ANYBODY looking for clues as to what made Dave Gallaher the man he was should start with his Irish family and, in particular, his remarkable schoolteacher mother Maria who died of cancer at the age of 42 after bearing 13 children and supporting the family singlehandedly for much of the time after the emigrated to New Zealand.
The Gallahers were from Ramelton in County Donegal in what was then politically part of the UK but is now very much in the Republic of Ireland.
They by no means lived in grinding poverty. His father James, who was 32 years older than his wife, was a shopkeeper and his ...