John Riordan: Old friends gather to enjoy Gaelic Park's glory revisited
17 April 2022; A general view of Gaelic Park during the Connacht GAA Football Senior Championship Quarter-Final match between New York and Sligo at Gaelic Park in New York, USA. Photo by Daire Brennan/Sportsfile
By the time the 1 Train reaches Upper Manhattan's 100s and 200s, the very obvious influx of Gaelic Park-bound GAA-clad passengers changes the normally quieter, decidedly less Irish Sunday dynamic.
And all of a sudden - after a reality check morning watching Cork get hammered by Limerick on GAAGO - I can sense my cynicism start to drift away.
All week, I had begrudgingly come to terms with the inevitability of having to make the hour-plus trek from Brooklyn to the Bronx to watch another courageous New York defeat.
Call it laziness and maybe throw in a bit of disillusionment. For years I had placed too much hope in the potential for the GAA to be a force for real good in the Tri-state area. It often rankled that too much weight was placed on that first Sunday in May (before it was brought forward to April this year after a long absence). What about the rest of the work that needed to be done - where did everybody disappear to? But isn’t that often the way with the GAA Championship? Why should New York be any different?
Acceptance took hold and so did the knowledge that since my friend’s father was in town, it would add an extra element of appreciation to help welcome a true GAA man up to the true oddity that is Gaelic Park.
I had spoken to NYGAA Chairperson Joan Henchy by phone the day before. She was in her usual heap of hope and logistics. In other words, she was in her element. Here were my orders: I was to tell my friend and his dad visiting from Ireland that their names were on the guest list but they needed to find Clare McCartney at the gate. All I had meant to do was send her a good luck text but sure look, I’ll pass the message on. Joan was hoping for an Easter miracle. There was no more any of them could do after the longest winter imaginable.
As soon as I hung up, I was running out of reasons not to go. My old soccer teammate Johnny McGeeney had slogged all winter with the large panel of which he had reluctantly taken the reins; surely I could find the resolve to commute to Kingsbridge.
Johnny and I caught up by phone in January for this column and he was in good spirits in spite of the dreaded ups and downs of GAA training during the most unforgiving months of America's northeast.
As has become par for the course since we were all quarantined, all of these reunions with old acquaintances are laden with extra poignancy. After we have taken care of the circles closest to us, there are still more people who have lived two or three years without us and for whom so much has changed.
4,000 changed faces, whether they were locals or visitors from Ireland. The expats still know instinctively how to get to the Park off of the Major Deegan Expressway or via the Subway up Broadway. The route is the same, the venue’s interminable facelift seems the same. Work on the new clubhouse is just around the corner, we are assured, so maybe that will be changed soon too.
Save for a couple post-lockdown county finals in 2020 and 2021, there hadn't been a day like the Connacht SFC opener since 2019. Almost three years.
There had been forlorn hope of a result a few times since I moved here in late 2010. My first encounter of this clash was the visit of Roscommon in 2011. My father and brother were there that day. The visitors were rightly ready after New York gave Galway a jolt a year prior.
Highly anticipated, in 2012 and 2013, was the alleged drop-off in quality provided by Sligo and then Leitrim. The time had come to have a proper rattle at the opposition and catch one of them on the hop.
Alas, the weaker counties were as ready as Roscommon and the weight of hope made absolutely no odds on the ultimate outcome as similarly heavy scores were shipped both years.
2014 was a different scenario. It was the centenary of the New York County Board and the visit of Mayo - the second best team in Ireland at the time - was a popular attraction for Mayo exiles. The inevitable hiding for the home team didn’t hamper an enjoyable occasion overall.
In 2016 and 2018, unexpectedly tight tussles had the locals in raptures and the Connacht Council officials in apprehensive anticipation. The miserable conditions of '16 flustered Roscommon and, two years later, Leitrim were forced to ride their luck all the way through a bout of extra-time. But once again, the away teams escaped with their lives.
We didn’t know the defeat to Mayo in 2019 would be the final page for that decade. The lost years that transpired saw to it that New York’s panel cycled through in two key ways: Sunday’s group was almost completely different and, maybe more importantly, a crucial cohort of players was now three years older and stronger. The American-born contingent were being given their first chance on their biggest stage at a key point in their development.
That decade of hammerings and near misses was an era of the New York GAA during which an entire generation of Irish immigrants’ children came of age - the Mathers, the Boyles, the Brosnans. It all helped feed into Sunday and one of the best atmospheres I’ve ever experienced at Gaelic Park.
Sure, there was pre-game optimism, ultimately misplaced, but there was also a palpable lack of cynicism. Leaving football and renewed hope aside, it was difficult not to simply lean into the chance to simply revisit a game at Gaelic Park in such large numbers.
The anthems were playing as a few of us expats reached the turnstiles. A kind stranger pushed a free extra ticket into my hand. Clare was just inside, beaming. New York went a point to the good and looked like they were buzzing. The mood lifted from good to better.
We gathered behind the goal and strategically placed ourselves by the bar as a cavalcade of familiar faces I hadn’t seen in years passed back and forth.
"It's... underwhelming," smiled one Galway-born first-timer when I asked him for his thoughts on this famed cathedral of Irish-America society.
Yeah, it is, I’ll always try to preface that with anyone. But I know by the end of the second half you'll be pinned to the wire like you are now, your smile still beaming. The close run chaos of your nervous provincial rivals; history almost made for the wrong reason.
A contingent of New York Sligo men were behind the goal near us, nervous but beaming too. This was a rare day off for these three bar owning friends. Ronan, Paul and Darragh are about to open a bar in Hoboken that they're calling Dear Maud as a nod to their Yeatsian heritage.
I spent the second half up at the back of the stand on 240th St. A lone Sligo flag was propped up awkwardly and its owner droned on and on, hilariously. My friend’s father was in his element, smiling constantly. Nearby, a text arrived from Ireland: “what’s the score?” It was a prominent GAA manager checking in. “Does he not have better things to be doing?” the recipient laughed.
Nobody wanted to take the prospects of a shock win seriously and yet, for a moment there, with five minutes to go, maybe New York had a chance. But the goal opportunity was fluffed and a Sligo counterattack was executed. Then that was it.
The best part about Gaelic Park on days like those is that nobody wants to leave. There’s always one more conversation and one more reconnection. The players of both teams stay on the field and soak it all up, equally enamoured by this truly rare GAA occasion. It helps that the bar does its best business long after the full-time whistle but Gaelic Park revisited is, as Yeats wrote best, “where man's glory most begins and ends, And say my glory was I had such friends.”
