The definition of optimisation reads "the action of making the best or most effective use of a situation or resource".
For playwright and actor Seamus O’Rourke, he is certain that he got the most out of his time playing inter-county football with Leitrim.
It was the 1980s. The country was "banjaxed", according to Gay Byrne.
As a teenager, O’Rourke may not have been fully aware of the economic or political strife. He had other things to preoccupy him.
"When I was 15 and got picked on the Leitrim minor panel, it was the best day of my life," revealed the Carrigallen native.
"In 1989 I took myself off the county panel. Indeed it was harder to get off it than get on it"
And so began nearly of decade of playing for the Green and Gold. "I was a good enough underage footballer but as time went on I realised I wasn’t going to have the pace for senior football at the highest level."
And then the performer in him comes out: "I’d have been great if I had to come with a good chassis, or a good body, or a good engine. I didn’t rate myself too highly as a footballer."
There were days to remember. In June 1983, O’Rourke was part of the Leitrim squad that ran Galway, who would reach the All-Ireland final, close in the Connacht semi-final. He played in the minor match beforehand. Two years later he marked Sean Lowry, who at that stage had transferred to Mayo from Offaly.
In spite of questioning his own ability, O’Rourke loved representing his county. And that lure was enough to cut short any thoughts of a new life in New York in the mid 1980s where he worked as a carpenter. That said, his stay in the Big Apple would provide the inspiration for later written works.
"I was homesick in New York. I was getting phone calls asking me to come back and play U21 and senior. I made the decision to go home and play football. People find it hard to believe but I don’t regret it."
Back home, the career continued, but niggling injuries were curtailing his involvement. A decision had to be made.
"I realised that I wasn’t going to make it at the highest level in county football.
"In 1989 I took myself off the county panel. Indeed it was harder to get off it than get on it. As a county player, I didn’t leave anything behind me. I have no regrets."
Indeed, O’Rourke doesn’t lament the fact that he wasn’t on the Leitrim side that won a famous Connacht title in 1994.
"There’s a line in a play of mine ‘‘I was delighted with myself for being so delighted for them’.
"I mean wouldn’t it be terrible if your own county won a Connacht championship and you were bitter about it. I was delighted. It meant so much for everybody."
An active amateur drama scene and the Cornmill Theatre are very much part of life in the village of Carrigallen.
It was within that milieu where O’Rourke would find a new way to express himself.
"When I stopped playing county football, it did leave a huge void. And so I filled it with theatre.
"Because I was a carpenter, it was handy for building sets. But I wanted to do more than just build sets.
"I got a small part in a play. I realised it was something I wanted to do and then I tore into it.
"And then I started to get the main parts and then I started directing. In 2005, I directed ‘Stolen Child’ and that won ‘Best Play’ at the All-Ireland finals in Athlone. The play was about a convent fire in Cavan in the 1940s.
"The amateur scene was a great stepping stone for me."
In time, O’Rourke would go full-time, quitting his job as an agricultural builder. His writings and delivery are very much a mirror of life and the landscape that bounds the county of Leitrim together.
His interest, however, in the county’s footballers remains even though they have endured far more downs than ups of late.
This spring, however, has seen a renaissance of sorts and the free-scoring team managed by Terry Hyland is on course for promotion from Division 4 and a day out in Croke Park at the end of March.
Good times are here, it would seem.
For O’Rourke, Leitrim’s current revival brings him back to the summer of ’94 to what he now believes was the start of something positive in the province of Connacht.
"I think when Leitrim got to Croke Park in ’94 there definitely was a sense of occasion that had been absent when other Connacht teams had got there in the years previous.
"There was a strongly held view that football was poor in the province at the time. I remember debates on The Sunday Game about how poorly Connacht teams had performed in Croke Park.
"I think Leitrim were the first Connacht team, despite being well beaten by Dublin, to show real fight and battle at Croker.
"It led to a revival of sorts that saw Mayo and Galway, not long afterwards, contest All-Ireland finals."
"John O’Mahony (manager) was a very ambitious man. Leitrim didn’t go up to Croke Park just to fill in the numbers. There was a sense of purpose about the team.
Based on the performances in the league, it’s fair to say that the current Leitrim side possess a similar sense, though O’Rourke is not too surprised that things are stirring again.
"I think the seeds of this year have been coming for the last few years. Aughawillan’s re-emergence in the local championship is a huge factor.
"They are very similar to Mullinalaghta.
"The game last year in New York (Connacht quarter-final) had a big bearing. There was definitely a sense of confidence coming back.
"We have finally seen the light with regard to coaching, we have guys in now who know what they are doing.
"There are few players coming along who have the quality that we didn’t have before, particularly in the forwards.
"And then you have Terry Hyland.
"So far, we have come from behind to win the games. That’s a good sign.
"What saddened Leitrim people over the last ten years was that we were not competing in Division 4. We were never within a smell of getting promotion.
"It looks as that is about to change.
"We have young lads now how want to play for Leitrim. That wasn’t always the case."
Over the next week, O’Rourke will be performing his new show ‘Stripped and Ready’ in London, Dublin and in Carrigallen. After that, with the Livin’ Dred Theatre Company he will appear in a touring production of the absurd comedy ‘Trad’.
That show finishes up in the Peacock Theatre in May.
"In theatre terms, that’s my Croke Park, my Croke Park debut," O’Rourke concluded with a sense of genuine excitement in his voice.
The story continues.
For more on Séamus O'Rourke, go to http://www.seamusorourke.com/
