Brothers in Sport

by Donal Keenan

  The game has changed, even during the years that Alan has played for Dublin. The commitment alone in today’s game is extraordinary. Bernard points out that an inter-county footballer or hurler today needs an understanding employer who is prepared to be lenient or at least flexible in terms of hours. Coaching has changed. Alan explains: ‘The top coaches have sought knowledge from other codes and brought new thinking into the game.’ He is not enamoured with the amount of handpassing in football, which he believes detracts from the game. But he has no complaints about the amount of time that he must commit to playing football at inter-county level. The sacrifices are worth making.

  Media commitments have grown, especially as part of the Dublin team. They have been engulfed from time to time in controversy. Alan was suspended as a result of brawling during a League game in Omagh. Bernard was cited after similar incidents against Meath in Parnell Park. But there have been good days as well. They are both connected to sports gear company Adidas. Alan has made a video with the company in which he coaches soccer players Ashley Young, Jermaine Dafoe and Roman Pavlyuchenko in the skills of Gaelic football.

  They have also both become followers of the Leinster rugby team and socialise from time to time with some of the players. Jonathan Sexton has publicly credited Bernard for giving him invaluable advice about kicking in Croke Park, especially into the Hill 16 end, prior to Ireland’s famous victory over world champions South Africa at the end of 2009. Comparing schedules, the football and rugby players agree that the only major difference between them is that the rugby players get paid for what they do.

  Bernard says: ‘It would be great to be a professional, of course it would. Imagine being able to get up in the morning and the only thing on your mind is to train for your sport, to go out on the field and kick a ball around for a few hours. Who wouldn’t want to do that? But it won’t happen in our time. You only have to look at other professional sports in Ireland. The top teams in soccer are bankrupt. The GAA couldn’t support a professional sport. Rugby has managed it but they have had their difficulties.’

  Alan adds: ‘I would love it [to be a professional] but we have to be realistic. I don’t know the numbers, but it is unlikely that the GAA could sustain a professional game. All we ask as players is to be properly looked after. Take the current climate. It is important that the GAA doesn’t turn a blind eye to what is happening and to the problems facing lots of players around the country. The GAA needs to work in conjunction with the GPA, with the County Boards and with the players to ensure that players are being looked after. Professionalism won’t happen in my time. In rugby the top guys are looked after, but it has affected the club game hugely. When I was growing up you knew all about Cork Con and Dolphin and those clubs. Now you don’t hear about them at all because all the top players are with the provinces. On the other hand rugby is now a real competitor to the GAA.’

  Another Championship season looms as we part. Dublin’s long wait for another All-Ireland title continues. Alan has won everything else. ‘But I make no secret of the fact that I want to win an All-Ireland, but it is not easy. If you were to ask if I ended up finishing my career without having won an All-Ireland will it be a regret; well it won’t live with me for the rest of my days, put it that way. If we win one it would be great but if we don’t when I retire I will be happy with what I have.’

  Dublin’s dream of All-Ireland glory ended agonisingly in 2010 following an injury-time loss to Cork in the semi-final. But Bernard Brogan’s compelling brilliance throughout the campaign and Alan’s mature leadership were the significant parts of a team-building process that could yet bring Dublin to the Promised Land. The dream lives.

  The Departed

  Mick and John Mackey

  In the timeless and never-ending debate that occupies the thoughts of generations of hurling followers all over Ireland about the greatest hurler of them all, the name of Mick Mackey is one of the first mentioned. But in his lifetime the genial legend often pointed out that during the great years of the 1930s, when Limerick were one of the major powers of hurling, it was his brother John who often produced the brilliant individual moments that helped Limerick win all the major titles.

  Together the Mackey brothers from Ahane, sons of ‘Tyler’ Mackey who had been a Limerick hurling hero in the early years of the century, would spend the best part of two decades hurling together through the fields of Limerick, Munster and Ireland and create records that are hard to imagine today.

  They first played together formally for Ahane as minors in 1929. From that day until the end of 1948 the Mackeys won fifteen Limerick senior hurling titles together; they also won five Limerick senior football titles. They shared in three All-Ireland successes with Limerick in 1934, 1936 and 1940, as well as five Munster Championships. They won five consecutive National League titles between 1934 and 1938, John adding a sixth title to his list of achievements in 1947.

