Read The Game: Our writers review a selection of the year's GAA books
The first drugs, sex and rock ‘n’ roll GAA autobiography, but so much more. It is an astonishing, visceral account of a confused young Irishman not so much searching for himself as trying to run away from himself and what he endured as a kid — he was sexually abused by a local priest.
One thing that wasn’t stolen from his childhood though was the dream of playing for the Dubs. At 28, after years of drugging and boozing everywhere from Australia to India, he’s amazingly part of Pillar Caffrey’s squad and Stephen Cluxton’s backup. His chronicles of being a boy in blue are among the best and most vivid ever of life in an Irish sports dressing room.
That would not be his happy-ever-after; within three years he’d be back off the panel and back on the drugs. Thankfully, he would find happiness later; six years now he’s been sober and with his wife Serena, not that the book dwells on that.
Actually that would be our one crib with the book — 25 pages out from the end and you realise there’s still no light visible in his tunnel; there’s only so much drugs and mindless sex you can read about just as there’s only so much Leonard can have. But it’s a minor complaint. Leonard is a fine, fine writer. And this is a fine, fine book, easily one of the best three Irish sports books of the year.
Buy this book and prepare to laugh. Riotously. Tomás Ó Sé is a natural raconteur and part of ghost-writer Michael Moynihan’s skill is allowing him to do it while guiding him through the necessaries of what was a phenomenal career without spoiling the flow.
At times, it can be easy to forget just how accomplished a time Ó Sé had in the Kerry jersey such is his humility but this is in keeping with the man’s character.
The humour and dark wit that accompanied his brilliance come to the fore throughout. His uncle Páidí was obviously an influence in those spheres as much as he was on his football and how Ó Sé carried himself in victory and defeat. The divilment, as much as the class, passed on from one generation to the next in Darragh, him and Marc.
The importance of sharing a field with his brothers is not lost on Ó Sé. He never says it but then he doesn’t have to as his tales of them and their shared experiences are so fondly told.
Although the inner workings of the dressing room aren’t laid out here, the anecdotes Ó Sé serves up are as insightful as anything that was put on a whiteboard by Jack O’Connor or Pat O’Shea.
All the same, he guides you into the dressing room and introduces you to some of the best modern Gaelic footballers and tells you more about their character as men than what they were as sportsmen. That is more engaging than knowing what their strengths and weaknesses were in, say, positional awareness or kicking the ball.
As evidenced on several occasions throughout the book, awareness is something Ó Sé doesn’t lack. He was always acutely mindful of what it was to wear the green and gold as he was so cognisant that he had to enjoy it too. Victories that merited celebrating were celebrated; those that weren’t simply weren’t toasted.
There was a time and a place for everything and the more Ó Sé made the No 5 jersey the more he appreciated the gravitas associated with it.
It never got on top of him; he always made himself big enough to make sure of that yet there is dignity in his chronicling of five All-Ireland titles and as many All-Stars. He was never an angel and doesn’t portray himself as one but that’s part of Ó Sé’s charm. However, what’s made this book so popular is as much its telling as its subject matter.
Betrayal. It's the one word that leaps out from the pages of Jim McGuinness' book.
Broken into four sections representing each year he was in charge of Donegal, it would be wrong to give the impression that the 2012 All-Ireland winning manager's account is full of insult and anger.
His passion for Glenties and Donegal comes across abundantly clear. He recounts with pleasure how the Donegal players, who he transformed from wide-boys to winners, backed themselves at long odds to beat Dublin in last year's All-Ireland semi-final.
His searingly honest recollections of his brothers Charles and Mark's tragic deaths in 1984 and 1998 and how each left an indelible mark on him give a fascinating if harrowing insight into one of the game's most brilliant brains.
However, the most compelling passages are those about the figures who he perceived did him wrong. Relatively little is devoted to the spat with Kevin Cassidy who McGuinness axed from the squad in 2011 after he contributed to a book written by journalist Declan Bogue, who McGuinness incidentally does not refer to by name. McGuinness maintains there were "inaccuracies" in the book although he doesn't specify only to state trust had been broken (Cassidy claims he never signed the famed confidentiality agreement).
There is also mention of his differences with former assistant manager Rory Gallagher, who McGuinness reveals he hasn't spoken to since telling his eventual successor that he would not be part of his management team in 2014.
McGuinness still doesn't seem to have forgiven Gallagher for doing an interview prior to the 2013 All-Ireland quarter-final when he made the staggering claim Mayo and Monaghan were colluding against Donegal. However, McGuinness remarks their conversations had become "more fractious" prior to the incident that season.
The majority of McGuinness' ire is reserved for the county board who felt sabotaged Donegal's 2013 season when they chose to go ahead with club championship fixtures during the summer. Because of injuries picked up in club matches, McGuinness felt he had one hand tied behind his back: "To my mind, there were people on the county board who wanted me to fail, and if that meant that the Donegal team failed in the process, so be it."
Jack O'Connor's paranoia screamed from Keys to the Kingdom and McGuinness' suspicion is evident by his admissions that Donegal changed their summer game-plan when their league games were being televised. When Michael Murphy's injury prior to the 2011 All-Ireland quarter-final against Kildare was leaked, he believed it had come from inside the camp and encouraged players to sacrifice their phones.
