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LLCOOLJ14
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Joined: 03 November 2006 Posts: 7889
Posted: 07 February 2007 at 3:59pm | IP Logged
'Old foes' return to Bloody Sunday site History will add an edge when Ireland host England at Croke Park, writes Brendan Gallagher
TIPPERARY'S popular half-back and captain, Michael 'Mick' Hogan, who had travelled to the Irish capital for an afternoon's sport to play in a friendly against Dublin, lay motionless on the greensward of Croke Park, blood oozing from his gunshot wounds, cut down by a British machine gun. So too Jane Boyle, dressed in her Sunday best, who had attended the match with her fiance and was to have got married five days later, and William Scott, a fanatical 14-year-old 'Dub' or Dublin supporter.
A couple of yards away lay 11-year-old William Robinson and 10-year-old Jerome O'Leary - good friends, Gaelic football fanatics and defenceless children who were bleeding to death after being gunned down by the so-called tough men of the Black and Tans. At one point during an afternoon of madness, the Tipperary and Dublin teams were lined up in the centre of Croke Park to be executed summarily by the British but mercifully a high-ranking, although unidentified, officer intervened and screamed that there had been enough killing on this awful day. November 21, 1920. Bloody Sunday. The first Bloody Sunday, that is. The second followed 52 years later in Derry.
In all, 14 Irish citizens were killed by British forces at Croke Park on Bloody Sunday and 80 badly wounded - including Hogan's Tipperary colleague Jim Egan - which goes a long way to explaining why the ground is so strongly identified with Irish nationalism. Part shrine, part cathedral, a living historical monument to the freedom fight. Hill 16 - the massive terrace that holds up to 15,000 fans - is built on the rubble of Sackville Street (renamed O'Connell Street when the British moved out) after the uprising of Easter 1916 had left the city centre in a state of some disrepair. The rubble was carted out to Croke Park, piled high and grassed over.
It is a mercifully rare, probably unique, occurrence for a sportsman to be shot dead by British troops on the field of play, so the story of Mick Hogan warrants re-telling. Indeed, just telling - it is doubtful if anybody this side of the Irish Sea without Irish antecedents has ever even heard it. Strangely, it was never included in history lessons in British schools.
Horan was born at Currasilla near Nine-Mile-House in Tipperary in 1896 into an old and much respected farming family. A talented sportsman who played for the Grangemockler GAA club, he rose quickly though the junior ranks to captain Tipperary, and like most able-bodied men in the area he joined the local volunteers to help in the underground fight to rid Ireland of the occupying British Army. Indeed, as a natural leader, he had been elected company commander of the Grangemockler Volunteers on the Friday night before the Tipperary team travelled up to Dublin by train the next day.
The Irish War of Independence (1919-21) had meant that all Gaelic sport had been banned by the occupying forces throughout 1920 but by the autumn a few inter-county matches had been allowed and Tipperary's game against Dublin - undoubtedly the two top sides of the era - had been organised hastily to raise funds for the families of those who had been imprisoned by the British. It was undeniably an overt political act during a period of extreme tension. While that does not excuse anything that followed, it does place the incident in context.
Bloody Sunday took place soon after the death of hunger striker Terence McSwiney and execution of Kevin Barry, and the Irish Republican Army were looking for revenge. Early on the morning of the match, in an operation planned by Mich
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LLCOOLJ14
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Posted: 07 February 2007 at 4:00pm | IP Logged
Anthem will signal end of 'war'
MUHAMMAD ALI and U2 have performed there, so too the Chicago Bears and Robbie Williams, not to mention Ireland's leading Gaelic sports exponents for over a century, but until this weekend no rugby team, or indeed 'soccer' team, have even been allowed inside.
It was only on April 16, 2005, that Gaelic Athletic Association (GAA) Rule 42 - which prohibits 'British' sports such as rugby and soccer from the stadium - was renounced by a 227-97 vote at the GAA annual conference.
History will be made on Sunday when rugby teams from Ireland and France run on to the pitch but the world will have positively turned on its axis on Feb 24 when the Irish Army Band belts out God Save The Queen at the site where British soldiers shot dead 14 Irish citizens in 1920.
Rugby has to take a lot of credit for this extraordinary turnaround, with the Ireland team having been a source of enormous national pride over the last five or six years. Eddie O'Sullivan's side have risen to third in the world rankings, won two Triple Crowns and played with flair and excitement rarely seen in Irish rugby before.
