Skip to main content

Up For The Match

Image
By
 
 
 











The  first barrier beyond which ticketless mortals cannot venture is at the mouth of Clonliffe Avenue opposite Quinns on Dorset street. Traffic  slows down as easy going Gardai marshall the throngs of hurling fans who congest the usually busy Dublin thoroughfare. There is a babble of noise. Shouts and guffaws. Laughter.  The cries of street hawkers and ticket touts. The excited chatter of rival fans. Tipp gansaí's mingle with the black and amber of Kilkenny and the emerald green of Limerick minors. 

Its the same down at Gills corner and other entry points to Croke Park. It is the All Ireland Hurling Final. Me and my older brother Paddy slip through the barrier at Gills. The huge shoulder of the Canal end of Croke Park looms into sight. A duo of street musicians rent the air with traditional ballads. The street is filled with an epidemic of hurling fans. There is a sense of expectation. Of hope. A palpable expectation of being witness to  a feast of sporting and cultural magic.

 Then through the turnstiles and into the Hogan Stand. We take our seats. The minor game is already underway. Kilkenny is edging ahead of a brave Limerick side. The stadium is rapidly filling up. Our Paddy turns to me as he does at this point every year during our annual pilgrimage to the best stadium in the world to watch the best players in the world playing the best game in the world.

' Aren't we lucky to be here? in  Croke Park?  isn't it great to be a Gael?' 

We study the Match Programme. Pore over the clár. Soak up the atmosphere. Discuss the pros and cons, deplore the absence of ground hurling. Debate tactics. check how the winds is blowing the national and provincial flags. Chat with other fans in neighbouring seats. Shake hands with old friends. Applaud the Minors as they conclude the game with a victory for the Cats. Commiserate with each other at the sight of the dejected Limerick lads lying despondently in the background while the jubilant Kilkenny victors celebrate at the plinth  in the Hogan Stand. 

Then the atmosphere builds. The Tipperary All Ireland Champions of 25 years ago line up  and are introduced. Heroes. They beat Antrim that day. I am disappointed that the Antrim  team don't get to parade.  I was looking forward to applauding them as well. Heroes also. 

Huge banners representing the All Ireland Senior teams are carried aloft on to the field  by throngs of young people. The Artane Boys Band assemble below us. Then the Cats take to the field as Croke Park explodes with a roar of rapturous  approval from their supporters. Tipperary follow soon afterwards. 

             
The red carpet is rolled out. We rise to greet the President as he and The Uachtaran of  Cumann Lúthchleas Gael meet the players. The teams parade. Then Amhran na bhFiann.  82 thousand proud Irish voices raised in rousing chorus and conclude in a united roar of support for their county.  The Artane Boys Band exits off the pitch. 

The hurlers shake hands with each other and with the ref and the linesmen.  The ref throws the sliothar in. The midfielders draw on it. The Hurling Final begin. The fastest field game on the planet is underway. 

It's over to the hurlers now. This is their arena. Our arena. Their game. Our game. They are warriors. Gladiators.  Magicans.  Wizards with camans. They will not disappoint us. 

 
They didn't. It all went by in a flash. Point for point. Goal for goal. To and fro. Up and down. 
 

 
Acrobatic high  fielding. Precision passing. Long diagonal pucking of the sliothar. Long distance point scoring. Quick as a flash hand  passing. Side line cuts. Great clearances.  Tight marking. Great goal keeping. Great goals scored. Inspirational solo runs. The ash clashing in close combat dunting. Courageous blocking. Not a malicious stroke the whole game. 

 
 
' It's a pity it will soon be over' our Paddy says at half time. 

'Liam O Neill predicts a draw' I tell him. 

'Now wudn't  that be something' he says in wonderment as the second half starts at break neck speed, 'A draw?'

And it was.  The best game of hurling I ever saw since our school beat Saint Galls in 1958 and I got the best player award. 

Hurling? 

The sport of heroes.

 Kilkenny and Tipperary? 

Legends. 

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Best International Documentary | Defend the GPO and Save Moore St. | A Week in the Life and Death of GAZA

By
  Best International Documentary I spent the weekend in Galway and Mayo. The weather was amazing. The countryside with its miles of stone walls separating plots of land and the lush colours of green and rocky inclines was a joy to travel through. I was in Galway on Saturday to attend the Galway Film Festival/Fleadh where Trisha Ziff’s film – A Ballymurphy Man - was receiving its world premiere. The cinema in the old Town Hall where the Festival is centred was packed to capacity for the screening. The audience was hugely attentive and very welcoming when Trisha and I went on the stage at the end of the screening to talk about the making of the documentary. The next day I was in Mayo when Trisha text me to say that ‘A Ballymurphy Man’ had taken the Festival award for Best International Documentary. So well done Trisha and her team who worked hard over five years, with very limited funding to produce this film. In Mayo I met Martin Neary, who has bequeathed his 40-acre homeste...
Post a Comment
Read more

Turf Lodge – A Proud Community

By
This blog attended a very special celebration earlier this week. It was Turf Lodge: 2010 Anois is Arís 50th Anniversary. For those of you who don’t know Turf Lodge is a proud Belfast working class community. Through many difficult years the people of Turf Lodge demonstrated time and time again a commitment to their families and to each other. Like Ballymurphy and Andersonstown, Turf Lodge was one of many estates that were built on the then outskirts of Belfast in the years after the end of World War 2. They were part of a programme of work by Belfast City Corporation known as the ‘Slum clearance and houses redevelopment programme.’ The land on which Turf Lodge was built was eventually bought by the Corporation in June 1956. The name of the estate, it is said, came from a farm on which the estate was built. But it was four years later, in October 1960, and after many disputes and delays between builders and the Corporation, that the first completed houses were handed over for allocation...
2 comments
Read more

The murder of Nora McCabe

By
Nora McCabe was murdered almost 29 years ago on July 9th 1981. She was shot in the back of the head at close range by a plastic bullet fired from an RUC armoured landrover. She died the next day in hospital from her injuries. It was the same morning Joe McDonnell died on hunger strike. Nora was aged 33 and the mother of three young children, the youngest three months old. Over the years I have met her husband Jim many times. He is a quiet but very determined man who never gave up on getting the truth. Jim knew what happened, but as in so many other similar incidents, the RUC and the Director of Public Prosecutions office embarked on a cover up of the circumstances in order to protect the RUC personnel responsible for Nora’s murder. At the inquest in November 1982 several RUC people gave evidence, including James Critchley who was the senior RUC officer in west Belfast at the time. He was in one of the armoured vehicles. The RUC claimed that there were barricades on the Falls Road, tha...
3 comments
Read more