I can remember talking to my predecessor, the late Paddy Downey, about his career recollections and being struck by how far back his contacts reached into the history of Gaelic games.
He was a friend of Christy Ring, who went as far as to visit Downey in the sanatorium where he was recovering from TB – on the morning of an All-Ireland final in which the Cork hurlers were playing.
There was also reminiscence about Jer O’Leary, who had an antiques shop in Killarney where reporters were welcome after matches to drop in and use the telephone to call in their reports.
“Small Jer”, as he was known, was a key figure in the GAA in Kerry, a stalwart of Dr Croke’s and a friend of Dick Fitzgerald, the pioneering footballer who played on the county’s first teams to win the All-Ireland and in whose memory O’Leary spearheaded the committee to build a big venue in Killarney, now Fitzgerald Stadium, to commemorate him.
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Small Jer lived to be a good age, 89, dying in 1974, nine decades after being born in the foundation year of the GAA.
He had also helped to negotiate the purchase of Croke Park in 1913.
Years later, in 2002, I visited the shop and spoke to his daughter, Margaret O’Leary, who sadly died three years ago, but was memorably not short of opinions on a range of GAA-related topics.
The association was slow to prioritise the role as a guardian of its own history and heritage. The Croke Park Museum is only up and running for 28 years. Previously, it took Centenary Year in 1984 to prompt a drive to unearth memorabilia and encourage the publication of club histories but for a long time, memories just died.
That has greatly improved in recent years and Cian Murphy in Croke Park has been to the forefront of projects such as the Bloody Sunday 100 of five years ago and other commemorative events.
He is working on a research thesis to evaluate the role of GAA reporters as recorders of the first draft of history and observers of cultural change, as well as more games-based chronicles.
If journalism provided first drafts of history, further drafts weren’t always followed up, let alone delivered. For GAA journalism, however, the future has become more of an immediate concern than the past.
The fall of the year was in evidence at the Gaelic Writers’ Association (GWA) awards dinner last week. Rain and wind gave notice and by Sunday, the clocks would have gone back, guaranteeing darkness on all journeys home.
There was also an underlying air of melancholy, as the annual get-together coincided with further news of job losses and severance packages in the business.
The GWA awards are an annual event that requires a fair amount of organisation. It’s all the harder because in the nature of these things, the many leave most of the details to the few.
For the association, this year recently marked the departure of two of the GWA’s senior officers, Pat Nolan and Karl O’Kane from the world of media. As secretary and chairman, Pat and Karl have driven the organisation for more than seven years at this stage.
Nolan’s attention to detail in keeping the membership updated on everything from representations about inadequate media facilities to funeral arrangements, has required a steady flow of emails, attended to amid his work for the Irish Mirror – as well as the barrage of GAA statistics he has regularly fired via social media.
Both decided recently to avail of voluntary redundancies, faced as they were with the likelihood that any future terms might not be as inviting and the certainty that continuing to work in a stripped-down operation would be even more demanding, to say nothing of depressing.
Neither appears inclined to stay involved in the media given the decline in opportunities and the changing nature of the industry.
At the dinner, there was further discouraging news that Mick Scully, a general sports reporter of long standing in the Mirror, who has done his share of labouring in GAA press boxes, was also departing – between them, Nolan, O’Kane and Scully have totalled more than 70 years covering the games.
Already, the GWA had been processing the loss of Micheál Clifford from the Mail and Donnchadh Boyle from the Independent.
They are all part of a middle generation, albeit already well experienced, who should in years to come be the senior practitioners, spinning yarns that go back unfathomable years to their younger peers.
There is such a fund of stories about Clifford, but one I remember was when the international rules series visited Cavan and the Mail were sponsoring. All of us at a press conference were presented with a plastic bag, bearing the newspaper’s logo and containing a biro, pencil and notebook, maybe a sharpener as well.
It’s not that we are used to the sort of gift bags handed out at the Oscars, but there was puzzlement at the minimalist nature of the offering. Naturally, we questioned Clifford, who beamed.
“I’m like a proud father, watching ye all open your presents on Christmas morning.”
Last week, we honoured Ger Canning for a lifetime of broadcasting and two Hall of Famers, Nickey Brennan, whose myriad accomplishments led a couple of us to wonder how he had managed so far to escape recognition, and Larry Tompkins, after a gruelling year grappling with serious illness in his recognisably stoical and indefatigable way.
The mood was celebratory – albeit with a mute acceptance that circumstances had taken away colleagues and friends, leaving press boxes the poorer and fewer of us to remember the stories of those who have adorned the fields, villages and councils of the GAA.