The prospect of Ireland going eyeballs out for the Six Nations Championship - who knows, maybe even defeating England in the process on Feb 24 - in front of a wildly patriotic 82,300-capacity Croke Park, has grown rapidly in appeal, even in diehard GAA circles. It would be both the ultimate celebration of 'Irishness' and also a timely indicator that past injustice and carnage can eventually be forgiven.
So when it became obvious that Lansdowne Road needed to be rebuilt, the Irish Rugby Football Union approached the GAA about a temporary switch to Croke Park.
"I never believed for one moment I would see it in my lifetime,'' says former Ireland fly-half Tony Ward.
"I was talking to one of the long-serving groundsmen at Croke Park last week and he said the moment the band strike up God Save The Queen before the England match will be the moment the 'war' is officially over. The move to Croke Park is full of symbolism and shows a young country maturing in front of our eyes.
"And of course it will be a sensational venue.''
(c) 2007 Telegraph Group Limited, London
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rathbaner
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Posted: 07 February 2007 at 4:07pm | IP Logged
Peace in our time.
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beir bua
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Posted: 07 February 2007 at 5:15pm | IP Logged
@@@@SPAN lang="EN-US">an email i received this morning @@@@/SPAN>
@@@@SPAN lang="EN-US">@@@@/SPAN>
"Some guy worte this into the English Times today. Surprised they published it.
Scotland weren't much better than a Guinness Premiership or Magners League team, but you can only beat what is put in front of you, and Saturday represents a very good start. Ireland may well be missing Brian O'Driscoll as well as Shane Horgan and don't have the resources in depth to overcome such losses. However neither will England have the armoured cars and machine guns they had the last time they entered Croke Park! -Frank Schnittger, Wicklow, Ireland "
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DonL
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Posted: 07 February 2007 at 5:18pm | IP Logged
beir bua wrote:
@@@@SPAN lang=EN-US>an email i received this morning @@@@/SPAN>
@@@@SPAN lang=EN-US>@@@@/SPAN>
"Some guy worte this into the English Times today. Surprised they published it.
Scotland weren't much better than a Guinness Premiership or Magners League team, but you can only beat what is put in front of you, and Saturday represents a very good start. Ireland may well be missing Brian O'Driscoll as well as Shane Horgan and don't have the resources in depth to overcome such losses. However neither will England have the armoured cars and machine guns they had the last time they entered Croke Park! -Frank Schnittger, Wicklow, Ireland "
It was on their website yesterday but was removed after about 10 minutes. Don't think it was published in hard copy though
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cornerboy
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Posted: 07 February 2007 at 5:47pm | IP Logged
Im glad to see the opening posts above.
State the history because its true, it happened and people should know about it. I guarantee there are a lot of irish that dont know that history not to mention other nationalities.
Having stated the history get on with the matchs and beat France and England in CP on the way to a Grand Slam. Enjoy it all and move on, never forgetting the history because it happened.
Its the likes of Mr Schnittger that undermines everything that has been achieved in this young country. We are now beyond that sh.t.
__________________ Anybody who sees a psychiatrist would want their head examined. &nb sp; Henry Ford
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Harry
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Posted: 07 February 2007 at 6:08pm | IP Logged
the first article fails to mention that England were the only team to come and play us back in the bad old days in 1973, their appearance was applauded as a brave and generous act in the face of the tense atmosphere in Ireland at the time. The 1972 Five Nations was incomplete because the Welsh and Scottish refused to travel to Dublin to play, following Bloody Sunday at the start of the tournament.
__________________ Frank the Tank is not coming back. OK? That part of me is over, water under the bridge.
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packie
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Posted: 07 February 2007 at 6:16pm | IP Logged
in fairness harry the article seems to be just about bloody sunday 1920,
the only mention of the other one is for the "unknowing" to be able to differenciate between the two
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Harry
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Posted: 07 February 2007 at 6:21pm | IP Logged
that's true, it's a pretty passionate article alright. The whole country is going to be up for this match. I wish I had a ticket for it.
__________________ Frank the Tank is not coming back. OK? That part of me is over, water under the bridge.
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daveirl
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Posted: 07 February 2007 at 6:29pm | IP Logged
Emm, I thought the English didn't have armored cars in Croker, I was under the impression that was one of the many 'Michael Collins' exaggerations/myths.
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Chief
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Posted: 07 February 2007 at 6:58pm | IP Logged
daveirl wrote:
Emm, I thought the English didn't have armored cars in Croker, I was under the impression that was one of the many 'Michael Collins' exaggerations/myths.
Read it again. Slower this time.