  Mick Mackey’s senior career with Limerick began in somewhat bizarre circumstances. He had made the short journey to the Gaelic Grounds on the Ennis Road on 16 November 1930 intending to be a spectator at the National League game between Limerick and Kilkenny. The home team were short players and persuaded Mackey to play. The emergency role was short-lived and the eighteen-year-old was not required again until his form for Ahane during their first Limerick Championship success in 1931 convinced the selectors he was ready for a more permanent stint.

  He made his debut in the 1932 Munster Championship and his display against reigning All-Ireland champions Cork in the provincial semi-final attracted national notice. Cork won that game, but a new star was on the horizon. John was selected at midfield for the National League and Limerick reached the final in 1933 when they lost to Kilkenny. But the Limerick bandwagon was rolling. Thousands attended their training sessions; they won the Munster final against Waterford in the committee rooms after a crowd invasion of the pitch when Limerick comfortably led Waterford. In the All-Ireland final they lost by two points to Kilkenny. Success was just around the corner.

  John Mackey produced one of his great performances as Limerick won the National League in 1934. Limerick beat Cork, Waterford and Galway on their way to another All-Ireland final where they met Dublin. When the match ended in a draw Limerick believed they needed something extra for the replay. They recruited the renowned Cork trainer Jim Barry. John was named man of the match as the Mackey brothers won their first All-Ireland senior medals in the GAA’s jubilee year.

  Mick was captain for the 1936 Championship. He scored an astonishing five goals and three points in the Munster final against Tipperary as Limerick won by 8–5 to 4–6. They had thirteen points to spare over Kilkenny in the All-Ireland final. The years that followed brought epic clashes with Kilkenny, Tipperary and Cork. Limerick and the Mackey brothers won their third All-Ireland title in 1940. The great Cork team of the 1940s, with Christy Ring challenging Mick for the title of the greatest hurler, ended Limerick’s Championship-winning hopes, but some of the battles between them are recorded in the sport’s history books as outstanding displays of hurling.

  Mick Mackey’s personality contributed to his popularity. He loved people and made friends easily. Fame never affected him. He enjoyed nothing more than mingling with supporters after a match, soaking up the atmosphere and talking about the game. Distinguished journalist Raymond Smith wrote about his impact on Ireland and on hurling followers. ‘He broke all the accepted barriers of what seemed possible on the field of play. He made men dream dreams in an era when television had not yet arrived in Irish homes and there were no international standards by which to judge in sport; and what spectators saw before them on the field of battle or conjured up in the mind’s eye as they listened to a radio commentary by Micheál O’Hehir sufficed to give a depth of satisfaction that young television addicts cannot comprehend today. He was a god to those who worshipped at the shrine of his greatness.

  ‘Mackey rampaging through the centre on a defence-splitting solo run, culminat
ing in the green or white flag waving at the town end or the Killinan end in Thurles represented the fulfilment of the secret ambitions of the poor, of all who knew they would never climb to the top of the table in life itself.’

  Tom and John Joe O’Reilly

  In modern football lore the most famous goal ever scored is that which deprived Kerry of five All-Ireland Championships in a row in 1982. But half a century earlier the Kingdom was similarly deprived of five consecutive titles by a last-minute goal. It happened in the 1933 All-Ireland semi-final against a Cavan team for whom a youthful Tom O’Reilly from Cornafean was enjoying his first Championship season. And it was the start of a golden era for Cavan football during which ‘Big’ Tom would be joined by his brother John Joe as Cavan embarked on a wonderful journey that would eventually lead to the Polo Grounds final of 1947.

  Tom O’Reilly was just eighteen years old when the Cavan selectors decided he was ready for the demands of Senior Championship football in 1933. Kerry were the dominant force and the general expectation was that they would remain on course for another All-Ireland success when they travelled to Cavan for the semi-final. The teams were level as the game entered the final minute when Vincent McGovern punched a goal to give Cavan a 1–5 to 0–5 victory.

  It was the catalyst for a decade and a half of football achievement. Tom was centre half back on the team that won the county’s first ever senior title when beating Galway in the final. He won his second All-Ireland two years later and by 1937 had been joined on the Cavan team by his younger brother John Joe. For the next ten years they would line out alongside each other for Cavan. Tom was captain from 1937 to 1945 during which they lost three All-Ireland finals, including a replay against Roscommon in 1943. He was still a squad member when John Joe was the captain and inspired the county’s All-Ireland success in 1947.

