‘They’re only shooting blanks’
Fifteen thousand people thronged into Croke Park, Dublin on Sunday
November 21st 1920 to watch an eagerly awaited Gaelic
Football match that was to be contested between the two premier footballing
counties of the time, Tipperary and Dublin. Ten minutes into the game, several hundred members of the British
Crown Forces, both police and soldiers, descended on the stadium with orders to
detain and question all attendees.
Croke Park, pictured around 1920
In an unprecedented example of a military force opening fire on a
sporting crowd, chaos and carnage subsequently ensued, with fourteen civilians
being shot or (as in the case of 26 year old Jane Byrne) crushed as people
frantically tried to escape the stadium. Among those shot was Michael Hogan of
Grangemockler, right corner back on the Tipperary team that day. Such was the
shock of the crowd when police started to open fire that one person is alleged
to have shouted in disbelief: ‘They’re only shooting blanks’.
Michael Hogan of Grangemockler, Co. Tipperary (1896-1920)
‘Bloody Sunday’ is now recognized as a seminal day in Ireland’s War of
Independence and in the history of the Gaelic Athletic Association (GAA).
Within a few years of the atrocity, Michael Hogan was forever immortalized when
one of the main stands in Croke Park was named in his honour.
1920: warfare, espionage and gaelic sports
The Irish War of Independence was at its height in November 1920, with
Irish Republican guerrillas pitted against British Crown Forces in the form of
the British Army, The Royal Irish Constabulary and, most reviled of all, the
‘Auxillaries’ and ‘Black and Tans’. Hundreds had already died on both sides of
the bloody conflict by November 1920 and it would continue until July 1921,
after which time it would be followed closely by almost a year of civil
war.
Because the British were slowly but surely losing control, martial law
and other emergency measures had been imposed throughout much of the southern
part of Ireland by late 1920. Such restrictions meant that the Munster Football Championship of 1920
was thrown into disarray. In the Leinster championship, Dublin beat Kildare in
the final in Croke Park on August 29th 1920 on a score of 1-3
to 3 points. Cavan had the better of Armagh on a score of 4-6 to 1-4 in the
Ulster final, played in Cootehill on August 8th 1920. Mayo beat
Sligo by 2-3 to 1-4 in the Connacht decider in Castlrea on August 22nd 1920.
In the first of the All-Ireland semi-finals, Dublin defeated Cavan by 3-6 to
1-3 in Navan. In a hint of things to come, the Dublin players were stopped,
searched and delayed by British Forces on their return to Dublin.
With martial law imposed in the southern province, the Munster
championship was stalled completely. The official record shows that Tipperary
beat Clare in the Munster Quarter-Final after a replay on August 15th 1920.
However, they did not play their deferred 1920 Munster semi-final against
Waterford until February 19th 1922. And the story of Bloody
Sunday, Michael Hogan and many other victims lies in that gap.
The footballing story of 1920 goes that the Dublin football team, fresh
from their All-Ireland semi-final victory over Cavan, were getting uppity. And
knowing that they were unable to complete the Munster championship anytime soon so that they could get to play them in the All-Ireland championship, the Tipperary team issued
a ‘challenge’ to Dublin. Thus came about the ill-fated November clash of the
Tipperary and Dublin footballers in Croke Park.
Ticket for the 'Bloody Sunday' match
If the ongoing events of the Irish War of Independence to date had not
created enough tension and terror throughout the country, on the actual morning of the
match, Michael Collins’s ‘Squad’ had systematically sought out and killed several British spies in Dublin. Considering these highly significant targeted
killings on the morning of November 21st and the long established associations
between the GAA and Irish independence movements, it was not surprising that
Crown police and soldiers were dispatched to Croke Park to look for Republican
‘sympathizers’ among the crowd.
The Tipperary team, minutes before the match.