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cornerboy
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Posted: 07 February 2007 at 7:10pm | IP Logged
Chief wrote:
daveirl wrote:
Emm, I thought the English didn't have armored cars in Croker, I was under the impression that was one of the many 'Michael Collins' exaggerations/myths.
Read it again. Slower this time.
Chief, I think Daveir is referring to the armoured cars mentioned by Mr Schnittger's letter to the times.
__________________ Anybody who sees a psychiatrist would want their head examined. &nb sp; Henry Ford
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Cathal
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Posted: 07 February 2007 at 7:13pm | IP Logged
Didn't France also organise something with us to make up for the lost revenue due to our Celtic Brethren abandoning us?
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Posted: 07 February 2007 at 7:18pm | IP Logged
Cathal wrote:
Didn't France also organise something with us to make up for the lost revenue due to our Celtic Brethren abandoning us?
Yep - they played a meaningless friendly against us later that season, fair play to them.
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Clubman
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Posted: 07 February 2007 at 7:56pm | IP Logged
Is yer man one of the Schnittgers of Grangemokler or wha?
__________________ He beats his man on the outside. No. Inside. No, he goes right through him.
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Red Hand Hero
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Posted: 07 February 2007 at 8:43pm | IP Logged
True story Harry which is why it really goads me when i hear people slabbering about how terrible and arrogant the english are. If anyone seriously believes that a sporting event that incorporates both North and South protestant and catholic would be a serious target by any organisation then the english would have been the team most at "risk" yet from 1 to 15 they took the decision to come and honour the fixture, it was the players choice no one else. Showed more honour and balls than the welsh or the scots for all their celtic brothers s**te.
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poor wing forward
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Posted: 07 February 2007 at 9:20pm | IP Logged
Fair dues to Harry and Red for highlighting the visit of John Pullen and his team in 1973. One of the great Irish sporting occasions and yet ignored by many pundits. Would really like RTE to do something on it in the weeks before the visit of the English. Don't forget Michael Hogan and John Pullen. Come on Ireland.
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Combatlogo
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Posted: 08 February 2007 at 9:33am | IP Logged
Red Hand Hero wrote:
True story Harry which is why it really goads me when i hear people slabbering about how terrible and arrogant the english are. If anyone seriously believes that a sporting event that incorporates both North and South protestant and catholic would be a serious target by any organisation then the english would have been the team most at "risk" yet from 1 to 15 they took the decision to come and honour the fixture, it was the players choice no one else. Showed more honour and balls than the welsh or the scots for all their celtic brothers s**te.
Not sure it was the players, 2 England players refused to come and were never picked again. Read about the RFU secretary of the time dismissing the suggetion out of hand when he was asked if England might not travel, said somethign like "we always fulfill our fixtures, we played in dublin during the Irish Civil War".
Agree with RHH on the "Celtic shoite" - Would imagine and hope it's England who will be welcomed as the first opponents in the new Lansdowne Road.
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Boo-boo
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Posted: 08 February 2007 at 9:52am | IP Logged
We are meeting in Croke Park to play Rugby. Nothing more, nothing less, just the same usual passionate day out with a couple of pints, good friends and the high standard of sportsmanship that's always involved. It's a stadium with the same problems as always: not big enough to fit all of us in!!!!!
__________________ I got Paulied!
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Dawn Run
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Posted: 08 February 2007 at 9:54am | IP Logged
I'd actually forgotten the events of 1973 when we were really badly let down by Scotland and Wales and really well supported by England.
I was at the match and I'll never forget the welcome England got when they took the field, I'd say we clapped for at least 5 minutes, huge emotion all round and on looking back over the years of attending matches the only one that surpassed it for emotion was that game in Cardiff.
We then proceeded to win the match, which I hope we also do in 2 weeks time.
England deserve a genuinely hospitable Irish welcome when their Rugby team enters Croke Park for the FIRST time.
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LLCOOLJ14
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Posted: 08 February 2007 at 9:55am | IP Logged
THEATRE OF GREEN
RUGBY UNION | When the Ireland rugby team take to the sacred turf of Croke Park against France on Sunday it will be a historic step for the entire nation ++ Gaelic games end a century of separatism
The phrase “hallowed turf” may be a cliché but if one stadium merits the description it is Dublin’s Croke Park, as not just the home of Gaelic games but also, to many, a central repository of the spirit of Ireland.
Its centrality to the idea of Irishness has been sanctified by more than a century of strong tradition, by national feeling, and even by blood. This is historically consecrated territory, the headquarters and heart of an organ-isation once called “the soul of Ireland”. So on Sunday, when the teams running out will be not Gaelic sportsmen but rugby internationals as Ireland play France, more than 100 years of exclusiveness will be consigned to history.
