Tales of Tullow's games of the Gael
Two of the Carlow stars of yesteryear in Willie Cullen and Paddy Quirke combining for a goal as well as a background which older readers will remember as very definitely Tullow
“Places We Play” and “A Place to Play” are two books with very similar titles, the first compiled by Roisin Higgins and Mike Cronin exploring the history of Ireland’s sporting venues, all codes, the second by Humphrey Kelleher an absorbing deep-dive into stories surrounding the main GAA pitches in all 32 counties.
Your scribe happened to meet Roisin Higgins by chance in the research rooms of Carlow Library in the spring of 2009 when she was delving into the sporting heritage of our little county and had struck up a conversation with the late John Browne who was conducting research of his own. The Bennekerry schoolteacher introduced me to the Boston College historian who in her lilting Northern accent explained the tenor of her mission, telling the tales of, as she so beautifully put it, “the people who carved a special place for a loved sport.” Roisín enlightened us to the fact that a lot of sporting venues all over the country owed their location to the fact that they were near Railway Stations, this including Carlow Golf Club whose original site at Gotham near Maganey was served by Maganey and Carlow stations in the the 1900s with the Great Southern and Western Railway offering special fares for golfers.
I can clearly remember her surprise when I informed her that in 1974 Carlow had only four proper GAA venues. This will come as a surprise to younger readers too who have been reared on a diet of home-and-away fixtures at juvenile level as now, thankfully, virtually every club in the county has a home of their own.
But back in 1974 we had but four enclosed venues with ‘proper’ dressing rooms and grass banking to house spectators. The four? Dr Cullen Park of course, the County Grounds in the County Town. Going to school back then you learned the three main towns in every county and for Carlow the three were Carlow Town, Tullow and Bagenalstown. Not surprisingly, then, two of the other three venues had urban settings, Bro Leo Park in Tullow and McGrath Park in Bagenalstown. As McGrath Park, though, was not then vested in the GAA it could not be one of the three designated county grounds, the third spot then going to Spellman Park, Kildavin and it was there that the Carlow hurlers clinched the 1973-’74 NHL Division II title with wins over Meath and Louth. The reason the scenic Kildavin venue bears the name of Cardinal Spellman is a story for another day as is the tale concerning the McGrath Trust which bequeathed Bagenalstown several sporting venues, a town hall as well as a marriage dowry to eligible ladies of the ‘Town’!
The tales we are concerned with today are the tales of the Tullow Gaels or, more accurately, the tales of the games Carlow’s flagship footballers have played in the Slaneyside town’s Bro Leo Park. To-morrow evening at 7.30pm Carlow’s footballers host Wexford in Round 2 of the O’Byrne Cup at the home of St Patrick’s GAA Club and below we trace the previous five games played at the venue named after Bro Leo Denis Slattery, a n ative of Ballymackey, Co Tipperary, who taught as a Patrician Brother in Tullow for 12 years and was responsible for promoting gaelic games among the youth of the town as well as being instrumental in purchasing the field which officially was named in his honour in April 1966.
Thursday, September 1: Wexford 1-9, Carlow 1-6.
“At 7.20pm the clouds overhead were heavy. Much rain had fallen and a forecaster would have said weather prospects were very poor,” was how the ‘New Ross Standard’ opened their report on this mid-week replay, adding, “that too would have summed up the prospects of the Wexford senior footballers in this replay, for out on the playing field were fifteen Carlow players, a full quota of subs, the referee, Seamus Aldridge (Kildare), but only thirteen Wexford players.” A blast on the referee’s whistle and he threw in the ball and Carlow playing with the breeze had all the advantages. However Wexford got a 14th man on the the field early in proceedings, a 15th by the 8th minute with two more late recruits togged as subs. By games end the visitors had fashioned a three point victory.
Carlow: Joe Nolan (Tullow); Tom Donohue (Kilbride), Eamon Fitzpatrick, PJ Brennan (Éire Óg; Peter Roberts (Kildavin), Sean Nolan (Tullow), Joe O’Gorman (Tinryland); Genie Kelly (Éire Óg), Pat McNally (Ballinabranna) 0-1; Tom Purcell (Clonmore), Sean King (Éire Óg), Pat King (Éire Óg); Barney Ffrench (Éire Óg), Brendan Hayden (Tinryland) 0-5 3f, Ber Hennessy (Éire Óg) 1-0. Subs: None recorded
Sunday, October 23, 1977, Carlow 4-7, Kilkenny 1-6 Kilkenny had beaten Carlow in the O’Byrne Cup in February so this might not have been as routine as appears from a distance of half-a-century. Willie Cullen was the home county’s top scorer with 1-4 while the black and amber’s main marksman with 1-1 was Mick ‘Cloney’ Brennan, an All-Ireland winning hurler who, like Cullen, also could locate the posts with the small ball.
