Tuam Krugers and stoning refs
Dara Ó Briain told a student: “All that stuff you’re learning is absolutely vital”.
An exception to that rule were the classes delivered by Gearóid Ó Tuathaigh, whose anecdotes from Irish and British political history were among the highlights of my five years in tertiary education. Those sentiments were spoken aloud again by Seán O’Rourke, another ex-UCG man, who introduced Professor Ó Tuathaigh’s lecture ‘The GAA at 125 – The Challenge of Change’ last Tuesday.
A lively sub for his double-booked RTÉ colleague Colm Murray, O’Rourke recalled his own one playing experience in ‘that theatre of dreams’, Tuam Stadium – an U-16C game in which he represented the Jez against Headford. “Their defence did very well – in fact, they held us scoreless,” he noted, before revealing that the scoreline (16-15 to 0-0) ‘makes me wince 38 years after the event’ and prompted the memorable excuse: “Ah but Ma, they were huge!”
O’Rourke went on to spend many afternoons in both Tuam Stadium and Pearse Stadium while working as a cub reporter with the Connacht Tribune. He came across legendary scribe Johnny McMahon, whose account of a game in Clare has become the stuff of folklore. “And no marks at all,” the match report read, “to that section of the crowd who stoned the referee as he lay helpless on the ground”.
Something even more serious than attacks on referees was invoked during the question-and-answer session which followed the talk. Former GAA President Joe McDonagh revealed that among the clubs formed during the Boer War were the Tuam Krugers, named after the President of the Transvaal, and Athenry De Wetts, called after a Boer general.
The biggest laugh of all came during Professor Ó Tuathaigh’s considered answer to Senator Rónán Mullen’s question about sports sponsorship by alcohol companies. Revealing that he did not have ‘a black and white attitude’, the Limerick man noted that alcohol abuse was a major issue, but that he wasn’t sure that ‘taking an absolutist stance’ on sponsorship was the best way of dealing with it.
“You should be able to see a sponsor without getting blotto!” he said, to general amusement. “If Guinness sponsor the Wexford Opera Festival, I don’t think the patrons of ‘Don Giovanni’ need to go out and get langered!”
Banning drinks companies from sponsoring GAA events was not necessarily the best way to deal with the matter, he said, before noting, with tongue in cheek, that the real worry nowadays would be ‘to be sponsored by a bank!’