It will be a proclamation that enormous underlying changes have taken place, not just in sport but in Irish culture and society, a declaration of a new national self-confidence and a willingness to modernise.
Croke Park is expected, for the next few years, to stage not just rugby but football internationals as well, throwing open its gates to what Gaelic purists once balefully frowned on as “foreign” games. Reaching this point has taken years of controversy within the GAA (Gaelic Athletic Association), with impassioned debates between those who sought to keep Croke Park sacrosanct and those prepared to share it.
The issue came to the fore because of the redevelopment of Lansdowne Road, the rugby ground where both rugby and football internationals have been played. The old place, much-loved but increasingly dilapidated, is to be completely reconstructed.
Its draft plans depict a stadium with so much transparent material that it is described as “an ephemeral addition to the skyline of Dublin”. The idea of the national teams playing their games in England, Wales or elsewhere found favour with no one, so attention focused on Croke Park, a world-class stadium.
While an outsider might regard this as little more than commonsense, the idea instantly generated much soul-searching. Games such as Gaelic football and hurling had, after all, come into being as both an affirmation of Irishness and an assertion of separateness from Britain.
This sense of independence was overlaid with a feeling of sacrifice and victimhood when, during a violent sequence of events in 1920, British forces, including perhaps the notorious “Black and Tans”, opened fire on the crowd at Croke Park.
On what became known as Bloody Sunday – 21 November – 13 civilians were killed, including a player, Michael Hogan, whose name is commemorated to this day in the Hogan Stand.
But although such episodes remain lodged in the famously retentive Irish nationalist memory, the debate on opening Croke Park featured little or no anti-British sentiment.
It centred not on continuing enmity with any ancient foe, but on what was best for the GAA in an increasingly competitive world: the focus was very much on sporting rather than national rivalries. The old days, when GAA people were forbidden to have anything to with “foreign games”, are long gone.
Today, Gaelic games are hugely popular, as respondents to one recent survey in Ireland illustrated: in a 12-month period 57 per cent said that they had attended a GAA game, 16 per cent had gone to a footba
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LLCOOLJ14
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Posted: 08 February 2007 at 9:57am | IP Logged
ABOUT RUGBY Will English fans wear the green?
MIKE REARDON from Orpington in Kent - who describes himself as Irish by name but fourth-generation English - writes with a thoughtful suggestion regarding the game between Ireland and England on Feb 24.
Reardon has been invited to attend the match - lucky dog - and having read various articles on Croke Park was shocked to discover the truth about Bloody Sunday and the events of Nov 21, 1920.
"Can you, through your column,'' he asks "acknowledge what is a momentous decision on the part of the Gaelic Athletic Association and Croke Park and encourage the England fans on this special occasion to wear a green ribbon.''
Any takers? The occasion certainly seems to demand some gesture from the tens of thousands of England fans who have enjoyed their Dublin weekends for so many years. The Rugby Football Union and England usually show a fine sensitivity in such matters - remember their famous determination to support Ireland and defy the IRA bomb threats in 1973? - so perhaps they will choose to take the lead.
(c) 2007 Telegraph Group Limited, London
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LLCOOLJ14
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Posted: 08 February 2007 at 9:58am | IP Logged
Six Nations Countdown
The Dineen/Hill 16 Terrace: You may have heard Hill 16 was named after rubble from the GPO (shelled during the 1916 Easter Rising) was used to construct a grassy hill at the railway end of Croke Park.
But this area was renamed last year to honour Frank Dineen, the only man to serve as GAA president (1895-189 and general secretary (1898-1901).
Educated at Rockwell College, Dineen was a distinguished athlete in the 1880s and journalist thereafter. He was also a prominent member of the Land League and the IRB.
He purchased Croke Park in 1908 (largely with the proceeds from the sale of his family pub, still standing in Ballylanders, Co Limerick, and now known as McDermott's). He sold the 14-acre site partly to the GAA and partly to the Jesuits from Belvedere College in 1913, making no profit from this transaction.
Dineen died on the Tuesday of the Easter Rising, aged just 54, but not before he succeeded in yet another task that secured Croke Park's legacy. The British government was crippling the GAA with taxes so Dineen led a delegation to London and persuaded the chancellor of the exchequer, one Reginald McKenna, to ease the financial burden.
He returned to Dublin on Good Friday and reported the news to GAA president James Nowlan before falling ill and being taken to St Vincent's hospital, where he died four days later.
