Kelly launches new GAA book
Tom Ryan (Ard Stiúrthóir of Cumann Lúthchleas Gael), John Kelly and Tommy Fitzharris (Chairman of Palatine GAA Club) at John's book launch
A book written by Palatine GAA member, John Kelly, has reached number three in the Irish best-sellers list for the category of hardback non-fiction.
The GAA Covered encapsulates the collection of All-Ireland and provincial match programmes going back decades.
While John doesn’t have all the match programmes he has travelled the length and breadth of Ireland talking to collectors where he scanned and photographed the programmes. These were then compiled and presented to Gill Books who put the project into book form.
The work is over 400 pages long and includes a vast array of photographs of the covers of match day programmes. It was a labour of love and one which the author applied himself diligently.
“The idea was to see what a complete collection of All-Ireland final programmes would look like. Going back to a certain date it was hard to find out whether certain programmes existed at all. It was interesting to see what, if they were compiled, what would they look like,” explained the author, who has an explanatory wording for every year that there is a programme for.
He certainly hit a chord with programme collectors and at the Book Launch in Palatine GAA club in the beginning of September, collectors from all over the country mingled with a large Carlow GAA following.
“I have been collecting since I was a child. Putting the book together took the best part of a year. I had most of the programmes going back to 1970. Then I had to go source the rest of them from all over the country. From Armagh to Kerry. Mayo to Wexford” said John.
“The real top-end guys are very serious collectors. I got introduced to one of them and he got the ball rolling. I was able to get going with the rest of the collectors,” explained John.
His search brought him back as far as the mid-forties with football and the early fifties in hurling. Going back further John found the programmes hard to find.
If there is an iconic programme then it is to be the 1931 hurling final which took three games before Cork beat Kilkenny while the 1939 Thunder and Lightning Hurling final between the same teams saw Kilkenny emerge triumphant.
“I think the ones from the 1930s were hard to get. The 1931 final was the only time an All-Ireland went to a second replay. Only one person in Ireland has all three programmes. The 1939 one is an amazing programme to get too because it was held on the day of the outbreak of World War Two."
By the time John had finished the initial work he had over 850 scans and 25000 words. He handed it over to a number of publishers and Gill Books were the first to come back to him.
“They put it into a readable lay-out which wasn’t easy to do. All the research was done by me,” explained John who is delighted with the response to his work.
“The first week went very well. It came in at number three. It is great for a hardback non-fiction. A great turnout at the launch too. I was delighted with that.”
