Fitting way to mark a special day
Yesterday, however, November 1st, was the actual anniversary to the day, of that famous meeting in Hayes Hotel in Thurles town square in 1884, when a group of visionary gentlemen got together to form a body for the organisation and promotion of our native gaelic sports.
Given the time of year that’s in it, given also the massive effort that had already been spent in promoting that anniversary, it was understandable that yesterday’s formal festivities in Semple Stadium were rather low-key, personified in a muted pre-match parade of a platoon of individuals bearing the flags of all the competing counties of the GAA, behind the Artane Boys Band.
And yet, when Ger Hoey sounded his whistle for the final time yesterday, we indeed had a celebration worthy of the occasion. Fittingly, it came on the pitch; more fittingly, it was provided by club players, in a club competition, as Newtownshandrum and Thurles Sarsfields defied the conditions and combined to give us Munster hurling championship match of the highest quality.
“The heart was fairly pumping during the second half,” said Newtownshandrum manager Phil Noonan.
“When you’re watching your own team it’s hard to judge but I’d say it was a great game of hurling.
“You had two teams hell-bent on winning, maybe our experience told in the end.”
It did, the experience of the O’Connor twins especially, magnificent yet again for Newtown, and here, the secret of the GAA, the reason it is still at the very heart of Irish life.
The inter-county competitions are now the face of the GAA, and rightly so; the All-Ireland senior championships in gaelic football and hurling have the highest profile, that’s where the major money is made and these are the commercial heart of the modern organisation.
Those who argue that the GAA should go back to its roots, when club represented county in the All-Ireland, should have been in Thurles yesterday with two outstanding teams representing the two biggest Munster hurling counties. Yet, sadly a crowd of merely 3,500 was there to witness what most pundits predicted would be a superb match.
But – and on this there can be no argument – even for those like Ben and Jerry O’Connor, who have won practically every honour the game can bestow at inter-county level, the club is still the heart and the soul, and their almost superhuman effort for Newtownshandrum yesterday provided evidence for that.
On view, we had two clubs who represent everything that those who met in Thurles all those years ago envisaged. One is from a big town, where all kinds of external distractions conspire to entice youngsters away from their native games; the other is from a small village where every able-bodied youngster is needed to participate, just to make up a team.
Both, in their own way, have succeeded, and yesterday they met on level ground and went at it full belt. No quarter given, none asked, yet, and in the enduring spirit of the GAA there was – and is – tremendous mutual respect.
“It was a tough game, but we knew it would be,” said Newtownshandrum centre-back Pat Mulcahy; “It was a dogfight, but we got a bit of luck at the end, a couple of long-range points from Ben, and his move out to midfield made a big difference. But Thurles Sars are a fabulous hurling side, quality all through.”
That tribute, however, was returned by Thurles Sars manager Michael Gleeson: “Our lads did exactly what we wanted, did everything we asked of them, but Newtownshandrum did the same and did just enough to get over the line. It was touch-and-go for the second half, tit-for-tat the whole way, but lucky for them and unfortunate for us, when the final whistle went they were the ones ahead.
“We’re very disappointed, we had our chances, but there can be only one winner. It was their day and we wish them the very best now for the rest of the Munster championship.”
Grace in victory, grace in defeat.
Perhaps here, and as a reminder – timely, let it be said – of the conditions that prevailed on that historic date 125 years ago. A paragraph from a letter written by Dr Thomas William Croke, Archbishop of Cashel, to Michael Cusack, the man credited as being the principal of the GAA’s founding fathers was re-produced in yesterday’s match programme: “Indeed if we continue travelling for the next score years in the same direction that we have been going in for some time past, condemning the sports that were practised by our forefathers, effacing our national features as though we were ashamed of them, and putting on, with England’s stuffs and broadcloths, her masher habits and such other effeminate follies as she may recommend, we had better at once, and publicly, abjure our nationality, clap hands for joy at sight of the Union Jack, and place ‘England’s bloody red’ exultantly above the green.”
Does that ring any bells? Yesterday in Thurles, 125 years after its foundation in the same town, and captured superbly by TG4, Newtownshandrum and Thurles Sarsfields did the GAA proud, but ‘England’s stuffs and broadcloths, her masher habits and other effeminate follies’ still abound, Sky-hyped to the high heavens. Let there be no complacency.
CONNECT WITH US TODAY
Be the first to know the latest news and updates