The Dineen/Hill 16 terrace now holds 13,000. Don't mention the war
England don't arrive for another two weeks but the jibes about Bloody Sunday and 700 years of oppression have begun in earnest, one bookmaker even offering odds on a 19-16 win.
The following comment was posted, from Ireland, it seems, on the London Times website:
"Scotland weren't much better than a Guinness Premiership or Magners League team, but you can only beat what is put in front of you, and Saturday represents a very good start. Ireland may well be missing Brian O'Driscoll as well as Shane Horgan and don't have the resources in depth to overcome such losses. However, neither will England have the armoured cars and machine guns they had the last time they entered Croke Park!"
The comment soon disappeared off the website. We wonder why.
Uniformly impressive
Army captain David Lavin will lead the Irish Defence Forces into battle against their French counterparts at the Curragh Camp rugby ground tomorrow (kick-off 2.30pm).
Lavin has an impressive pedigree: he captains Lansdowne RFC and was a team-mate of Brian O'Driscoll on the 1997 Blackrock College Senior Cup team.
Lavin, the go-to guy for lineouts, unfortunately missed the Leinster Schools Cup semi-final against Clongowes Wood after suffering a burst appendix just days before. Blackrock lost 16-14.
Other AIL players featuring in the traditional forces international include Galwegians' Lt Denis O'Brien and Terenure's Lt Conor Connolly.
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LLCOOLJ14
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Posted: 08 February 2007 at 10:01am | IP Logged
Croke Park embraces 'foreign' guests with old reservations: Rugby's debut at the GAA's home has sold out but some still see it as heresy, writes Lawrence Donegan
It is the one they have all been waiting for, at least in Michael Greenan's household -at 1pm this Sunday, at Cusack Park, Mullingar, it is Loughrea versus Cushendall in the semi-final of the all-Ireland senior club hurling championship. "That's where I'll be. Why would I want to be anywhere else?" says the vice-president of the Gaelic Athletic Association.
If it was possible to detect a note of defiance in Greenan's voice, then it was just as easy to understand why he might be on the defensive over his choice of event on what will be a momentous weekend for Irish sport. While he and the hurling fans of Loughrea and Cushendall will be making their way home from Mullingar after Sunday's match, the rest of the country will be turning their attention to events at Croke Park in Dublin, home of the GAA, where Ireland take on France in the Six Nations. The continuing renovation of Lansdowne Road means that England will also visit Croke this month.
The matches are of great importance to Ireland's hopes of establishing themselves as the best team in the northern hemisphere in the run-up to the World Cup but are of ever more profound significance for the GAA and the cultural history of Ireland. When Eddie O'Sullivan's and Bernard Laporte's men walk out in front the 82,000 crowd on Sunday their presence on the Croke Park pitch will mark the end of the GAA's Rule 42, which has banned the playing of "foreign" sports on GAA pitches for over a century. "We're excited but nervous too, because we don't know what kind of response we'll get," says O'Sullivan about the prospect.
The large majority of O'Sullivan's countrymen share his excitement - tickets for Sunday's match sold out months ago - but there are some who believe that allowing rugby to be played at GAA headquarters is a betrayal of everything the organisation stands for and a dangerous precedent which may threaten the future of Ireland's indigenous games, Gaelic football and hurling.
"Say you were Tesco and Sainbury's couldn't open for some reason and they came to you and said, 'Can we sell our groceries at your shop?' You would tell them to get lost, of course you would," argues Greenan. "The GAA should have said the same to rugby."
Supermarket metaphors don't often find their way into sporting debates but then cultural politics and sport are seldom as intertwined as they are in Ireland. When the GAA was established in 1884 its principal aim was to promote Irish sports. But its founder, Michael Cusack, also wanted it to be a bulwark against the anglicisation of Irish society.
"Cusack was a fervent nationalist and promoter of Irish culture, and that came through in the way the GAA operated. Only Irish music could be played at GAA functions, GAA teams could only wear strips that were manufactured by Irish companies and no 'foreign' sports were played on GAA pitches," explains Marcus de Burca, who wrote the official history of the association in 1980. "For their part the British saw the GAA as an extremely dangerous political organisation."
The GAA's enmity to all things British was intensified when British soldiers killed 13 people at a Gaelic football match at Croke Park in 1920. Cusack's stipulations remained intact until 1971, when the GAA decided to rescind its ban on its players taking part in "foreign" sport. Mick Galwey, who won an all-Ireland Gaelic football medal with Kerry in 1986 and went on to captain the Irish rugby team, is the most famous example of a playe
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