One of those games came against Kerry in Killarney in March 2011 when Kerry won by 14 points. Regardless of tactics, McGuinness was deflated by the performance.
Leaving the field, he noticed Paul Galvin in front of him: "He (Galvin) starts shouting as if to himself. - C'mon Ker-ry" - C'mon Ker-ry". As if to say: You are in Kerry now, boy. And you know what you'll do? Go into that dressing room. Pack your bags. Get your players. Get on that bus. And f*** off."
Expletives are plentiful throughout the book although, for a man who spent a lot of his 20s in college and university, not much is given to his time in IT Tralee, University of Jordanstown and Liverpool's John Moores University.
Nevertheless, McGuinness, assisted by the more than capable hands of Keith Duggan, provides a large window into the man and how he changed Donegal's football fortunes for the better.
Rather poignantly, this book was published shortly after its subject passed away last June at the age of 76. Jimmy Doyle had seemed forever young. To many fans of the most beautiful game, he was still the youth of 18 who stepped onto a great Tipperary team in the making and instantly became a central element in the achievement of that greatness.
As everyone observes, Doyle belongs in a scintillating forward quartet with Eddie Keher, Mick Mackey and Christy Ring. He stayed magnificent until injury intervened, even during an era when his light build involved significant disadvantage.
Jimmy Doyle is one of those names that held its glitter long after retirement fell. Doyle was a similar personality to Serge Blanco in rugby or Seve Ballesteros in golf. Such figures, over and above silverware lifted or accolades gained, offer moments of magic that seem the zenith of a code. Tributes by Doyle’s former colleagues and opponents, gathered as an appendix, are remarkable for their consistency in this regard.
The Boy Wonder of Hurling offers an undemanding but enjoyable read and also contains an amount of interesting photographs, such as a rare one of Jimmy Doyle wearing a helmet (when hurling for Munster in 1971).
Here we have the compelling story of a youth’s rise from the rural middle class of South Kilkenny to being one of Ireland’s finest sportsmen. Henry Shefflin became much more than a hurler, a status reflected in 2006’s Sports Personality of the Year award. The thoughtfulness is no hindrance to his story’s progress. This account is cast in its author’s likeness, honest but tactful, direct without being brusque.
There are top athletes who seem relaxed about their capacities, almost nonchalant, like Usain Bolt. Henry Shefflin is not of this camp. Anxiety and frustration, during mid and later career, were often his bedfellows. He is admirably candid on this front. Injuries dropped a bucket deep into the well of his temperament.
This autobiography is dominated by moments of recognition, by instances when Shefflin accepted that he would have to change, despite success and all the more because of success. Nothing altered from childhood onwards, save the stakes.
This book offers the most complete portrait to date of the Kilkenny camp during the wonder years of 2000 to 2014. The code’s most dominant outfit stacked achievements supposed impossible in 21st century hurling, as Henry Shefflin made himself one of the finest forwards of all time.
Recent years have proved an excellent time for publications on the GAA. This collection of 13 essays is another boon. Introducing the work, Gearóid Ó Tuathaigh notes how new research on the tumult of 1913 to 1923 has emphasised “the wider associational life of the communities”.
Book jackets can tell a tale. The back cover of this one features The GAA: A People’s History (2009) and The GAA: County By County (2011), likewise published by The Collins Press.
The net effect of this work involves a swerve away from reducing GAA history to an offshoot of nationalism. Curiosity and enjoyment are allowed their place beside ideology, a re-orientation that has brought finesse and nuance to debates about Irish sport. No longer is the GAA merely the IRA drilling with hurls.
For this collection, experienced contributors such as Mike Cronin, Diarmaid Ferriter, Dónal McAnallen and Paul Rouse return with new work. Younger scholars are present via Richard McElligott and Cormac Moore. Eoghan Corry and Seán Moran represent the fourth estate. Ross O’Carroll, former Dublin hurler and still of Kilmacud Crokes, writes on the GAA during the First World War.
Editor and contributors can be congratulated on a well conceived project brought to fruition in exemplary fashion.
It would be a shame if this book were to be obscured by the efforts from more recognisable GAA personalities, especially one Mr McGuinness, because this is a highly insightful read, one anyone really into their football should track down.
In fact, part of its appeal is that Kavanagh is NOT a big name; he is that underrepresented constituency in the GAA canon yet the best gauge of a dressing room – the midcut player – the kind a coach would view as someone who could go either way but you’ve to win over if your side is to win, which makes him ideally placed to measure and recount the McGuinness achievement and story.
Kavanagh was initially sceptical of McGuinness's appointment but he details here how he and Donegal were transformed. It is not as poetic as McGuinness’s own collaboration with Keith Duggan, but it is terrifically gritty, with Liam Hayes skillfully extracting some gold from Kavanagh to the point Winning captures McGuinness’s training ground voice even better than Until Victory Always does.