  In his book The Football Immortals, first published in 1968, Raymond Smith put into context the O’Reillys’ place in football history. ‘The O’Reillys were to Cavan football what the Mackeys were to Limerick hurling and the Rackards to Wexford. Seven brothers, Michael, Brian, Tom, John Joe, Vincent, Frank and Séamus, and four of them wore the county colours in senior grade, John Joe becoming a legend in his lifetime. He had about him that mystique that developed around the name of Bobby Rackard after the 1954 All-Ireland final, but it rested not only on individual performance on the field of play but on the qualities of the man – qualities like complete sportsmanship, an ability to inspire and bring out of others the very best that they could give and a style of play that had its lustre in defeat as much as in victory.

  ‘All these and more he had and gave to Cavan and it is not surprising then that Joe Stafford, Mick Higgins and the others should first talk about his abilities as a leader before they talked about his prowess as a centre back. I unhesitatingly pick John Joe O’Reilly as my ideal of the great footballing captain.’

  Cavan enjoyed an astonishing period of dominance in Ulster. Between 1931 and 1949 they won seventeen of the nineteen provincial Senior Championships, the exceptions being Monaghan’s success in 1938 and Antrim’s win in 1946, and the O’Reilly brothers were involved in fifteen of those successes. In that time Tom won nine Cavan Championship titles with Cornafean and was captain on seven of those occasions. John Joe had joined the Defence Forces in 1937, which meant he had to leave Cornafean and play his club football with the Curragh. The brothers shared success together on the Ulster teams of 1942 and 1943 in the Railway Cup, then a fiercely contested event.

  John Joe’s status as one of the greatest ever centre half backs was constructed gradually in the period up to 1947. Events that year would add to the legend, none more so than the staging of the All-Ireland football final in the Polo Grounds in New York. The idea was hatched by Kerry exile John ‘Kerry’ O’Donnell and Canon Michael Hamilton, the man who eloquently proposed to the GAA’s annual congress that year that the final be played in New York as a gesture of support for the GAA in the United States.

  In his account of the events of 1947, published fifty years later, the late Mick Dunne, who had covered Gaelic games for half a century with the Irish Press and RTÉ, reproduced some of Canon Hamilton’s rhetoric which convinced the GAA that it was a good idea. ‘Another reason for our motion,’ the Canon said to delegates at congress, ‘is more sentimental but no less cogent – it is to give many thousands of our exiled brethren – who could otherwise never hope to see one – the thrill and joy and exaltation of an All-Ireland final. I could not attempt to express what an All-Ireland would mean to our exiles. There are hundreds and thousands of them awaiting the decision of congress and if that decision is in their favour there will be a wave of joy and happiness in the homes of our exiles not merely in New York, but north to Chicago, south to Florida and west 3,000 miles to San Francisco.’

  It got even more colourful. ‘This is the year 1947, the centenary of that dark and dismal period, when hunted by the spectre of famine and pestilence, the great exodus of our people found a friendly welcome and warm hospitality on America’s shores. The enemies of Ireland boasted that the Celt was going – going with a vengeance – and they gloated over the prediction that the time was coming when an Irishman would be as rare in Ireland as a Red Indian on the shores of Manhattan. We need no vindication from that wishful thinking but by sending out the best of our athletes, the flower of our manhood, to contest the All-Ireland in New York, we give a magnificent demonstration of the unbroken historical continuity and the insuppressible [sic] tenacity of our race.’ Such tugging at the heartstrings kept the proposal alive. Eventually, a week later the GAA’s Central Council agreed by twenty votes to seventeen to allow the football final to be played at the Polo Grounds.

  Cavan encountered some resistance from Monaghan in the Ulster Championship before winning in a replay. They comfortably beat Tyrone and then Antrim to qualify for an All-Ireland semi-final against their great rivals, Roscommon. A record crowd of 60,075 attended the game and saw Cavan enjoy a narrow win by 2–4 to 0–6. The journey to America by boat and air was immediately planned. The final itself against Kerry was almost overshadowed by the pageantry involving visits to the mayor of New York and to St Patrick’s cathedral.

