Great McGahern provides hope at time of great loss

WE had our topic nicely selected for this corner well ahead of time: The GAA County by County, a typically handsome production by Con Collins and his colleagues at the Collins Press.

Written by Mike Cronin, Mark Duncan and Paul Rouse, the book is an offshoot of the GAA’s Oral History Project and, as the name suggests, rattles through the stories of the 32-plus counties that make up the association.

It was the Leitrim chapter, and some apposite references in writer John McGahern’s Memoir about Gaelic football in the county that caught our eye. McGahern’s father was a distant disciplinarian of the old school who had little time for his son’s hero, one Eddie McIniff, casual labourer, drinker and ace free-taker for the Ballinamore team.