Borrisokane sporting memories

In this article Michael Doorley takes a trip down memory lane and recalls life as a young boy in the early 1960s............

Emerging from the dismal 1950s decade, the ‘Swinging Sixties’ was an era of rapid growth and change in Ireland’s social and economic life. 1963 was a particularly momentous year for us 10-year olds growing up in Borrisokane, which was never boring- apart from the long hours spent attending national school.

Sport was huge in our lives and any sporting code that combined the basic elements of physical activity, competition and fun was ever popular. On release from school after 3 o’clock, we would gallop down straight to the ball-alley for handball, fistfights or wall climbing.

We had loads of other perfect choice locations to ourselves, ranging from the vast expanse of grasslands all around the hurling field on to ‘The Laurels’, ‘Chadwick’s Wood’ or ‘The Paddock’ and the favourite place for the ‘Down-towns’ was ‘the Fort’.

In the first two months of that year, we had experienced the continuation of ‘The Big Freeze’ - the coldest winter in over 250 years since records began. It had lasted for ages, during which time Lough Derg was frozen over to the extent that herds of cattle were driven over and back across the ice to Clare. In Borrisokane, it gave us the frozen ‘Mill Pond’ for ice-skating and all sorts of slippery hair-raising antics. We absolutely relished outdoor activities of every description, although for the country lads these were usually centred on family farm work. But for us lucky ‘Townies’ as the year went on- it broadened our variety of activities ranging from: hurling to handball, hunting-hares to sniggling eels, poaching orchards to catapult skills and bare-fisted boxing.

But top of the list was hurling, which was so well established and organised by then. In all those years we never witnessed a single football match in the GAA grounds. Our national school headmaster was Denis Gardiner - whose father Jim Gardiner had once been President of the GAA. Denis was a great organiser of juvenile teams and early in 1963 he went to a lot of work organising, training, and transporting our newly formed under 12 hurling team.

There had always great hurling rivalry between the ‘Down Towns’ and the ‘Clock Roads’ and when you added in the country lads, there were between 40 and 50 young contenders for a place on that team. Hence, when the first match of the season was finally organised, there were no less than 23 players on the panel, so getting on to the first fifteen was such a privilege.

There were a few very talented young hurlers like Liam (Willie) Brennan, and they brought the standard way up. That first match in Nenagh was against Shannon Rovers (see photo) who had some powerful young forwards like the D’Arcy’s. However, Borrisokane had the most solid full-back line consisting of Paddy Horan, PJ Gavin and Brendan Carroll and we emerged victoriously on that occasion. Our next game was two weeks later against Nenagh’s Eire Óg, and they hammered us - going on to win the competition outright.

OUR HERO

The biggest local influence on the whole game then was dynamic county player, our hero ‘Mackey’ McKenna. He was an amazingly speedy, broad-shouldered and a talented forward. One of our great memories of him is that if Borrisokane were awarded a 21-yard free and Mackey was taking it – a goal was guaranteed. He would scoop the ball high in the air and by the time he doubled on it he was probably about ten yards out with the ball still rising as it was buried into the roof of the net.

When he lined out for Tipperary the whole town buzzed with excitement. He had earned two All Irelands medals by then but in 1963 Tipp were beaten by Waterford in the Munster Final and his next two All-Ireland medals came in 1964 and 1965. Unfortunately, he never won a senior medal with Borrisokane, although they came very close a few times. There were annual wild tussles between Lorrha and Borris' with ‘skin and hair’ flying in all directions and Mackey was injured during one of these games. His influence is best described in Brendan Carroll’s epic poem:

“Now many years have come and gone and we’re all growing old,

But we still remember Mackey- in Tipp’s proud Blue & Gold

The way he lit our lives up- every time he played the game,

That humble man called Mackey from the town of Borrisokane”.

In those days the wide world seemed a remote concept, but it had nudged closer with the recent arrival of television into our lives. Prior to that, it was radio and the Nenagh Guardian that were the key sources of news for most people. RTÉ kicked off in January 1962, opening up a whole new world and by 1963 there were approximately eight TV sets that we knew of and (apart from the first one in Slevin’s Electrical window) - McKenna’s of the Square was the prime one- with the biggest young audiences, particularly for the hurling, but other sports like boxing matches of that year like Cassius Clay v Henry Cooper in June.

It was there we saw showjumping for the first time and delighted to see Ireland win the Aga Khan trophy in that same year. Soccer had not kicked in at that stage (and there was a ban in place), but the ‘telly’ was a big factor in influencing its future growth in the town. The FA Cup final between Manchester United and Leicester was first seen by a dozen lads in the window of Slevin’s Electrical. Soccer eventually took off and regular matches would take place in the vast spaces outside the locked hurling field.

TV would have reflected the dynamic era of change and growth in Ireland’s social and economic life but for us young lads, sport and music were of much more interest. Denis Gardiner had encouraged learning music at school and many of us took to instruments like the accordion, the tin-whistle, and the harmonica. A band was formed led by drummer Brendan Carroll and they would play in parade in nearby villages.

The ‘Top-Ten’ was on Radio Éireann every Monday and we would listen in. Cliff Richard’s ‘Summer Holiday’ was our favourite as it helped us to dream about our escape from school. Other favourites were Brendan Bowyer’s ‘Kiss me Quick’ and Dusty Springfield with ‘I only want to be with You’. However, the Beatles dominated the airwaves (though not approved by senior citizens) with ‘She Loves You’ culminating in their first and only visit to Ireland in November. As the fans mobbed Dublin’s Middle Abbey Street and O’Connell Street, the Beatles (after their gig in the Adelphi) made their escape unseen in an Evening Herald van.

There were other unforgettable events that year, which included American President John F Kennedy’s visit to Ireland in the summer and then his tragic demise in November of the same year, which shocked us all to the core. Come December, we were wrapped up in Christmas excitement and then going door to door ‘hunting the wren’ on St Stephen’s Day.

Our final memory of that year is from New Year’s Eve which was the only night we were allowed to stay up till after midnight. We would be looking out the front windows awaiting members of the local band to play in the New Year. Eventually, they turned up after stalling outside the twelve Borris pubs on route but by then it was………1964.  Time for bed.

As 70-year-olds, when we meet up betimes and reflect on the old team photo, we are glad to be still around (and grateful for reasonably good health), but it is sad to think of our teammates who passed away. For some, it was at a relatively young age.  Time flies.