Easter Sunday, 1888 - part 1 of 2

Easter and the Irish

I wonder if there’s something uniquely Irish about the dawning of new and revolutionary beginnings at Easter. Maybe it’s related to that palpable seasonal shift out of the long winter into the hopefulness of a summer ahead or maybe it’s related to our Christian heritage and belief in resurrection from death, or maybe it’s just coincidence. But looking at the 20^th Century, we had the seminal 1916 Easter Rising rebellion near the start and the Good Friday Agreement at the very end, in 1998. And then going back to the end of the 19^th Century there was also an Easter of new beginnings for the Irish, with the first All-Ireland Hurling final being played in Birr, Co. Offaly on Easter Sunday, 1888.   

The N52 in late summer

I am a fine day hurling fan (literally), not paying much heed to muddy winter league matches, instead focusing on the Premier League during that time of the year. And I have to admit that even the early stages of the Munster championship sometimes pass me by, unless Tipperary hit some obstacle. But come July and August, I am as immersed in the hurling championship as anyone else, as long as Tipperary is still involved. And the last decade or so of hurling championships have been particularly fruitful for Tipperary, contesting six of the last eleven All-Ireland finals and winning three, while also finally slowing down the juggernaut of Kilkenny hurling success.

As a result, I’ve spent many hours in late summer over the past decade driving around the countryside to gather rare and valuable tickets for All-Ireland hurling finals. The N52 between Nenagh and Birr is usually the most productive route for such journeys, as I have a few trusty ticket sources along that road. And I know the key ticket stops and the names of the towns and villages along that route by heart, going northwest from Nenagh and on to Ardcroney, Borrisokane, Ballingarry, Carrig, Riverstown and finally Birr; that journey has become as much a part of All-Ireland final rituals as the trip to Croke Park itself.

Paul Rouse and ‘The Hurlers’

So it happened that on one of those late summer ticket-hunting N52 trips that I first came across the work of historian Paul Rouse. I had always had a vague notion that Tipperary had played Galway in the first All-Ireland hurling final and that it was contested somewhere outside of Dublin. But it was not until August 2010 that I got stuck into the detail of that historical event. Coming in to Birr from the Tipperary side, I noticed a powerful and imposing statue of a hurler. Standing at 16 feet in height, made of bronze and resting on a sandstone base, it is the work of Mayo sculptor Mark Rode. 

Hurling statue in Birr, Co. Offaly commemorating the first All-Ireland hurling final, played in the nearby Johnny Farrell's field on Easter Sunday, April 1st, 1888

The plaque beside the statue, the content written by Paul Rouse

The information on the plaque beside the sculpture was written by Paul Rouse, an Offaly historian based in UCD who was apparently working on a history of the first All-Ireland hurling final at the time. So soon after the 2010 final and still delirious at the Tipperary victory over Kilkenny, I contacted Paul Rouse by email to enquire about his project. In an act of real generosity and trust, he forwarded me several early draft chapters of his book on the topic. And I was delighted for him and for fans of both the GAA and Irish history to see his work come to fruition with the 2018 publication of ‘The Hurlers’, a scholarly and thoroughly researched yet highly accessible and enjoyable account of the first All-Ireland hurling championship. ‘The Hurlers’ provides most of the source material for this blog.

'The Hurlers': Paul Rouse's wonderful account of 

the first All-Ireland hurling championship

The very difficult birth of the Gaelic Athletic Association (GAA), and two strong men

The GAA was founded at a meeting in Hayes Hotel, Thurles, Co. Tipperary on November 1^st 1884, when a small group of like minded visionaries met and set out their plans for a revolutionary new Irish sporting body. Forged in a tense political climate of increasingly strident and militant Irish nationalism, tenant evictions and boycotting of landlords throughout rural Ireland and set up in defiance of the all powerful British Empire and establishment, the move was brave and, like all revolutions, hopeful beyond reason. 

The two leading figures in the early years of the GAA were both from rural Ireland and shared a love of sport and all things Irish. In many other respects, Michael Cusack and Maurice Davin were very different characters. However, their contrasting personalities and styles were both needed in those difficult early years, with Cusack setting the initial fire of the GAA and Davin and others keeping the flame burning. 

Michael Cusack comes across in Paul Rouse’s book as a man possessing supreme self-confidence, vision and passion, who was determined at all costs to establish an Irish sporting organization for Irish games. He was also temperamental and pugnacious, seemingly never able to turn down the chance of a row, and fearless in whom he took on. Born in Carron, Co. Clare, Cusack became a very talented and successful teacher and journalist. Interestingly, he played cricket and rugby as a younger man and, consciously or unconsciously, adapted some of the principles of successful 'British' sporting organizations and competitions in establishing the GAA.

