KILLINAN END - St Patrick’s Day and the GAA

As the period of regulation National League games ends, if you leave aside Seamus Kennedy’s desperately unfortunate injury, Tipp have cause to be content.

A League semi-final with Clare will provide not just the obvious opportunity for progression to a final but a real test of status and potential. Notwithstanding all the natural scepticism about reading much into league matches, Clare have come through the campaign unbeaten, so form is good. There is a narrative that they are second only to Limerick, yet they lost two games last season’s championship, and beat Cork by just a point in Ennis. Maybe there is not such a clear pecking order. Tipp can go into this game in full confidence of being hugely competitive.

By the time Tipp’s game comes around prospective final opponents will be known and if that is Limerick it will engender some talk as to Clare’s frame of mind. In those circumstances beating Tipp would leave them in a final against Limerick two weeks ahead of their championship meeting in Ennis. Some might argue that’s not ideal, but it would give Clare a sense that they are indeed a cut above the rest, and they do seem happy to take on Limerick at any time. Tipp are in a happier place should they make a final since they are free until a week later giving them a three-week preparatory period. However, that would also be against Limerick – maybe another version of those multiple meetings in 1971 and 1973 awaits?

The full programme of league matches on St Patrick’s weekend belied the history behind the date within the GAA. The playing of the club finals on St Patrick’s Day was an afterthought as the day was already spoken for back in those days. Prior to the mid-80s the club finals were a movable feast. Roscrea won their title in 1971 just six days before Christmas. In 1972, Blackrock beat Rathnure in the final in May. The 1973 final was not played until December, with remarkably the 1974 final played just three months later on St Patrick’s Day. This date stuck for a couple of years but by the time Castlegar won the 1980 final it was played in June.

By the time Kilruane and Borris-Ileigh won their titles in the 1980s the final had found its groove in March though Kilruane’s final was played on the day before St Patrick’s day which fell on a Monday. The men from Lower Ormond displayed their talents a day early perhaps to give oxygen to the Railway Cup Finals for one last hurrah on the national holiday. Even at this stage, however, they had been diluted with the final played in Ballinasloe. A year on there was separate venues and the slide to irrelevance accelerated.

There is a slight false backstory for the Railway Cup implying that people swung from the rafters in Croke Park on St Patrick’s Day. Big crowds did attend once but long before life-support became a conversation around the Railway Cup attendances were declining. In 1965, over 30,000 people attended but by 1971 this had declined by a third, with 1968 having had the lowest attendance on record with just 12,000 spectators. The competition had begun in 1927 and was a fixture on the national holiday immediately and consistently afterwards. One notable exception was the playing of the 1959 hurling final in June which coincided with the opening of the new Hogan Stand at Croke Park.

Stories around the competition were remarkable. Dublin’s Des Foley winning hurling and football on the same day in 1962 – playing in the middle of the field for Leinster in both – would have those who talk about player burnout puzzled. Christy Ring’s achievement of winning 18 Railway Cup medals is truly one of the astonishing feats in Gaelic Games history.

A few crossed the divide as well. Tulla’s legendary goalkeeper Tommy Daly won his Railway Cup medals with Leinster. Native Limerick man Garret Howard won a medal with Leinster before he won one with Munster. Closer to home Seán Treacy’s man Pat Quigley won a Railway Cup medal with Leinster in 1974 when the forward line read: Martin Quigley, Pat Delaney, Pat Quigley, Kieran Purcell, Tony Doran, and Eddie Keher. What a mighty man he was to find his niche in that company.

Newport’s great goalkeeper Séamus Shinnors won a medal in 1976 when Munster included three North Tipp luminaries in Tadhg O’Connor, Noel O’Dwyer and Francis Loughnane beating an equally star-studded Leinster team. It is difficult to look at these line-ups now and not wonder how much fun a full-blooded Railway Cup might be these days. Séamus Shinnors won a Railway Cup medal again in 1980, this time with Connacht after he had relocated to Ballinasloe.

St Patrick’s day became a Bank Holiday in 1903 and there were restrictions of the sale of alcohol on the day until the 1960s. It is difficult to imagine that there is not a connection between the latter development and the decline in attendances at the Railway Cup. Undying loyalty to province in the GAA is not an entirely natural phenomenon given the rivalries within a province like Munster either. The arrival of television in the early 1960s with the provinces’ stars live on TV was probably the final nail in that particular coffin.