The power of Myshall Camogie
The Myshall senior camogie team
“I want you to close your eyes, go back in time, recall your earliest camogie memory.”
That was the unusual request made my the guest speaker at Myshall Camogie Club’s celebration of a quarter of a century of championship dominance.
“It can be a good or bad memory, it might be the day the senior team arrived to your primary school with the cup, it might be your first match, it might be the a day you were left off the team, or taken off, or came on and scored the winning goal.”
The guest speaker revealed that this idea came from a book published many years ago by a National School in Leitrim after the pupils had contacted local celebrities for their biggest childhood thrill, their biggest childhood disappointment. In that book Packy McGarty, a Leitrim all-time great, a Railway Cup star, picked his Mohill National School team winning the 1946 county seven-a-side as his biggest disappointment. Yes, disappointment. Packy, like all his teammates, was looking forward to receiving his first medal. But excitement turned to disappointment when the ‘medal’ turned out to be a half-crown, even though a half-crown represented a day’s wage at the time.
“Yes, medals are very special,” the guest speaker admitted, “and all of ye here tonight have won a host of medals and rightly treasure each and every one them but the biggest gift of all, something you will have win, lose or draw is the gift that when you were first handed a hurl as a child it sparked in you a passion that you will have for the rest of your lives.”
The guest speaker - who happened to be the driver of the Morris Minor above! - then did a little number crunching. The current 25-in-a-row {the last time Myshall were beaten in a county final was 1999!) was preceded by 18 in the 20 years between 1979 and 1998. That’s 43 titles in 46 years!. Add in the titles won by their predecessors from the parish, the Myshall Blues (1935 and 1940) and Garryhill Rovers (1937, 1945 and 1946) and the total comes to 48.
“If ye are looking for fresh motivation, then a 50th county title is on the horizon.”
Returning to the theme of recalling an early Camogie memory, the guest speaker told the assembled audience he was going to go back in time, back to Sunday, June 29, 1969, back to New Quay, a little harbour village on the North Clare side of Galway Bay. Across the bay in Kinvara, a Camogie club had been formed, all teenage pupils of the local Seapoint Convent and they played their first match that day. If they did well they were promised a boat ride. They did well. And they got their boat ride. But alas on the homeward journey the boat turned over. Nine people lost their lives, all children and teenagers. A girl by the name of Breda McInerney was trapped in a cabin for over an hour and with the water up to her chin she held her cousin and a friend by the hair, kept them afloat until they were rescued.
Ten years later, almost to the week, Thursday, July 5, 1979 Breda, now Breda Foley, captained Myshall to their first Carlow Senior Camogie title, a star at full-back, her husband Ger the team trainer. Breda had given up Camogie after her traumatic experience and I have learned since Saturday night that relations of hers were among those who lost their lives. Her cousin Kieran told the ‘Clare Champion’ on the 50th anniversary of the disaster he “credits the skipper Ben Hugman with putting himself in grave danger to save their lives as well as rescuing several others. He dived down and broke the cabin window. John was sucked out and Breda broke her wrist when he dragged her out; it was a small price to pay when your life was at stake.” That same wrist did not wield a camogie camán again until Breda came to Myshall where she became an inspirational figure for club and county.
Behind her in goal for club and county was the then Mary Nolan, now Mary Doyle, the current Chairperson of Myshall Camogie Club and who with niece Marian Murphy (once Marian Doyle) was the chief organiser of Saturday’s enjoyable celebration in the lovely surrounds of the Talbot Hotel’s fourth floor Liberty Tree Restaurant.
Having steered the Myshall medal winners on a journey back to their youth, your scribe then told a couple of stories about predecessors of theirs whose love of parish and love of camogie burned brightly right to their dying day. First up Mrs Marie Kelly who was ‘The Nationalist’ correspondent for the Myshall area since the early 1930s and who was still acting in that role in 2002 when at 88 years of age she took suddenly ill and was hospitalised in St Luke’s, Kilkenny. Her obituary revealed, “it was a measure of Marie’s lifelong commitment to keep the readers of ‘The Nationalist’ up to date with current happenings in the area that on her way to St Luke’s she posted what was to be her final set of notes to this newspaper.” Formerly Marie Clowry and a native of Ballaghmore, she played camogie with the Myshall Blues in the 1930s, being a very committed club player with a deep interest in the game. That interest was reflected in the fact that from the mid-1930s, Marie kept a scrapbook of camogie cuttings relating to the game inside and outside her native Carlow. One suspects many of those cuttings were of Marie’s own work as her parish notes regularly reported camogie activity.
