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In the
Beginning...
The Early Years
Bloody Sunday
The War Of
Independence
Impact Of The
Civil War
Croke Park
In the
Beginning...
At 3.00 p.m. on Saturday 1st November 1884, a
small group of men - at least seven and possibly
as many as fourteen - met in the billiard-room
of Miss Hayes's Commercial Hotel in Thurles, and
there founded the Gaelic Athletic Association
for the Preservation and Cultivation of National
Pastimes. The seven founder members were Michael
Cusack, Maurice Davis (who presided) John Wyse
Power, John McKay, J. K. Bracken, Joseph O'Ryan
and Thomas St. George McCarthy. Also admitted
later by Cusack to have been present was Frank
Moloney of Nenagh, while the following six names
were published as having attended by the more
detailed press reports of the time: William
Foley, - Dwyer, - Culhane, William Delehunty,
John Butler and William Cantwell. All these were
from Thurles except Foley, who was from
Carrick-on-Suir, like Davin.
The foundation meeting of the G.A.A. - if such
it was indeed - was the culmination of several
feverish months' work by Cusack since he had
enlisted the support of Davin in August. The
activity included a meeting in the Galway town
of Loughrea of a group of local athletic
enthusiasts, possibly Cusack and certainly
Bishop Duggan of Clonfert, who is said to have
recommended Archbishop Croke of Cashel as a
patron of the proposed body. Cusack also seems
to have considered holding the first meeting in
Cork, according to a brother of Davin; he had
even chosen the title "Munster Athletic
Club".Anonymous Articles.
In October, two prominent nationalist weeklies,
"United Ireland" and "Irishman", carried
identical anonymous articles by Cusack,
summarising the case for a body like the G.A.A.
In subsequent issues the same month, Davin and
Cusack openly supported the project, and finally
Cusack sent out a circular for the Thurles
meeting. This he had drafted in Dublin with the
help of a number of hurling enthusiasts. So
small was the attendance in Thurles that it may
have been an exploratory or preliminary meeting.
If so, the real foundation meeting was held in
Cork City in the Victoria Hotel on the 27th
December, attended by a group of Cork Home Rule
personalities led by the Lord Mayor-elect, Ald.
Paul madden.
Of the five other founder-members in addition to
Cusack and Davin, John Wyse Power was a
Waterford journalist, then on the "Leinster
Leader" staff in Naas, and later on the "Freeman
Journal" in Dublin. McKay was a Belfast
journalist then on the "Cork Examiner", who
later worked in the House of Commons in London
before returning to Cork in the early 1900's.
Bracken was a Tipperary stonemason, whose son,
Viscount Brendan Bracken, was a member of Sir
Winston Churchill's World War II coalition
government. O'Ryan was a solicitor in Thurles
and Callan in Kilkenny. McCarthy, a Kerryman,
was a police officer in Templemore.Criticism for
Press.
Apart from Cusack's contribution, the
proceedings in Hayes's Hotel were brief. Davin
took the chair, and in a brief speech called for
a body to draft rules to help revise Irish games
and to open athletics to the man in the street.
Cusack's long speech criticised the national
press for boycotting Irish sports, put forward
the idea of a national athletic festival on the
lines of the old Tailteann Games, and referred
to over sixty letters of support he had
received.
After McKay had also spoken, Cusack and Power
proposed and seconded Davin as president of the
new association, and the meeting then elected
Cusack, Power and McKay secretaries. The meeting
adjourned after agreeing to ask Archbishop Croke,
Charles Stewart Parnell and Michael Davitt to
become patrons, with instructions to the new
officers to draft rules.
Press Coverage.
Two of the founders were journalists, so the
press coverage accorded the foundation meeting
was far greater than a gathering of a dozen
enthusiasts would normally generate. There was
also other press reporters present. Most sent
back enthusiastic reports.
Cusack himself reported on the foundation
meeting for "United Ireland" and was very
enthusiastic in even his opening line: "At a
well attended meeting which was held in Miss
Hayes's Commercial Hotel in Thurles last
Saturday, a Gaelic Association for the
preservation and cultivation of National
pastimes was formed".
The Leinster Leader and the Cork Examiner (whose
reporters John Wyse Power and John McKay were
founders of the Association) were more detailed
than Cusack's 600-word transcript. McKay even
contradicted Cusack when he said: "The meeting
was poorly attended and several important
athletic clubs in the South did not send a
representative but perhaps this was due to the
fact that the notice given was very short". The
attendance at the second meeting in Cork on the
27th December was better, maybe as a result of
the Cork Examiner's gentle admonishment of the
Southern athletic movement.
