Mighty Meelin put the fizz back in club fairytales
At the weekend every boot in Meelin was polished to a high gloss as the entire parish of 600 souls went off to Croke Park to triumph in the All-Ireland Club Junior Hurling final over John Lockes for the club’s greatest ever day.
Maybe the elders have been drinking stronger stuff since in the celebrations but you can bet your life that the youngsters have been downing lemonade by the gallon in a village which claims to be the highest in Ireland, higher even than Roundwood.
Spiritually it certainly is and will be for the forseeable future because of the historic victory. In the end the triumphs of the small parishes are the fundamentals of the national sporting spirit. Well done Meelin.
As an Ulsterman I am not supposed to know too much about Meelin but I have been on the roads leading to the small parishes for a long time now.
The movement of Meelin to Croke Park, for example, was the greatest since the stirring times when the farmers of the parish, ancestors of the hurlers, formed what was called the Meelin Cavalry to protect their parish priest Father Kennedy when he was a major leader of the Land League!
I even know about the “airy” field where the fairies can lead you astray in Meelin. It is in the townland of Meenroe and there could well be celebrating spirits who will go astray around there before this week is over.
And I could relate to ye the story of a night that Countess Marcievicz spent in the parish. And, just to boggle your minds entirely, does anybody know why so few of Jim Tobin’s empty lemonade bottles have survived in Meelin? His trade name was “Tally Ho” and Jim’s unique method of bottling his drink was to insert a marble (in an era when marbles were a popular game) inside the necks of his bottles. The gas forced the marbles into a perfect seal. But, naturally, the Meelin boys broke all the empty bottles to get the marbles for themselves.
It is fair to say that many of the Meelin folk have lost the most of their marbles with joy since their hurlers made history in Croke Park and surely they are entitled to that. The victory has created a recession free zone for the immediate future and that is all good.
When the small clubs get to Croke Park to contest the finals of the national club competitions in football and hurling the day is always going to be special. As it was with Meelin it also was for the junior footballers from Swanlinbar in Cavan, two parishes away from where I was born but in another world on the far side of the Border.
Swanlinbar, sadly for their neighbours like myself, were outgunned on the Croke Park sod by a slick Cahirciveen outfit, powered by no less a talent than Kerry star Bryan Sheehan.
But no Swanlinbar player will ever forget playing in Croke Park, win, lose or draw and the Border club has been hugely energised by a glorious run in the competition.
And I can say to the victors of Cahirciveen that they have no idea at all how much the Swanlinbar community which supports the local GAA club has suffered in real terms down the years of being a borderlands parish of Cavan.
Club members and supporters, during all the decades in which Troubles have been a daily reality, have been murdered because they were Gaels in the widest sense of the word. Border posts being blown up has been a common reality all of my life, dull booms over the parish from end to end, gun battles between the IRA and British forces and RUC, and all the basic economic pressures imposed on all the Border communities because of our history.
Stripped down to the bare bones it is a lot easier to be a Gael in Cahirciveen than in Swanlinbar.
Speaking of stripping. If you were born where I was born in the harsh postwar years of rationing there came days when you were stripped to a pair of underpants covered by your oldest coat. You cycled to the village we called simply Swad behind your mother on a rusty bicycle.
In Swanlinbar, where children’s clothing was available, you were dressed from the skin out, usually in a navy corduroy suit with short trousers, new overcoat and all, and cycled home in glory across the Border, past the armed RUC patrols, with your belly full of bullseyes and lemonade as fizzy as that of Jim Tobin’s in Meelin!
My own countymen, the Emmets from Lisnaskea in Fermanagh, triumphed also in Croke Park in the intermediate final against the Tribesmen of Saint James’s club in Galway last Saturday night. They became the first club from the county to take an All-Ireland title. Their victory will be celebrated in Lisnaskea for at least as long as in North Cork.
It is strange that, because of the wide expanse of Lough Erne, that Lisnaskea always felt further away from us on the other shore than Swanlinbar. The Emmets always had such a strut about them that I’m slightly surprised, indeed, that this is their first All Ireland.
They always played like winners, have a whole slew of county senior titles, and have backboned the county football side for decades. Fair play to them after a weekend during which the clubmen of Ireland-the most vital cog in the GAA machine- had their day in the February sun.
I salute them all.
