Thurles' foundational fixture
KILLINAN END
The 1920s in Ireland were a time of recovery, renewal, and fitful progress. The revolutionary years had been largely successful in their core aim of allowing the nation to govern its own affairs. Much remained to be done to develop the apparatus of state: an army, a police force, a civil service, and an industrial base for the country. It was also a country where guns were commonplace after the revolutionary years—a nettle which the government would grasp through the Firearms Act, 1925. Censorship also gained a firm grip on the nation; one it would retain for the best part of half a century.
Yet to dismiss the decade as one merely of poverty and stagnation is to overlook a remarkable sense of possibility. The Shannon Scheme was an initiative of such ambition that people travelled from all over the country to see its machinery in action. While the authority of the army and police in the new state might still have been contested, they nevertheless provided arguably the most visible signs of the British departure. The most visible expression of Irishness in society, of course, remained the GAA and its games.
The dawn of 1926 brought two significant developments. The Irish Free State’s first radio station, 2RN, made its debut, even if its output was extremely modest in those early days. The foundation of the Fianna Fáil by a group that was, at that point, politically marginalised would shape Irish politics for much of the remainder of the century. Perhaps the greatest hurling rivalry of the twentieth century also produced one of its defining chapters in 1926. Tipperary entered the Munster Final as defending All-Ireland champions. Their opponents, Cork, had enjoyed only modest success in recent decades, winning just a single All-Ireland championship since 1903.
The Cork Athletic Grounds was the venue, with the Kerry and Tipperary junior footballers providing the curtain-raiser. Spectator accommodation consisted largely of grass banks, with only a limited amount of sideline seating. As it happened, those sideline seats had a great deal to answer for. Demand was so great that, during the closing stages of the football match, spectators continued to push forward in search of seats that were already occupied. People consequently stood in front of those who had secured the coveted sideline seats. Frustration boiled over, with the best seats in the house now obscured. Scraws of earth were hurled in protest, and by the time the senior hurling final began, the crowd had already spilled onto the pitch.
Consequently, the hurling final had to be abandoned after just twenty minutes. Tipperary, enjoying the benefit of a stiff breeze, led by five points at that stage. In truth, however, the prospects of completing the match had been slim from the outset. We probably take it for granted today that stadiums are suitably secure and capable of accommodating large crowds, but it is important to remember that we benefit from lessons learned over many decades.
Even the newly-built Wembley Stadium experienced chaotic scenes in 1923 when spectators flooded onto the pitch during its first FA Cup Final. Quite apart from the obvious safety implications, there was also a financial imperative surrounding crowd control. Gate receipts were essential if grounds were to be developed, yet without properly developed grounds it was difficult to secure venues sufficiently to charge admission. Classic Catch-22.
A letter to a newspaper after the Munster Final shed further light on the challenges of what we now call health and safety. Just one week before the Munster Final, a catastrophic fire at a cinema in Dromcollogher, Co. Limerick, had claimed 48 lives. The province of Munster was still coming to terms with such an appalling tragedy at a place of entertainment. Against that backdrop, the letter proposed that the proceeds from the Munster Final be donated to the Dromcollogher Fire Appeal.
There was considerable fallout from the failure to complete the match. A Munster Council meeting immediately afterwards must have been a torrid affair. Cork proposed bringing the replay to Croke Park, while Tipperary dug in and argued successfully for Thurles Sportsfield. It is worth remembering that we are discussing grounds that were still in the very early stages of development, with extremely limited facilities for crowd control.
They could hardly have realised it a century ago, but Tipperary had secured for Thurles what is often regarded as the foundational fixture in the history of the most storied hurling venue of them all. The lessons of the abandoned final were still fresh in everyone's minds. It took a draw and a replay in Thurles before the title was finally decided, both broadcast on 2RN radio. Tipperary played virtually the entire replay with fourteen men, and Cork won the day, launching one of the county's great eras of success. It was a disappointing day for Tipperary, perhaps, but one that placed Thurles at the heart of championship hurling for the century that followed.