Wyse Power was also interested in giving a good
impression using the same "At a well attended
meeting, etc" opening line as Cusack.
The cork Examiner report ran to 1,500 words and
included the full text of the circular and the
letter from Michael Davitt in which he pleads:
"Why not make an effort to revive the Tailteann
Games? A national festival could be organised to
come off at some historic spot, at which prizes
could be awarded for merit". The report ends
with a long speech by (ironically) Mr. McKay,
reported verbatim. The account is the most
detailed of all those given of the foundation of
the G.A.A. down to the "hear hears"
Some interesting points from the Cork Examiner
coverage of the meeting emerged:
Cusack professed he admired the English Amateur
Athletics Association and stated that the G.A.A.
"could not do better than adopt somewhat similar
rules".
Attendance at the meeting was not regarded as
solid enough foundation by at least McKay. He
places great stock on the fact that a second
meeting would be held within a month.
Hurling and football are not mentioned. The
whole meeting talked about athletics,
and athletics in the sense of one large-scale
meeting for Celtic peoples, as Davitt mentioned
it, the Tailteann games.
Cusack mentioned that he had tried to get real
Irish athletic events included on
athletic programmes, mentioning specifically the
high jump, the long jump, throwing the hammer,
slinging the 56 lbs. and putting or throwing the
16 lbs. The Davin brothers, Pat and Maurice held
all the records for these events at the time.
Cusack himself was probably once a record holder
in the throwing event.
Finance was not regarded as a problem: the
Caledonian Games had yielded £200
profit on an investment of £300 the previous
Easter at Ballsbridge. The founders thought that
there was a lot of money to be made from
athletics promotion and the G.A.A. would easily
fund itself. A figure of £1,000 for the
Tailteann festival was mentioned, and Davitt
thought that £500 would be forthcoming from the
Irish in America.
Support was forthcoming from Caledonian Games
organiser Morrison Miller, Welsh
Nationalist Kimmersley Lewis, and messages were
received from Professor Roehrig on behalf of all
the Irish in America, and Mr. Lynch from the
Irish in Australia (this is in Cusack's and Wyse
Power's reports, not in McKay's).
Cusack's critical comments on the sporting press
are not reported in the Cork
Examiner.
The Association was given the rather cumbersome
name of the Gaelic Athletic
Association for the Preservation and Cultivation
of our national Pastimes. Within weeks it had
been abbreviated to the Gaelic Athletic
Association.
Cusack reported that Croke, Parnell and Davitt
were to be asked for patronage.
McKay said they were appointed patrons.
That caused some considerable confusion as
Cusack to task the only English newspaper which
had a correspondent at the meeting, the Daily
News, for stating that "patrons had been
appointed". Cusack's ire was raised by a far
more hostile press coverage from the Daily
Telegraph of the 6th November which reported:
"Olympic Games for Ireland hardly seems a
serious proposition, yet this is the objective
of a new society just started by the Archbishop
Croke, Mr. Parnell, Mr. Healy and others of the
National Party in the sister Isle. We may be
sure that an agrarian offence is no
disqualification for a competitor".
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The Early Years
In 1886 the GAA introduced County Committees.
These became the units of representation for the
new All-Ireland championship.
Cusack wrote: The Association swept the country
like a prairie fire.
Rules for football and hurling were drawn up at
the third meeting of
the GAA in January 1885 and were published in
the United Irishman newspaper.
The GAA had an immediate rival. In February,
1885, a group of Dublin-based clubs formed
the Irish Amateur Athletic Association (IAAA).
Relations between the two organisations
deteriorated rapidly. In March, athletes were
banned from participating in sports organised by
the rival body. The GAA also banned non-Gaelic
players from competing in their events.
The first All-Ireland Championships in hurling
and football were organised on a county basis in
1887. Twelve of the 32 counties entered,
although only five competed in hurling and eight
in football.
The finals were not played until the start of
the next season in April 1888.
In 1887, members of the radical secret society,
the Irish Republican Brotherhood (IRB) took
control of the Association, prompting the
resignation of Maurice Davin as president.
A split in the GAA loomed, but a
"reconstruction" convention of January 1888
restored
Davin to the presidency.