‘Defend that zone with your f**** life!’ ‘THUMP HIM... WILL YA!’ ‘That is not us!” We’re brought into that dressing room. The perfect companion book to McGuinness’s, and vice-versa. If you were intrigued by one of them, you’ll enjoy the other too.
Relentless, to a certain extent, is as ground-breaking as its subjects have been over the past 11 years. Never before has there been a book dedicated to an Irish female sports team of any description or code.
In 320 pages, Mary White has attempted to capture the journey of Cork ladies football long before Eamonn Ryan arrived on the scene in early 2004.
And, truth be told, she’s done a damn fine job - the appendix alone, such is the wealth of information it contains, is cause enough to purchase a copy of Relentless.
The book opens on the night of the 2014 RTÉ sports awards and Nollaig Cleary’s confusion when a production assistant taps her on the shoulder to inform her that she’ll speak to Darragh Maloney when it is announced that Cork are the RTÉ team of the year. Due recognition from the wider sporting public they have finally received.
The reader is then brought all the way back to Murray’s Bar, Macroom in 2003 where the courage and tenacity of goalkeeper Elaine Harte and Mary Collins, then Cork junior manager, succeed in ousting then senior manager Charlie McLaughlin, which clears the path for Eamonn Ryan to come on board.
Such anecdotes and behind the dressing-room door insight litter this book; there are the two Englishmen who, having quietly observed the squad on a night out during the 2006 team holiday to Lanzarote and are struck by their grounded nature, hand Ryan a £50 note to buy the squad a round of drinks, to Ryan knocking on Bríd Stack’s hotel room door at 10pm on the eve of the 2007 All-Ireland final to inform her she’ll be marking Cora Staunton.
The other impressive strand to this book is how it unintentionally serves as a coaching manual such is the brilliance of Ryan.
Players, past and present, parents, members of management, past and present, are quoted extensively throughout. This is their story and they tell it well.
This account of inter-county U21 hurling is a timely work. Given the talk at present about abolishing the grade, there is merit in being reminded of the great occasions this initiative provided. Equally, there have been marvellous hurling contests at U21 in recent seasons, a phenomenon some attribute to the competition’s old style knockout format.
Previously the author of The Story of The Dan Breen Cup: Tipperary County Senior Hurling Finals 1931-2011 (2012), Jim Fogarty has diligently raked the archives.
Starting with Tipperary’s triumph over Wexford by 23 points in 1964, Fogarty traverses the decades, season by season. Each time, he offers a match report, the teams and the scorers.
1965 saw Wexford revenge, by nine points, that Tipperary defeat. As Fogarty points out, Wexford had ten men from the previous year. U21 was immediately established as a platform for significant improvement.
Scanning through team lists (especially through the Kilkenny ones), I noted occasional errors and inconsistencies where club affiliation is concerned (probably as a result of error in the original match programme). Little enough in newsprint and programmes can be taken at face value. This reality means that Jim Fogarty deserves even more congratulation for filling a niche of hurling history with his valuable work.
Standing My Ground offers a fairly honest insight into Brendan Cummins’ 19 seasons as Tipperary hurling goalkeeper, but Cummins, with the assistance of journalist Jackie Cahill, deserves greater credit for the manner in which he opens up about life away from the pitch.
‘Tears for an Unborn Child’ is without question the most harrowing chapter of this autobiography as Cummins recalls the miscarriage suffered by his wife, Pam, which the pair learnt of 48 hours before the 2011 All-Ireland semi-final against Dublin. Directly following the win over Dublin, Cummins locked himself into a toilet cubicle underneath the Hogan Stand and proceeded to hammer the door with rage.
“What had happened rendered a game of hurling utterly insignificant,” he writes.
The relationship with his grandmother Moll and the difficulties with their second child, Sarah, who was born with a hole in her heart, are further examples of how Cummins strives to strike a balance for the reader between life in the blue and gold and life as a father and husband.
Returning to the field, it was interesting to learn of Cummins’ disappointment to be overlooked for the role of Tipperary captain in 2013 and while plenty of pages are dedicated to being dropped under Babs in 2007, one gets the feeling that he held back here in revealing the full extent of his anger and frustration.
Long recognised as one of Tipperary GAA’s greatest figures, Tom Semple has found the perfect biographer.
Himself a Thurles Sarsfields stalwart, Liam Ó Donnchú has delivered a marvellous book. Thorough research brings to life the Mid Tipp milieu of the late 19th and the early 20th century. This atmosphere produced Semple, who became not just one of hurling finest exponents (and twice an All Ireland-winning captain) but also an exceptionally able administrator and mentor.
The former ability led PD Mehigan (‘Carbery’) to name Semple at left-half-forward on his all time XV. The latter qualities led to Thurles Sportsfield being renamed Semple Stadium.
We are given the man in the round. Among his distinctions was important service during the War of Independence. How poignant is it to learn that four of the five sons from Semple’s first marriage emigrated to England? Michael enlisted and lost his eyesight during the D Day landings of June 1944.
An appendix, containing a pen picture of everyone who played with Thurles/Tipperary selections during the 1900s, alone contains a wealth of social history. Tom Semple and The Thurles Blues is one of the finest works of its type. Everyone interested in the GAA and hurling should read it.
