Podcast Corner: Brilliant retelling of Bloody Sunday massacre at Croke Park
Michael Hogan was one of the victims of Bloody Sunday. Picture John D Kelly
Ahead of the centenary of Bloody Sunday on November 21, Michael Foley has created an eight-part series, a TwoCubes production for the GAA, based on his book of the same name, The Bloodied Field. It chronicles the horrific events at Croke Park in 1920, but offers such an empathetic view of the victims and the players themselves, and the driving forces beside the British, that the story feels so much more personal and awful than that presented in school history books.
Indeed Foley says on the first episode: "In time, the massacre became a footnote, maybe a couple of lines in a history book offering a tragic and futile twist to a horrendous story that captured the horror and dark violence of the Irish War of Independence."
Some plaques to remember the victims got the names wrong, some were buried in unmarked graves. And then there's Michael Hogan, after whom a stand in Croke Park is named in his honour. But how many of the tens of thousands who fill those seats (in normal times, anyway) know the story of the Tipperary man who played and was slaughtered on that day?
Foley wants to correct the narrative and seeks to educate those who don't know the full story. On the first episode, focusing on Hogan, and over a pulsating background, Foley tells the story of how "the waters of war, sport, farming, and family life converged in Mick Hogan's parlour that weekend". The following 25 minutes or so are gut-wrenching to listen to.
On episode six, 'The Massacre', Foley begins by focusing in on William Robinson, 11, who came from a most ordinary family (his cousin sometimes kept watch for Michael Collins' IRA squad) and wasn't even in Croke Park on Bloody Sunday - he'd climbed a tree along the canal on Jones's Rd. Foley tells us the crowd was so big that the game had been delayed by half an hour. A single gunshot rang out, a bullet cutting through Robinson's chest and exiting from his shoulder. He falls from the tree, the first victim of Bloody Sunday. Foley similarly examines the final minutes of one of the victims. Each is no less gut-wrenching.
The Bloodied Field is a masterclass in storytelling. Whether sports fan, historian, or just curious to know more, the series, the last episode of which is released this week, will have you hooked throughout.