For political reasons, the Royal Irish
Constabulary (RIC) had been monitoring GAA
activities since its foundation. Members of the
RIC were banned from GAA sports in 1888.
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Bloody Sunday
Dublin were scheduled to play Tipperary on
November 21st, 1920. On the night before the
match the leader of the Irish revolutionary
forces Michael Collins had ordered the
assassination of the "Cairo Gang'',14 British
intelligence officers sent to infiltrate his
organisation under the guise of commercial
travellers. In revenge, one of the British
auxiliaries involved in the operation recalled
that they tossed a coin over whether they would
go on a killing spree in Croke Park or loot
O'Connell Street instead.
Despite the unease in the city on the morning of
November 21st, some 10,000 spectators went to
Croke Park for the match.
The ball was thrown in by referee Mick Sammon
from Kildare at 2.45. Shortly afterwards an
airplane flew over the ground and a red flare
was shot from the cockpit. Black and Tans then
raided the ground and an officer on top of the
wall fired a revolver shot.
The crowd thought at first they were firing
blanks but then machine gunfire was fired in
increasing volume. The crowd stampeded towards
the Railway wall, furthest from the gunfire.
Two of the players, Michael Hogan and Jim Egan,
failed to make it off the pitch. A young Wexford
man who attempted to whisper an act of
contrition into the dying Hogan's ear was also
shot dead.
The casualties included Jeannie Boyle, who had
gone to the match with her fiancee and was due
to be married five days later, and 14-year-old
John Scott, so mutilated that they thought he
had been bayoneted to death. Another two victims
were aged 10 and 11 respectively.
The authorities released the following statement
to the newspapers: A number of men came to
Dublin on Saturday under the guise of asking to
attend a football match between Tipperary and
Dublin. But their real intention was to take
part in the series of murderous outrages which
took place in Dublin that morning. Learning on
Saturday that a number of these gunmen were
present in Croke Park, the crown forces went to
raid the field. It was the original intention
that an officer would go to the centre of the
field and speaking from a megaphone, invite the
assassins to come forward. But on their
approach, armed pickets gave warning. Shots were
fired to warn the wanted men, who caused a
stampede and escaped in the confusion.
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The War Of Independence
1913 (16 January) : Bill for Irish Home Rule
carried in the English House of Commons,
defeated in the House of Lords
1913 (25 November) : Irish Volunteer force
formed
1914 (24 April) : Ulster loyalists land 35,000
guns to oppose Home Rule
1914 (25 May) : Bill for Irish Home Rule carried
in the English House of Commons for a
third time, due to become law in 1916.
1914 (26 July) : Irish Volunteers land guns at
Howth, Co Dublin.
1914 (4 August) : Britain enters First World
War. Irish Party leader, John Redmond,
pledges Irish support.
1914 (18 September) : Home Rule Act suspended.
1914 (24 September) : Irish Volunteers split
1916 (24 April): Easter Rising.
1916 (29 April) : Insurgents surrender. GAA
President, James Nowlan, is among hundreds
of Association members interned.
1916 (3-12 May) : Rising leaders executed.
1917 (16 June) : Prisoners released.
1918 (3 July) : GAA included in list of
organisations banned by British goverment.
1918 (4 August) : GAA defies government ban on
Gaelic games.
1918 (28 December) : General Election ; Sinn
Fein wins 70 per cent of Irish seats,
Unionists 23 per cent.
1919 (21 January) : Sinn Fein members establish
new Dublin parliament, Dáil Éireann.
Ambush at Soloheadbeg starts War of
Independence.
1920 (25 March) : Black and Tans arrive in
Ireland to launch campaign of terror on behalf
of the Crown.
1920 (21 November) : Crown forces shoot dead 12
spectators and a player in raid on
Croke Park. The day became known as "Bloody
Sunday".
1920 (23 December) : Goverment of Ireland Act
proposes two new dominions in Ireland,
one re-presenting 6 counties in Ulster, the
other representing the remaining 26 counties.
1921 (11 June) Truce declared in War of
Independence. (6 Dec)Anglo-Irish Treaty signed
1922 (10 Jan) Anti-treaty delegates leave Dail
Eireann (16 Jan) British troops pull out of
Ireland (28 Jan) Bombardment begins of Four
Courts, occupied by anti-treaty forces,
signalling the onset of Civil War.