When it came to his writing and journalism, Cusack was highly productive, opinionated, abrasive and often prone to wild lyrical flourishes. Regarding his inspiration for founding the GAA, he wrote: 'I essayed to rouse the people from the appalling torpor that was creeping over them and, vampire-like, thinning out the heart's blood of the Irish nation...I took it into my head to strike one smashing blow on behalf of Ireland', and in doing so he 'declared war against the foreign faction'. His pen was also frequently poisonous when dealing with topics and individuals not to his liking. For example, a game that was confusingly known as 'Hurley' had been played in Trinity College Dublin and some Dublin schools in the years before the foundation of the GAA. It may have been similar to modern field hockey or the Scottish game of shinty but it certainly did not meet the athletic freedom and manly standards of Cusack's vision of hurling and he referred to those who played the game as merely 'civilised eunuchs' and 'grown-up little boys'.  

His abrasive style, his long list of enemies within and outside the GAA and his complete disregard for attending to the detail of his role as GAA secretary meant that he was ousted from the role within two years of the foundation of the GAA. Despite this, he remained a strong voice and constant presence in all things related to the GAA until his death in 1906.

Michael Cusack (1847-1906): teacher, journalist and visionary, founding member of the GAA and its first secretary. Note the distinctive beard, blackthorn stick and workman's boots - Cusack was noted for his unique style and powerful presence.

Michael Cusack (front row, second from left) with the Phoenix Rugby Club during the 1881-1882 season. He played with Phoenix against Dublin University in December 1881 in the inaugural match in the Leinster Senior Cup.

In contrast to Cusack, Maurice Davin seems to have been altogether calmer, more measured and (literally) presidential in his approach. Coming from a wealthy family of merchants and landowners in Carrick-on-Suir, Co. Tipperary, Davin was regarded as one of the most accomplished all round athletes of his generation, excelling in all types of athletics, rowing, cricket and boxing. As an athlete, he was meticulous and forward thinking in his training methods, diet and even his research about opponents, keeping detailed notebooks in this regard. One of the many high points in his athletics career came in 1876 when, in the first ever international athletics match, he won the shot-put competition against his English opponents.

And when Michael Cusack came up with his idea for an Irish sporting organization, he turned to Davin, who had been a friend of his for nearly a decade at that stage. Perhaps Cusack knew that he needed someone of Davin's temperament to help him deliver on his vision and perhaps this is why Davin was also elected at that founding meeting in Thurles as the first President of the GAA. 

Maurice Davin (1842-1927): farmer, businessman, athlete and 

first President of the GAA, subsequently becoming the only two term President. 

Maurice Davin with some of the spoils of his athletics victories

The initial work of the GAA involved setting up clubs and competitions and devising rules for athletics, hurling and, perhaps most challenging of all, 'Irish' football. It appears that the first two hurling matches conducted under the new GAA rules took place in March 1885, with a Tipperary match involving Silvermines and Nenagh and a match between 'The Shannon District' of Galway and Lusmagh of Offaly (then known as King's County). Clubs started to spring up all over the country, playing hurling and football. For some areas, the move from their individual localized rules and styles of play took some time. Cusack attended hurling  and football matches throughout the country and wrote enthusiastic reports in his newspaper columns. 

But while the sporting side of the GAA seemed to be flourishing, the internal politics within the organization was becoming bitter and divided. This was in part down to the adversarial behaviour of individuals such as Cusack himself. More importantly, however, the organization was gradually taken over by prominent members of the militant nationalist group the Irish Republican Brotherhood (IRB), who in the first three years of the GAA took all the key positions on the executive (apart from the Presidency, which was still held by Maurice Davin) and started to exclude and generally make life difficult for any clubs throughout the country that were not affiliated with the IRB. 

Things came to a head at the national convention of 1887 in Thurles. A heated confrontation broke out between the IRB members, led by P.N. Fitzgerald and IRB opponents, led by Fr. John Scanlan, a curate in Nenagh. After five hours of intense debate and wrangling, the IRB member Edmond Bennett of Clare was elected as the second President of the GAA. Then followed months of strife with Michael Cusack and, even more importantly, GAA Patron Archbishop Croke coming out strongly against the IRB takeover. Ultimately, a Reconstruction Convention was held in January 1888, again in Thurles, and Maurice Davin was re-elected President, thus becoming the first and only GAA President to serve two terms. Meanwhile, the British ruling establishment looked on with interest and Paul Rouse writes that the police force were instructed to foment division and conflict between GAA members.

Somehow, despite the tense and unstable national political situation and the bitter internal power struggles within the GAA, the first All-Ireland hurling and football championships were played out in 1887 and 1888. 

The hurling championship culminated in two teams of twenty one men meeting at Johnny Farrell's field in Birr, with the county champions of Galway and Tipperary facing off against each other.

It is unlikely that any of the players or the three thousand assembled spectators realized just what they were starting on that fateful Easter Sunday, 1888.

For the next installment of this blog, I will cover the controversies, triumphs and failures of the first All-Ireland hurling championship and an account of that actual final itself.