Michael Hogan is in the middle row, 5th from the left
The Dublin team
Ormond Historical Society
On Monday March 9th, the Ormond HistoricalSociety hosted a
wonderful event at the Abbey Court Hotel Nenagh to commemorate the tragic events and
victims of Bloody Sunday. Nenagh historian John Flannery delivered his thoroughly researched lecture with great passion. Acknowledged on the night for their
vital roles in commemorating this centenary year of Bloody Sunday were the
Tipperary GAA County Board, the Bloody
Sunday Commemoration Committee and Friends of Tipperary Football.
Mr. Flannery’s absorbing lecture was followed
by numerous questions and points of interest. And it was
one of those points (raised by the very learned Mr. Connors from
Borrisoleigh) that has inspired the last part of this blog.
The road to Thurles and Kelly's of Fantane
The journey from our village of Ballina, on the western side of northern
Tipperary, to Semple Stadium in Thurles, takes ‘an hour and a quarter’ according
to our family tradition. Apart from the optional new stretch of motorway
between Ballina and Nenagh, the route to Thurles has been the same for
centuries before even the foundation of the GAA in 1884. It is a winding and
sometimes dangerous road but for followers of GAA sports and Tipperary in
particular it is a route of great meaning and significance. My most recent trip
to Semple Stadium was with my son and my father last August to see the
Tipperary Senior Hurling team in their open training session in preparation for
the All-Ireland Hurling Final later that month.
From countless trips to matches over the decades, I know the road from Ballina to Semple Stadium the way you might
know a favourite old rhyme from childhood, by heart. It is a looping, winding
and at times dangerous country road, but you are pulled along the whole way by
the prospect of Thurles and the hurling excitement ahead.
After Nenagh town comes the country area known as Latteragh and then you
pass a sign for the village of Templederry off to the right. A few more miles brings you on to the hurling bastion of Borrisoleigh, and then you continue on a few more
miles to the tiny village known as The Ragg, the home of Drom and Inch GAA
club. Soon after that you can feel the excitement mounting as
you hit the outskirts of Thurles, the birthplace of the GAA and of course ‘Tom
Semple’s field’, the most magical place in Ireland to play hurling.
Along the middle of the route, somewhere between Latteragh and Borrisoleigh, you pass on the
left a quarry site known as ‘Kelly’s of Fantane’. Kelly's is a well established
firm, with their trucks and road-works machinery a familiar sight all over Tipperary
and the Midwest. But the next time I pass Kelly’s of Fantane on the way to Semple Stadium, I will be mindful
of the special significance of their quarry site for the GAA and the Irish
struggle for independence, something unknown to me and most people until this
week’s meeting of the Ormond Historical Society and thanks to the point of
information from the aforementioned Mr. Connors.
Just a few years after the Bloody Sunday murders in Croke Park, Michael
Hogan’s name was forever immortalized when the GAA named one of the main stands
in the stadium in his honour. In the late 1950s, major works were carried out
on Croke Park and some of structures from the original Hogan Stand were taken
to Limerick where they were used in construction work on the Gaelic Grounds.
The early 2000s saw a redevelopment of the Gaelic Grounds and Kelly’s of
Fantane were involved in some of the demolition and construction work. And as
part of this project, they removed the original Hogan Stand and took it off
again on one final journey, this time to have its ageing trusses form part of
the building at the firm’s quarry site on the side of that road to Thurles,
between Latteragh and Borrisoleigh.
So now a century after his murder on that Sunday afternoon in Dublin a century ago, Michael Hogan’s stand has come to rest in his native county. And for me, that poetic journey from Ballina to
Thurles has been embellished with an extra poignant
verse.
The Tipperary team that would ultimately go on to win the 1920 All-Ireland championship, deferred due to war until 1922. In this photo, Dan Breen (Tipperary native and reputedly at one stage a member of Michael Collins' 'The Squad') is pictured in the centre of the middle row.
An Dushlan ('The Challenge'):
one of the centenary commemorative events arranged by the Bloody Sunday Centenary Commemoration Committee
The Hogan Stand in the modern 82,000 capacity Croke Park
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