And but for Marie we would have no accurate record of that historic Myshall 1979 championship triumph. The sports pages of this newspaper was bereft of Camogie copy the week after the county final but on page six in the ‘Myshall/Fenagh/Newtown’ notes beneath a sub-heading ‘Camogie’, the local correspondent, wrote, “Last Thursday night in Carlow Myshall Camogie team made their own page of history by bringing back to their village the Nolan Cup by beating Carlow in the final {1-2 to 1-0}. Their first win was a just reward for all the effort involved during the last three years since their inception. The final itself was eagerly awaited by all and was a clean hard fought one with no quarter given or asked. The Myshall captain Breda Foley in the full-back position played an outstanding game and inspired all the girls in black and amber to play their part in making this a memorable final. A special word of thanks is due to Ger Foley, Mrs Carmel Meaney and Mrs Mary Quirke for all the work they put into the game since the club was first formed three years ago. Following is the team: Mary Doyle, Breda Foley, Anne Fenelon, Sadie O’Brien, Sheila Byrne, Mary Ryan, Margaret Ryan, Nuala Smithers, Mary Quirke, Teresa Nolan, L Byrne, R Fenelon, Mary Brennan, Dolores Byrne, D Brennan, Agnes Smithers, Anne Quirke, A Fenelon, Bridín Kavanagh. {As Camogie was 12 a-side back then, the team formation 1-1-3-3-3-1 (as in goalkeeper, a full-back, three half backs, three mid-fielders, three half-forwards, a full-forward) t is safe to suggest that the first twelve names were the starting twelve}
When complementing the present generation of Myshall Camogie players on their dedication and desire to win - the club’s second team won the Junior Championship in 2024 as well, an unprecedented ‘double - this guest speaker commented that no matter how many titles in-a-row they won the pure joy on their faces in the team photos taken after the finals is remarkable, the girls just can’t get enough of that winning feeling. The ’24 senior win, though, was special because it was dedicated to Olivia Jordan (nee O’Neill) who sadly went to her eternal reward in January odyssey last year. A photo of a beaming Olivia took pride of place on the trophy table.
A photo of a beaming Mary Foley of Aughabeg, Ballinree accompanies this week’s column as your scribe in another example of a picture painting a thousand words told the story of how back in 1985 Mary, then 87, but in ill health became the first female winner of the Carlow GAA Publications Committee Hall of Fame award. It was an accolade bestowed on the former Mary Nolan of Shean, who in modern day parlance, was the county’s first camogie superstar, as she not only starred with the Myshall Blues and the Carlow county team in the 1930s but was selected to play with Leinster, a truly prestigious honour. Married in 1940 to Tom Foley, she was a sports fanatic and had attended the 1995 Carlow Senior Hurling Final before her health started to deteriorate and when it became clear Mary would not be able to make the awards ceremony Tommy Murphy and his committee put Plan B into place. Mary was presented with her Hall of Fame award by committee member and selector Paddy Farrell (RIP) only days before her death, at 87, at the home of her daughter and son-in-law Mary and Eamonn Quirke (both of whom were also very useful with hurl in hand). Despite her failing health and inability to speak in her final weeks, Mrs Foley’s smile for the presentation was recognition that she was well aware of the occasion and appreciated it. The power of Camogie.
Myshall, of course, famously won the All-Ireland Intermediate Club title in 2017 and in Croke Park too, the the black and amber brigade won back-to-back All-Ireland Junior titles in 2012 and 2013 ‘down the country’ having lost an All-Ireland Junior semi-final in the city of London, a far cry from the little village at the foot of Mount Leinster. In a deep dive of the club’s 43 Carlow Senior Championship triumphs we calculated 115 women have had the honour of bringing home a county championship medal and in Myshall’s case two - Nuala Quirke (nee Smithers) and Sheila Ryan (nee Byrne) - have won 30! Another six - Olivia Jordan (nee O’Neill), Joanne Joyce (nee Lawlor), Mary Nolan (nee Doyle), Margaret Hogan (nee Ryan), Marian Murphy (nee Doyle) and Katherine Foley (nee Crooks) - have won 20-plus medals on the field of play. Phenomenal.
Tuesday's edition of The Nationalist will feature pictures from Saturday night's celebration in the Talbot Hotel.