1923 (24 May) Civial War Ends.
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Impact Of The Civil War
GAA activity in Munster and Connacht came to a
virtual halt as a result of the civil war.
Clare's anti-treaty county secretary Pat
Hennessy and fellow-GAA activist Con MacMahon
were executed by Free State forces in January
1923. For a two year period afterwards, Clare
had a pro and an anti-treaty County Committee.
When a truce was declared in 1923, the GAA
helped to bridge the divide.
In Kerry, a match was organised to assist in the
selection of the county team between
pro-treaty players and anti-treaty players in
1924. John Joe Sheehy, an anti-treaty
Republican, and Con Brosnan, a army captain in
the pro-treaty forces, came together to
represent the county football team. Kerry's
united team competed in the All-Ireland football
final in 1924.
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Croke Park
Croke Park, Dublin is the home of the Gaelic
Athletic Association (GAA). The ground was
purchased in 1913 and has since been the
headquarters of the GAA and the home of Gaelic
Sports.
The site upon which Croke park now stands was
originally owned by Maurice Butterly in the
1870's and was known as the "City and Suburban
Racecourse". The GAA became one of the grounds
most frequent users and in 1908 Frank Dineen
purchased the 14-acre site for the handsome sum
of £3,250. The GAA subsequently purchased the
site from Frank Dineen in 1913 for £3,500 and
immediately renamed the ground Croke Park in
honour of the association's first patron
Archbishop Croke of Cashel.
Over the subsequent 40 years Croke Park was
developed and redeveloped in an ad hoc
manner as finances allowed. The Railway End,
also known as Hill 16 was constructed from the
rubble left in Sackville Street (now O'Connell
Street) after the 1916 rising. The first Hogan
stand (named after Tipperary footballer Michael
Hogan) was built in 1924 and followed by the
construction of the Cusack stand (named after
one of the original founders of the G.A.A.
Michael Cusack) in 1937. The Canal End terrace
was constructed in 1949 and was subsequently
followed by the construction of the Nally stand
(Named after Pat Nally) in 1952. Since these
initial buildings, reconstruction and
redevelopment of various sections of the ground
have taken place.
Croke Park Development
The reconstruction of the stadium at Croke Park
currently underway is by far the most impressive
and ambitious development ever undertaken in
relation to the G.A.A. national stadium. Phase
one has already been completed with the result
being a magnificent structure, which is being
currently referred to as the "New Stand".
This fabulous new structure, which replaced the
Cusack Stand, is 180 metres long, an
astounding 35 metres high, seats 25,000 people
and contains 46 hospitality suites. The new
stands represents a new era in spectator comfort
and playing facilities within the GAA. There are
three layers from which viewing games is
possible: the main concourse, a premium level
incorporating hospitality facilities and finally
an upper concourse. The premium level contains
excellent facilities such as restaurants, bars
and conference areas, all of which contribute to
making this new development one of the most
impressive stadiums in Europe.
Phase two of the development commenced in late
1998 and involves extending the New
Stand to replace the existing Canal end, with
the final phase of the project being the
redevelopment of the Hogan and Nally stands. The
total cost for the three-sided development,
which will result in a capacity of 79,500, has
been estimated at £110 million, with phase one
costing £35 million. The necessary finance will
be raised through the sale of the executive
suites, the premium seats, the sale of term
tickets, Government aided grants via the
National Lottery and the balance via loans. One
point worth noting in relation to the 'New
Stand' is that the sale of the seats in the
corporate/executive sector generated almost 50%
of the cost of the project but only occupies 12%
of the capacity.
The Achievement
This stand is a considerable achievement for an
amateur sports body like the GAA. It is an
example from which many professional sports
clubs could learn much. That the stand was
completed on time and on budget is down to
several reasons. Studies were taken before hand
with overseas visits to suitable stadia before
the project started. Environmental studies were
made and care was taken in the selection of the
consultants to prepare the master plan and to
execute the project. The current stand forms
just the first part of a comprehensive master
plan. When it is completed, Croke Park will take
its place among the best examples of modern
stadium design and construction. It is well
worth a visit.
Museum
In mid 1998 a major high-tech Museum
incorporating numerous items of GAA memorabilia
was opened. The Museum will act as a link
between the past, present and future of the GAA
and will pay tribute to the people and events
which were so influential in shaping our past,
whilst also conveying a vision of the future GAA
to its visitors.
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