  The game started badly for Cavan and after just fifteen minutes they trailed by 0–1 to 2–2. But then John Joe’s leadership came into focus. He rallied his team-mates and slowly they began chipping away at the lead. By half time they led by 2–5 to 2–4 and at full-time Cavan were the champions by 2–11 to 2–7. A year later John Joe joined an elite band of men who were presented with the Sam Maguire Cup on two occasions, when Cavan retained the title by beating Mayo. He was also captain in 1949 when Cavan lost to Meath.

  Hailed ‘The Gallant John Joe’, he was celebrated in song and there was shock not just in Cavan, but all over Ireland and indeed in the United States, when it was announced by the Defence Forces on 21 November 1952 that John Joe O’Reilly had passed away after an illness. He was named in 1999 as centre half back on the GAA’s Team of the Millennium. ‘Big’ Tom entered politics towards the end of his playing career before concentrating on business. He died in 1995.

  Jimmy and Phelim Murray

  It was very late in the evening on Saturday 23 September 2006 as a cavalcade made its way from Athlone to Roscommon. The lead vehicle was the bus carrying the victorious Roscommon minor football team from the scene of their All-Ireland final triumph after a replay against Kerry played in Ennis. Friends and family were ahead of them in the company of over 10,000 supporters awaiting their arrival in Roscommon’s town square. But the loved ones and the others would have to wait just a little longer. There was one stop they had to make, one that would provide them with the final crowning glory. They were bringing the cup home to Jimmy Murray, known to generations of Roscommon people simply as Jamesie.

  A little frail at the age of eighty-nine, he hadn’t been able to attend the game. But he had watched on television and the light in his eyes shone brightly. He didn’t expect t
hem to call. Jamesie was too humble for such notions. But no one else doubted that the visit would take place. It didn’t have to be planned. It was just done.

  Local lad Michael Miley, Roscommon’s goalkeeper that day, and team manager Fergal O’Donnell, a native of nearby Roscommon town, brought the cup to Jamesie. Tears of joy were shed. After years of frustration and often despair shared by all Roscommon supporters, Jamesie Murray had reason to celebrate. And his smile was more valuable than any trophy.

  Knockcroghery isn’t much bigger now than it was in the second decade of the twentieth century. Murray’s public house and grocery was at the centre of the village having been opened by John and Susan in 1915. Two years later the first of their ten children was born. They named him James. Everybody knew him as Jamesie. Their fifth child and third son was Phelim. Together they would help create a special part of Gaelic football’s history in what is recalled today in the village and county as ‘the glorious forties’.

  There were hints of what was to come for Roscommon and the Murrays at the end of the 1930s and early 1940s. Roscommon won the All-Ireland Minor Championship in 1939 and Phelim was a member of the squad. The county team was regraded to junior status, however, and they won the All-Ireland Junior Championship in 1940 with Jamesie playing at midfield alongside Éamon Boland. Phelim was a substitute. They were beaten by Galway in the 1941 and 1942 Connacht finals before they made the big breakthrough in 1943. For the first time since 1914 they won the Connacht title. They beat Louth in the All-Ireland semi-final and prepared to meet Cavan in their first ever final. Phelim started at right half forward with Jamesie in his now customary position at centre half forward and team captain.

  Jamesie described the occasion of the final to the broad-caster and author Brian Carthy in his book Football Captains: ‘As a young fellow in our own back yard I had imagined leading the parade. I loved looking at newspapers on a Monday morning after a final just to see a photograph of the parade. I always thought it would be wonderful to march behind the band at Croke Park. Now I was doing it and better still I was captain of the Roscommon team in their first ever All-Ireland. It was a great feeling. Then other thoughts crossed my mind and I wished I was away from the pitch and sitting in the stand. I looked up at Micheál O’Hehir in the commentary box and I imagined he was saying something like “here comes Roscommon led by the fair-haired Jimmy Murray”. It brought my mind back to my native village, Knockcroghery, and I tried to envisage what my father and mother were doing. I knew my mother would be praying and I could imagine all the crowd in the kitchen listening to the radio and I said to myself “we have to do something for those people”. It made me feel good and fierce determined to do or die for the sake of Knockcroghery more than anything else. I had a great village feeling.’