As memories came flooding back, Haulie O'Shea permitted himself a quiet, slightly embarrassed smile. But even now, several years on, it was also difficult to avoid an involuntary shudder as he recalled that fateful day. It was a day when it seemed he might be called upon to make the ultimate sacrifice as golf-course contractor at the Old Head of Kinsale.

Widely regarded as the lynchpin of the Old Head development, O'Shea's first name comes from a common corruption of the Gaelic in his native Kerry. Christened Micheal, an emphasis on the second syllable produced the boyhood endearment Haulie. As he put it: "It's a popular name around our parts."

He hails from Dromid, about 10 miles from the next parish of Ballinskelligs in south-west Kerry and has been in the landscaping business since 1973. And as a result of being contracted to plant trees at John O'Connor's residence of Boulakeel House, Ballinskelligs, he became a close friend of the future owner of Ireland's most spectacular golf course.

As things turned out, O'Shea was two years into the project and spring was in the air as he set about building a forward tee at the par-four 15th, which is one of the nine holes which negotiate the cliff-edge. "It was a time of year when the days had became longer and it was possible to work a couple of more hours after six o'clock," he said.

He went on: "I was anxious to complete the work we had started on the 15th and I had a 20-ton dump truck fully loaded." Usually, he would never park a truck in the middle of a manouevre, but on this occasion, he decided to take a break for tea, which had been brought up from the lighthouse.

So he turned off the engine, which proved to be a costly error. Without warning, the truck, which was facing inland from the cliff-edge, began to roll backwards on the firm, dry soil: the brakes had failed. Still on board, Haulie pumped the brake-pedal to no avail. Then, as he tried desperately to restart the engine, it stubbornly refused to fire.

By that stage, the situation had adopted a surreal quality, as if everything was happening in slow motion. In a few, brief seconds, the contractor realised the truck was slipping inexorably over the cliff, yet he kept trying to start the engine. "I stayed there trying the engine for as long as I dared," he recalled. "Then I jumped out."

In fact the truck had gone maybe 50 feet down the face of the cliff before its driver jumped clear, onto a ledge. While rolling over a few times before straightening himself up on blessed terra firma, he dared to look down. But he could see nothing.

There was only the sound of the truck banging off the rocks on its disastrous, 300-foot descent, before finally plunging into 600 feet of water at the bottom. Within a few more seconds, all that remained was angry foam from the breakers crashing off the base of the cliff.

Later, two divers who had gone down to look, established that it would be impossible to salvage the wreck. It had split in two, just like the Titanic. The Titanic of the Old Head.

"Next thing I knew, the lads were crawling down the cliff to me and I was soon being helped back up to the top," O'Shea went on. "Apart from hurting my shoulder, where I had thrown myself out, there was no other damage. But, of course the dumper was gone.

"I had a mobile phone in the cab, along with some bits of paper with phone numbers and addresses. And remarkably, everything that was loose in there was thrown out. Even the telephone came out undamaged, onto the cliff face. And no, it wasn't ringing, as some smart lads later tried to suggest."

Given the danger to his own life, he gave little thought at the time to the loss of the Volvo truck. But it was a considerable loss. Though it was about four years old, the replacement value was £100,000. And in the nature of construction-site equipment, it carried only third-party insurance, effectively making it a complete loss.

Indeed not even the prospect of immortality could soften the blow. "I'm not proud of having a hole named after me out here," he insisted. Yet the name of "Haulie's Leap" for the 15th hole on the scorecard of the course, has been the source of some lively chat between locals and their visitors.

A relatively short par four, it is one of the less daunting challenges on the spectacular headland. As its builder will testify, however, golfers can often have little idea of the toil and heartache involved in creating their sporting challenges.

`'On my first visit to the site, I was with John O'Connor and the architect, Eddie Hackett," O'Shea recalled. "And I remember thinking that it was madness what John was planning to do - building a golf course on a place like that. It was wild, and so rough, so exposed. Untilled. It looked for all the world like the top of a mountain covered in heather."

He continued: "But I suppose my overriding feeling was that this was going to be a wonderful challenge. And I like challenges.

"Eventually, I found myself saying that I'd like to have a go at it. And as the song says, it is a place as false as it is fair. You could go there on a lovely sunny day and think it was the most blessed place in the world. And you could go there on a bleak day in December or January and you wouldn't be able to stand or walk . . . or even catch your breath. It would be that wild and tough."

Then there was the spectacle of the cliff edges and the sheer descent to wild Atlantic breakers, crashing off the rock face and the screaming birds, swooping down to the caves below. And he knew that if the site were to be exploited to full advantage, it would be necessary to go right out to the rock face.

In a way, he was cutting a stick for his own back insofar as those areas were fraught with all sorts of construction problems, quite apart from physical danger. Indeed it was on his insistence that the daunting challenge of the short 16th hole was undertaken, so contributing a key element of the spectacular finish.

"There were days when I found myself saying `Jesus, this is impossible'," he continued. "But it was such a dramatic, unusual site that I had the vision we could create one of the world's great courses.

"Granted, I wasn't quite sure how it was going to be done. In fact there were times when I wondered if John (O'Connor) was right. But he kept going straight ahead and I suppose I just blindly believed him. The funny thing is that the problem on the 15th happened after we had completed the 16th, which was potentially the most dangerous job."

And what are O'Shea's thoughts now of the project, especially the 15th hole where, in a wayward dumper truck, he almost gave his life for the cause? With a characteristic chuckle, he said: "I didn't say this to anybody at the time, but that night when I went home, I went down on my knees. And I said my prayers."