaving his office until he fixed me – or gave me a pill because I was so sick and tired and exhausted. He decided to start me on tablets. I was delighted with the diagnosis and to know it was more common than I had thought.
“Simon apologised a few days later. I was like: ‘No. I should have just said I can’t spell.’ I’m not embarrassed now and I’m thinking about getting tested. I think I struggle with dyslexia.” Earls was concerned most about the reaction of people in Moyross. “It’s been phenomenal,” he says. “My parents are still on that side of the city and so many people have said to them they’re proud of me and Moyross. I wanted to tell the truth that it was a dangerous place and some turn to crime and drugs. But 95 per cent of people there are of fine integrity and have great families.”
IrishTimes Keith shall be back a great player.
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