Henchy working on a different Broadway dream
There are still dreams to be made or broken here, even if they don’t involve neon signs or chorus lines.
There are still people who give their spare time over to the hopes of an impassioned community.
There’s still the story of the immigrant whose dreams of home are funnelled through drama, joy and tragedy.
There’s just never a script you can rely on. Truly, anything can happen.
Last May, when Galway came to town for what should have been a routine Connacht SFC opener, they were given a real scare by the fiery expats who proved hard to quell despite being hit by two dismissals.
Connacht champions Roscommon will be well warned ahead of their trans-Atlantic trip on May 1 but that hasn’t curtailed the optimism of a particularly passionate branch of the GAA.
Every county board has its countless, invaluable cogs but New York PRO Joan Henchy is the sort of charismatic go-getter that any county would be blessed to have at their disposal.
She embodies the brazen belief that a breakthrough is close, her forceful genes having been passed down from her father, former Fianna Fáil senator Dan Kiely.
Henchy left North Kerry and her beloved Tarbert in the early 1980s, emigrating to New York with the boyfriend she would one day marry, a 17-year-old girl who, on the surface of it, seemed like just another grim statistic.
But Henchy has had a unique route to the control centre of New York GAA.
Born in Yonkers during the 1960s to immigrant parents who had left Ireland during the previous wave of emigration, she spent her formative years back in Ireland after her Kerry parents made a success of themselves and hankered after a return home.
Despite a steady job as a hairdresser, she was ordered by her parents to utilise her citizenship and give New York a go for six months.
This was not how she imagined her life panning out.
Nothing made her happier than the red and black of Tarbert.
She was never allowed play but she did everything she could to subvert her father’s wishes, even going so far as to hide her football socks beneath her All-Ireland winning dancing shoes.
On Sunday morning, I took shelter from the Gaelic Park rain with Henchy underneath the doorway of the modest dressing rooms.
We watched a training session as she unwittingly talked her way into my plans for this column.
She is a force of nature, introducing me to all the players and bossing them around for the sake of her greater goal: long overdue exposure for the New York board.
She has been battling ever since she returned to the city of her birth.
Now a hospice nurse Henchy has lost none of her grá for Ireland and recently returned to watch Tarbert win a dramatic North Kerry final replay against Listowel.
A senior county board officer since 2000, she is now in her second year as PRO, a role she is beginning to settle into.
“This year, I actually have a clue what I’m doing,” she tells me laughing.
“It’s a vital part of the community and we’re doing everything we can to keep it as vibrant as possible.
“A lot of people back in Ireland think we’re all about the dollar signs, drawing young guys away from their clubs.
“But that’s not the whole truth.
“I get e-mails every week from players in Ireland casting the line out for a dream.
“It’s picking up a little bit here but it’s hard enough for the players already based here. They’re the priority.
“We’re like a family here. There’s a lot of bickering, all the usual stuff, politics and animosity.
“But everyone wants the same thing.”
Just after the last of the players leaves, I help Henchy lock up.
After St Patrick’s Day, the countdown to May will begin.
And who could blame them for thinking beyond that?
* Contact: john.w.riordan@gmail.com; Twitter: JohnWRiordan
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