Carlow: Sean Moloney (Éire Óg); Richie Moore (Éire Óg), George Darcy (St Andrew's), Frankie Donnelly (Clonmore); Liam Foster (Tinryland), Tom Begley (Éire Óg), Cyril Hughes (St Andrew's) 0-1; Tom Geoghegan (Éire Óg), Charlie Byrne (Kildavin); Paddy Kavanagh (St Andrew's), Paddy Quirke (Naomh Eoin) 1-2, Mick Moore (Éire Óg) 1-0; Peter Cleere (Ballinabranna) 1-0, Willie Cullen (Palatine) 1-4 0-2f, Paks Connolly (Éire Óg)
Wednesday, May 2 1979, Carlow 0-11, Wicklow 0-8 While Willie Cullen was again top scorer, this time with a half-dozen white flags, the stand out feature of this game was the fact that it was refereed by Carlow selector Vinny Harvey after the appointed official (K Byrne of Laois) failed to appear. Weather was again a topic in the match report – what is it with Tullow and Carlow Weather?! – as we read in this newspapers’ review of the game “matters were not helped by the bitterly cold conditions which gave lie to the fact the game was played on the second day of Summer. The game was over an hour late in starting and the final ten minutes were played in near darkness.” We dare day that Vinny Harvey is the only man to have played with and refereed Carlow in a competitive senior football fixture.
Carlow: Andy Ellis (Éire Óg); Eamon Fitzpatrick (Éire Óg), Paddy Browne (Grange), Richie Moore (Éire Óg); Mick Mannion (Tinryland), Paddy Quirke (Naomh Eoin) 0-1; Francis Fitzpatrick (O'Hanrahan's); Noel Bambrick (Old Leighlin), Charlie Byrne (Kildavin) 0-1; Mick Moore (Éire Óg) 0-1; Paddy Kavanagh (St Andrew's) 0-1; Tom Geoghegan (Éire Óg); Paul Dooley (Palatine), Willie Cullen (Palatine) 0-6 0-2f; David Byrne (Tinryland) 0-1. Subs: Joe Walshe (Tinryland), Liam Foster (Tinryland) 1981-82 NFL DIVISION 4: Sunday, February 21, ’82, Carlow 2-8, Longford 1-10.
Longford travelled on a high, requiring a point to clinch promotion. Also-rans Carlow found themselves fielding a makeshift team when no fewer than 10 of the panel failed didn’t turn up. However those who did don the red, yellow and green produced a gutsy performance that fashioned a shock victory with Charlie Keegan’s ‘Nationalist’ report revealing “Stand-in full-forward Eddie Byrne took charge of the game an turned it around sensationally. His burly frame proved too much for the Longford defence as twice in four minutes he steam-rolled through for two very well-taken goals which he supplemented with a point from play which could just as easuly have brought him a third goal.” Carlow: John McNally (Leighlinbridge); Mick Doyle (St Andrew's), Richie Moore (Éire Óg), Paudge Lynn (Éire Óg); Noel Molloy (Rathvilly) 0-1, Liam Foster (Tinryland), Cyril Hughes (St Andrew's); Liam Cleere (Rathvilly) 0-2, Paddy Quirke (Naomh Eoin), Kevin Tallon (Clonmore) 0-1, Turlough O'Brien (Éire Óg), John Owens (Éire Óg) 0-2; Luke Kelly (Rathanna) 0-1, Eddie Byrne (Ballymurphy) 2-1, Eamon Farrell (Éire Óg), Subs: Ned Kavanagh (Naomh Eoin) Anthony Curry (Naomh Eoin)
Sunday, January 16, UCD 0-13, Carlow 0-10. “One UCD player was very confused on Sunday,” reported Terry Reilly in ‘The Nationalist, going on to explain that “after catching a ball and turning to find a spare man Tinryland’s Shane Redmond had to check himself from passing to a Carlow jersey. With Kildavin-Clonegal’s Daniel St Ledger standing beside UCD players (he was injured) the duo were in the unusual position of manning up against their county.
“It was a bit strange to be honest,” said Redmond. “I was in training with them on Tuesday night and there were plenty of digs going in. I suppose it doesn’t happen too often that you’d be training with the lads you’d be playing against at the weekend.”
Carlow: Trevor O’Reilly (Tinryland); Kieran Nolan (Fighting Cocks), Paul McElligott (Éire Óg), Barry John Molloy (Rathvilly); Eoin Nolan (Kilbride), Benny Kavanagh (Éire Óg), Gary Nolan (Fighting Cocks); Darragh Foley (Kilbride) 0-1 9. JJ Smith (Rathvilly) 0-6 5f; Ed Finnegan (Rathvilly), Sean Gannon (Éire Óg); Davy Bambrick (Old Leighlin) 0-1, Kieran Pender (Grange), Thomas Walshe (Fenagh) 0-1, Cormac Mullins (Éire Óg). Subs: Eoghan Ruth (Éire Óg) for Bambrick, Alan Kelly (Rathvilly?) for Finnegan Murtough Ware (Éire Óg) 0-1 for Gannon, Aidan Murphy (Palatine) for K Nolan
Tomorrow evening’s game will actually bring the number of competitive inter-county senior football games Carlow have played in Tullow into double figures for as well as those five games in Bro Leo Park there were four other games played on the banks of the Slaney, namely the 1920 Leinster SFC first round when the home county beat Wicklow 3-2 to 1-7 (Barney Hennessy the star), the 1928-29 Midland League play-off when Carlow again b eat Wicklow 4-3 to 0-3 (Bill Doyle of Borris to the fore), a 1935-’36 Leinster League tie that Wicklow won 1-2 to 0-2 and finally a 1-8 to 1-4 victory over Waterford in the 1949-50 NFL.
