All Stars back in the Big Apple
The club was still finding its feet at that stage, just over half a decade after Paddy McDevitt sat down with seven other fresh-off-the-boat Donegal immigrants in 1987 to set up a club for their people.
The county was widely represented among the founding members. There was McDevitt’s Fintown and Castlefin too. Creeslough, Ballyshannon, Glenswilly, Glenties and Downings.
“We saw that there were a lot of Donegal lads playing for other clubs,” he recalls.
“So a few of us sat down, had a meeting and ended up forming our own club. That was around the time that the new wave of emigration from Ireland was happening.
“There are only two of us left at the club now. The rest of them are spread around the world or living back home.”
Next weekend, the night after the 2012 All Stars take on the 2011 team in Gaelic Park in New York, a few of the Donegal All-Ireland champions will head up the I-95 to Boston where the Donegal Boston club will host their 25th anniversary celebration.
“It’s great for us,” says McDevitt. “We didn’t plan it this way that we’d be getting the Sam Maguire at our anniversary. It was just great that it all came together.”
McGuinness will bring Sam along with All Stars Karl Lacey and Michael Murphy.
“Down through the years, we’ve had loads of fellas who have gone onto the senior panel. Jim played with us maybe 18 years ago for a summer. He was on the U21 panel at home. He came out as a J1 student like a lot of other guys do. He went on the sites and worked there. He’s always been a very down to earth guy, any time you meet him, there’s no change.
“It’s going to be a nice trip down memory lane for him but it’s also a huge boost for us and for the GAA in Boston and the Irish community.
“There’s a huge Donegal contingent here. An awful lot of young lads here, especially from the Inishowen Peninsula. A lot of those guys are illegal, unfortunately. The great thing about bringing Sam and Jim here is that because a lot of the lads are undocumented, they couldn’t go home for the game.”
First port of call, however, will be New York where Mc Guinness and the two sets of All Stars will attend a number of events before taking to the field on Saturday evening, the same astro-turf pitch in the Bronx which was officially opened by Paraic Duffy in 2007 when the hurling All Stars were in town.
The players will be put to work while they’re here. Some of the higher profile individuals will be assigned two at a time to six separate locations around the New York Metropolitan area where they will meet and greet young players from the region. The New York GAA Games Development Officer, Simon Gillespie, believes the experience of meeting top players will be a huge boost for keeping young Americans interested in football.
“Most of the kids would never have seen any of these All Stars playing except for the odd game on television at local pubs,” points out Gillespie. “So it will be great for them to see these guys in the flesh. It’ll be like going to a Yankees game and seeing their heroes there. We’re hoping this creates a bit of an aura for these kids.
“I would think very few of the players would be aware underage football exists outside of Ireland. So it will be great opportunity for the players to learn what we do here and it will be strange for them to hear the American accents of these kids who actually know who they are. They’ll be surprised.
“They had Colm Cooper here one time and he couldn’t believe that all these young players knew him. They were telling him about some of the points he’d scored and some of things he did. That sort of thing might bring it home to these All Stars what the GAA means to people overseas.”
Donegal-born Gillespie has more than one reason to be excited about this weekend.
“I was six in 1992,” says the Aodh Ruadh in Ballyshannon man. “It’s one of my earliest memories seeing the bus come back with the Sam Maguire and then having players visit our school. It’s an added incentive to make sure the weekend goes well.”
It’s not just Donegal of course. For Peter Ryan, Ireland’s Deputy Consul-General in New York, it is a great occasion for the whole Irish community.
“It’s a huge event having the last two All-Ireland winning managers and Sam Maguire in town,” he said.
“It will also be nice to see teams representing the New York Fire Department and the Police Department playing the warm-up game.
“It’s also a chance for Irish Americans to show their gratitude to these guys after what the city and the surrounding area has been through during Hurricane Sandy and the subsequent snowstorm.
“I’m sure many of them have been to the city but there’s nothing quite like an All Star trip.”
