Breaking ground

KILLINAN END

A quiet anniversary passed this year when it turned 75 years since the opening of Newport GAA’s Lacken Park.

A great challenge for the early association was developing grounds where fixtures and competitions could be played. Many clubs recall days living a nomadic existence relying on local goodwill and access to farmers’ fields for practice. For a modest club on the periphery of the North division to have permanent club grounds as early as 1950 was quite a feat for Newport.

The club had been associated with a ground at Portryan on the Limerick side of the town. By many accounts this hosted some extraordinary occasions including inter-county tournaments. The early 1940s unveiled an ambitious plan for new permanent grounds. The land in question cost £400, presumably no small sum in those days. Funding its development was another matter. In October 1945 the attendance at a meeting in Newport reflected contemporary influences on rural Irish society. In the immediate post-revolutionary decades this would be a joint effort between Newport GAA, led by the fondly-remembered Pat Humphreys, and an Old IRA memorial committee which included revolutionary luminaries in Seán Gaynor and Paddy Kinnane. Their plan? To dedicate the grounds to an old comrade who had died a year earlier on the 25th anniversary of the Soloheadbeg Ambush; Paddy Ryan Lacken, one of Newport’s own.

Ryan Lacken, born in Knockfune - between Toor and Rearcross – on 16th November 1898, became a central player in IRA activity around Newport. Republican attacks on RIC Barracks in North Tipperary and East Limerick, such as Doon, Hollyford, and Rearcross, are well documented. But everybody hurt. In April 1920 alone creameries at Rearcross, Kilcommon, Reiska, and Knockfune were burned in reprisal by Black and Tans, crippling local economies. The atmosphere around law and order was beyond poisonous. Paddy Lacken was described by his colleague Paddy Kinnane as reserving a special hatred for the police. The burning to the ground of his home in January 1921 and the incarceration and persistent threatening of his father by Newport’s Crown Forces for several weeks informed this loathing.

The primary culprit was Newport’s RIC Inspector Harry Biggs who joined the RIC Auxiliaries in 1920, coming to Newport that November. He had served in the British Army at Salonika in neutral Greece during the Great War. David Lloyd George, British PM, derisively called those soldiers ‘the Gardeners of Salonika’ as they saw little activity. In time Biggs must have looked back wistfully on those idle tranquil days polishing the veneer of a war record. But if he craved action he found the right place when he landed by the Mulcair’s banks. His turbulent six-month tenure saw Newport’s new police Inspector quickly epitomise every negative perception of the RIC’s reinforcements. He was described by IRA volunteer Jim Hewitt as ‘notorious, burning houses on the slightest provocation, and shooting and maiming cattle’. His very blood might have been Black and Tan.

This long game of cat and mouse became deeply personal. Its final reckoning came at a modest dip in the road on the parish boundary between Killoscully and Newport in May 1921. An IRA ambush party including Paddy Lacken loitered with intent. This early summer evening jaunt for Biggs and company erupted without warning into twenty seconds of mayhem with the stakes staggeringly high. Long-simmering retribution was unleashed swiftly and mercilessly. When silence fell, the man who in the words of Seán Gaynor “terrorised the country”, had burned his last house in North Tipperary. The final curtain for an RIC force now dominated by British recruits was about to fall. Within six months the entire British apparatus in 26 counties would do likewise. The achievement of rural revolutionaries against such overwhelming force was extraordinary. No wonder they are spoken of with honour, the names that stilled your childish play. By the end of hostilities Newport’s own Paddy Ryan Lacken was, according to IRA volunteer Liam Hoolan, ‘the darling of the local population’. Despite his departure to New York in 1929 memory in Newport and among old comrades like Séan Gaynor, Andy Cooney, and Paddy Kinnane, remained potent even a few decades later.

By 1947 over £1,600 had been collected towards the project, half of which came from New York. A huge sum was collected in North Tipperary, as well as £50 grants from the Tipp County Board and the central GAA. It was a successful joint venture before the term was coined. Newport GAA honoured the Ryan Lacken family deeply, but in doing so they guaranteed the success of the initiative. By May 1950 it was complete, its striking entrance is still standing unaltered and impressive – the handiwork of Michael Rainsford. Fanfare was not rationed on opening day either with the Lackamore Pipers and Limerick Pipe Band leading a parade from the town to the pitch. Even West Cork’s famous revolutionary Tom Barry, no stranger to Guerrilla Days in Ireland, attended. Tipp – defending All-Ireland champions – played Limerick to cut the ribbon.

Tulach Sheasta did it all again nearly half a century later. In 1998 Limerick crossed the border and Tipp repeated their opening night win in ‘the Park’. This Tipp panel was not as illustrious as 1950’s but could boast five future Senior County team managers, three of them All-Ireland winners. On this occasion Newport’s hallowed ground had been revamped. These days there are fine dressing-rooms and a stand, all built on the solid foundations of previous generations. Visionaries like Pat Humphreys and his colleagues who dreamed of much when people had little would be very proud indeed.