Buying into sporting history at an auction of GAA memorabilia

Big news. I’m off to an auction of GAA memorabilia and I mean business. Serious business. I’ve studied the catalogue inside out and back to front. I have put on my best suit. I’m even wearing a dickie bow, although unfortunately it quickly comes loose and has to be discarded. Pity. I was determined to cut quite a dash in the photo.

The auction is part of a Rare Books and Collectors Sale organised by Fonsie Mealy Auctioneers, the venue the Kilkenny Ormonde Hotel. Along with the usual selection of old match programmes, this particular event features the medal collections of Phil Shanahan (old Tipperary hurler) and Joe Barrett (even older Kerry footballer and the first man from the county to lift the Sam Maguire).

The room, then, shimmers with GAA history. It also contains its share of familiar faces. There’s Donie Shanahan, chairman of Toomevara GAA club, here to keep a proprietary eye on the fate of the Shanahan (no relation) collection. There’s Dominic Williams, the Wexford GAA historian. There’s Seamus O’Reilly from Clare, a familiar ponytailed photographic presence on big days at Semple Stadium and the Gaelic Grounds and a man who, having started collecting at the age of 10, has all but 11 of the Munster senior hurling championship programmes issued since 1946.