‘Home of hurling’ welcomes decision

TYPE “Thurles tourism” into Google and you get three responses, one of which opens with the less-than-glowing description, “Thurles is of very little interest in itself ...”

However, this is to ignore the town’s impact on Ireland’s social and cultural history. For it was here, in 1884, that Michael Cusack, Maurice Davin and Dr Thomas Croke founded the Gaelic Athletic Association, the only body to rival the Catholic Church in its impact on the Irish way of life.

As a result, the Tipperary town is known as “the birthplace of the GAA” and “the home of hurling” and seemed like the perfect place to visit on the weekend the GAA were deciding whether to allow ‘foreign’ sports into their Croke Park cathedral.

Heretofore, Thurles station had been merely a drowsy lid-lifter on the trip to Dublin but last Saturday I alighted and set off for Hayes Hotel in Liberty Square where it had all began.

The first citizen I met, a rather surly be-hooded teenager with an addiction to saliva projection, seemed to share the internet’s stance on Thurles’ charms.

“Could you direct me to the square, it’s my first time in Thurles?”

“Straight down for 500 yards, but you’re not missing much,” he spat, and then spat again.

Thankfully, that welcoming committee was not typical of the town’s citizenry and Hayes Hotel turned out to be a charming establishment, its modern furnishings matched by an old-world facade and walls peppered with sepia-tinted sporting memorabilia.

Positioned as I was at the heart of the old association, I had been expecting a degree of conservatism and negativity in the face of such a monumental change. However, when news broke of the decision to allow Central Council decide on soccer and rugby in Croker while Lansdowne Road is being redeveloped, there was practically a Mexican wave in the hotel’s Cusack Bar.

“I think it’s a great decision,” said Denis Egan, a taxi driver. “To be honest, I didn’t think it would go through. There are some powerful individuals, naming no names, who I thought would scupper it, but it’s turned out to be a great day for the GAA, and Ireland.”

Pauline Dunne, a Kerry woman married to local man and steeped in the GAA, was similarly enthusiastic. “If they had shot this down again, I would never have contributed to another GAA club in my life. That may sound a bit harsh but it was so obvious the majority wanted to take this step and it was just a few stuck-in-the-muds against it. But, if it had failed, we’d all have been tarred with the same brush.”

Further down the road, in Arch’s bar, proprietor Pat Hayes felt the decision would benefit Irish sport in the future. “It’s great for the children. We have to get children playing sport and not sitting inside playing video games. There’s plenty of kids around here who love the GAA but love soccer and rugby as well. They should be encouraged to play all types of sport and this will help do that.”

In the interest of balance, I was trying valiantly to get a negative reaction, but it was proving an impossible task. The closest I came was in Tom Dunne’s pub (the politician not the hurler) where Noel Ryan was indeed angry, but in an unexpected way.

“What the FAI and IRFU should do now is go and tell the GAA to shove it. It would be pay-back for the short-sightedness and bigotry that we’ve had to put up with for so long.

It turned out the Noel was a rugby man, having played for London Irish in the 1970s.

“The GAA have been black-guarding us for years. I’m old enough to remember the ban when, if you played hurling or football, you couldn’t even go and watch a game of soccer or rugby, let alone play them.”

After a quick lap of the Square, I ended up back in Hayes Hotel which had, by now, morphed into a vibrant (very noisy) nightclub. Being a bit old for discos at this stage, I was taken aback by the youth and thirst levels of the clientele and, having witnessed my third teenage vomit in little more than an hour (giving a whole new meaning to the ‘home of hurling’), I decided to exit stage left.

Outside, I bumped into Seamus Butler, a sixty-something gentleman who looked as though he might provide the balance I was seeking.

“No, it’s the right move. Sport is sport and Croke Park is Ireland’s best stadium. It deserves to have our national sides running out there.”

For all the misconceptions and mis-information, Thurles turned out to be a pretty little town with friendly, helpful residents and a hearteningly progressive attitude towards the great association it spawned 121 years ago.

“Of very little interest?” Try “much to be proud of.”