Tadhg Beirne on how he almost quit rugby: ‘I was thinking about going into real estate’

Tadhg Beirne looks the picture of health when we meet at the Curragh in Kildare, but the Munster and Ireland rugby international is quick to tell me he needs to get back into formal training immediately, following a recent holiday. “When you go on holidays, it’s crazy how quickly you start to feel terrible,” he says. “You have one week of eating whatever you want, and then you haven’t trained and you’re like “Jesus, I feel terrible’.”
Discipline has been central to Beirne’s attitude towards life for many years, and it’s an approach that has served him well, particularly at tougher moments early on in his path. Beirne might be one of the most highly regarded rugby players in the northern hemisphere now, but his rugby career got off to a rocky start when he was released from the Leinster academy in 2016. “I remember being at a crossroads in terms of my life, in terms of was I going to stick with the rugby. Was I even good enough to stick with the rugby? When you grow up in Leinster, like I did – I wasn’t a big rugby fan until I went to Clongowes and then it started to grow from there – you grow up and you see Leinster and you can’t see outside it. All you want to do, at that point, is play for Leinster. So, when you get told you’re not wanted, it’s pretty gutting.”
Beirne had a big decision to make, about whether to continue with rugby. “I had started a master’s and I was thinking about going into real estate,” he says. A conversation with his parents convinced him not to walk away. “They [said], ‘Why not give it one more year and see what happens?’ Thankfully I decided to do that and it all worked out. That point in my career was a big moment because it would have been just as easy to say, ‘You’re not good enough. You’ve a good opportunity to finish a master’s and get a job’ and go that way rather than risk it all and move away to a small little town in a different country.”
[ Tadhg Beirne undaunted by the prospect of taking on the world’s bestOpens in new window ]
But move away he did, to Llanelli in Wales, to play with Scarlets. “There wasn’t much money either,” he says. “I was going to be struggling month to month when I was with Scarlets for that year, so it was a big decision, but I’m very glad I took it”.
The adjustment was tough at the start. “The first three months were the hardest,” he says. “It takes about three months to settle in and get to know an area and get to know a few people. You’re also questioning whether you’ve made the right decision to move.”
He decided to take advantage of the fact he had a fresh start at a new team and went “pretty hard at training … A few of the older lads were a bit surprised at how hard”, he says, laughing. “But I just felt it was my last shot, so I threw everything into it. I kept the head down and when the opportunity did come for me to play, I was able to take it because I had prepared myself.”
For many a move to a different country naturally involves managing homesickness but Beirne figures his time at boarding school, and even moving to Dublin, away from the family home in Kildare straight after school made it easier for him to deal with things like homesickness. “I was used to being on my own in that regard, dealing with the ups and downs that life throws at you, and it was no different over there.”
One “up” that life threw at Beirne while living in Wales came in the form of a new relationship. He met Harriet Fuller, who is now his wife, shortly before making the move back to Ireland to play with Munster. “I’d signed for Munster at this point, ready to leave at the end of the season, and I remember one of my good friends asked me, ‘What are you going to do if you meet someone?’ I [said], ‘I’m not going to meet anyone. There’s no point. I’m moving away in six months. And then lo and behold, I met Harriet.”
Fuller, who was working in HR, resigned from work to make the move to Ireland with him. “It was very quick. Credit to her. It was a massive leap,” he says. “It just felt right. When you know, you know.” The couple married in December 2022. Some other landmark calls also came easily to Beirne ahead of his return to Ireland, including his call to move to play for Munster.
“It was a pretty easy decision,” he says, noting that, with a mother from Tipperary, he has Munster blood anyway. He has loved playing for them. “The players and wives would be quite close. There’s a real tight-knit community feel to it, which is pretty special.” It’s also been helpful for Harriet, he says. Still, with a Welsh-Irish dynamic, tensions must rise around Six Nations time, surely? “No,” he replies, laughing. “She’s never been a rugby fan, so it’s never been an issue.” And he’s managed to get around his father-in-law, who is a big rugby fan. There are no divided loyalties. “They’re shouting for me,” he says.
It’s not too long since Ireland’s memorable trip to South Africa, which did nothing for the nation’s blood pressure as Ireland levelled the series, winning the second test match in dramatic style. I’m not convinced it did much for Beirne’s blood pressure either, as he almost exhales in relief at the recollection.
“It was a relief to come away with the second win for sure,” he says, laughing. “Fair play to Frawls [Ciaran Frawley]. It can be hard to go away from home because you never know what to expect. Unfortunately, we put in one of our worst performances in the first test as a squad in a long time. There are big questions as to why, because we probably trained the best we trained that week and we didn’t put in a good performance at all.
“You have to adapt to all the conditions. We stayed in Johannesburg the first 10 days and we were in a hotel where you can’t leave the hotel, just because of where we were. It felt like we had adapted and then we played the first test and felt like we let ourselves down. I think that’s why there was such a response in the second test. We knew we had to step it up, and thankfully we did. I think the first half in that second test was one of the best first halves of rugby we’d played in a long time. And then the second half happened and we just lost hold of the game a bit and gave away a lot of penalties. It felt like we were a bit lucky to come away with the win, but we also deserved to win it over the 80 minutes overall.”
Looking tentatively towards the British and Irish Lions tour in 2025, does Beirne feel any degree of pressure or weight of expectation that he’ll be part of it?
“There’s pressure with everything. I put the pressure on myself because I want to be there so much. It’s a long, long time away. A lot of things have to go your way. You have to be playing really well. You have to be injury-free for another year. You have to hope you’re sticking out in terms of your performances, not just in terms of club, but country. Obviously I was there the last time with the Lions and it wasn’t the experience everyone would like to have had. It was a tough eight weeks, and then we didn’t win, which made it all the harder. And I didn’t particularly get to play much time in terms of the tests, so that was disappointing too. I’d love to have an opportunity to get back out there again and put that jersey on and fight to play some of those tests.”
Getting older is an undeniable privilege, but it’s also something Beirne is keenly aware of in terms of his career. He knows, at 32, he’s not old, and he feels he’s improved as a player with age, but he’s also considering what the future might look like when his time playing rugby comes to an end. “It’ll be a shock no matter when it happens. You’re going from a lifestyle where everything is put in front of you – your schedule, what you have to wear every day. All of a sudden you don’t have any of that.”
Beirne isn’t sure yet what he might do after his rugby career comes to an end, but he’s already dabbling in different opportunities that present themselves. Growing up in Kildare, Beirne frequently attended horse-racing meetings, and he has now become involved with Irish Champions Festival as an ambassador. “I’ve grown up riding horses my whole life,” he says. He is looking forward to seeing the horses and jockeys compete, always measuring the jockeys’ fitness levels against his own. “I don’t think people realise how fit you have to be as a jockey,” he says. “They’re riding five or six races a day on race days. With us it’s game by game. For them it’s horse by horse, race by race.”
It’s a fun day out, he says. “Something different to what you’re probably used to.”
Irish Champions Festival takes place at Leopardstown and The Curragh on September 14th & 15th