Charleville: A town on tenterhooks

Charleville town is full of colour, this week, lifting it out of the ordinary. Which is apt, because Charleville town is anything but ordinary this week. The colours are red and white, the local GAA club colours. Hardly surprising, since the parish is readying itself for a biblical exodus to Croke Park tomorrow to support its team in the All-Ireland Intermediate Hurling final.

I saw the first red and white flags outside a farmhouse a couple of miles south of the town when I visited. Many more as I approached the Dr Mannix GAA Sportsfield, where Sunday’s team learned their craft as boys and men. Red and white chequered flags fluttering outside the Sportsfield, and on the windows of the houses in Holycross Place, and outside The Four Winds; red and white balloons in the windows of Treasure Chest; red and white flags and bunting outside the credit union, and JP Moran’s, and the old courthouse, and Bridget’s, and O’Brien’s Bar; red flowers in The Flower Pot; red and white flags and signs, and red and white cars arrayed outside Cavanaghs of Charleville; red and white ‘best of luck’ signs from Centra, from The Charleville Show, from St Joseph’s Infants School on Smiths Lane; even an ecumenical best of luck from Ballyhea GAA, out the road.