When an American invasion cost GAA money and men

On Saturday, Fonsie Mealy Auctioneers will put up for sale the diary which Pat Davin, the outstanding Tipperary athlete, kept of a tour of the USA undertaken by GAA hurlers and athletes in 1888.

Davin was a fascinating individual and the diary is a thing of some beauty. It is marked to sell for between €4,000 and €6,000. The thing is, however, the diary has already been published: Davin included it in his lovely memoir Recollections of a Veteran Irish Athlete, which he published in 1938.

The plan for the tour – known to history as the American Invasion – was set out by Pat’s brother Maurice, the man who with Michael Cusack was central to the founding of the GAA and who wrote the first rules for hurling and Gaelic football.