From McGettigan’s Field to Canton
By Mattie Lennon.
“My brother was telling me how one lovely Sunday morning he was taking a stroll outside San Francisco on the edge of the Pacific, when he saw, hurrying with little bundles under their oxters, men of rural Irish complex. Sometime later he came on a Gaelic football match in progress. Everything was as at home . . . not a man of them had ever left home and the mysterious Pacific was just a bog-hole gurgling with eels and frogs. Yet there was something queer and wonderful about the sight . . . or the thought” (Patrick Kavanagh)
Kavanagh was no great shakes as a goalie for Inniskeen Grattens and he even went so far as to argue that since Joyce only mentioned sport once in Ulysses, it couldn’t be very important. Yet he acknowledged that it was wonderful when Irish men brought their Gaelic games across the world. And they are doing it still.
In his, recently published book, Buses, Trains and Gaelic Games, John Cassidy tells us, “Like most young people growing up in Donegal in the early nineteen sixties, I dreamt of one day playing for my county in an All Ireland Football Final in Croke Park. I quickly realized, however, that I had neither the natural ability nor necessary talent for that dream to become a reality. But that did not stop me dreaming.
My introduction to Croke Park began when I was about six years old. My late father would always listen to the games on the radio: the wireless as it was known then. Each week he would bring the wet battery into Donegal town and have it re-charged.
Electricity arrived in rural Donegal in 1959/60. Our wireless was used sparingly i.e. news bulletins and a few other important programs which included the big matches in Croke Park.
As every house did not have a wireless, many of our neighbors would gather in our kitchen and listen to the late, great, Michael O ‘Heir as he gave a blow by blow account of games one hundred and fifty miles away.
Once the match was over we would assemble in McGettigan’s field and replay the game. Two older boys wouldselect the opposing teams: every one present was included which meant we often played twenty a side. As our pitch consisted of the entire field this was no problem.
With the goalposts (four jackets) in place the game would begin. It would end for one of the following reasons: Hunger, darkness or a pitch invasion by McGettigan’s cattle.
John Cassidy knew from an early age that Gaelic football was the preserve of (for the most part, poor) Irish Catholics. Didn’t his fellow Ulsterman, author/journalist, Cormac MacConnell confess to altering the “Mc” on his birth certificate in order to show that he was born into the kind of “starving Papish family that plays Gaelic football, rather than the wealthy Presbyterians of that era who played rugby?
Four decades later, in Dublin, while working as a supervisor with Dublin Bus, John recalled the words of that great American reformer and political activist W.E.B. Du Bois, who said:
“The problem of the twentieth century is the problem of the color line- the relation of the darker to the lighter races of men in Asia and Africa, in America and the islands of the sea”.
Dublin Bus employs a workforce taken from more than 50 countries and when it comes to raising multicultural awareness not only among his colleagues but worldwide, there is none more innovative than John Cassidy. He came up with a unique idea, took it to his bosses in Dublin bus and got 100% support. Drivers, Supervisors, Divisional Managers et al did all in their power to ensure that the Donegalman’s dream would become a reality.
Thanks to the overwhelming support and John’s foresight, tenacity, drive, Ulster cunning and cohesion, thirty Gaelic players lined out on the Dublin Bus pitch at Coldcut in west Dublin at 3pm on Thursday 06th November 2004. But this was be a game with a difference.
Referee, Tom Kitt, was the only Irishman on the field! Each of the three CIE companies, Dublin Bus, Bus Eireann and Irish Rail now has a Gaelic Football team. And it was from these after much thought, observation and enquiry that John Cassidy picked his teams.
Now, on 13th October 2010, he is taking his panel of players, all Irish this time and picked from the four Provinces, to Boston. The first time Transport Gaels played in the USA was the 19th October 2007, when they played teams from the NYPC and the New York Fire Department in Gaelic Park.
The committee certainly wouldn’t fall into Fred Allen’s description which defined a committee as “a group of men who individually can do nothing but as a group decide that nothing can be done”.
Martin Kenny is Chairman. He was the prime organizer of the first CIE/Ulster Bus inter-depot competition in 1978. He has given much valuable advice and assistance during the planning and organizing of this historic trip.
Mick Feterston, from Roscommon, who was a key player on Clontarf hurling and football teams for many years, is our physio.
Tom Kitt, member of a well-known political dynasty, referee and ardent supporter of Galway football, Damian Donovan, a loyal Dublin supporter, and Transport Gaels’ much-dreaded forward Aiden Tierney are joint treasurers.
Stephen Hackett, who made a name for himself with Cork Minors, is Secretary.
Peter Kearns, former Dublin hurler, is Assistant Secretary.
John Cassidy, the man who started it all, is Public Relations Officer. He can be contacted at johncassidy92@yahoo.com
Tom Dooley from Irish Rail is Liason Officer.
Mattie Lennon from west Wicklow is Director of Communications and Media.
Kevin Fitzpatrick, CIE Sports and Social Officer, gave the committee the full benefit of his fundraising experience.
John Brady, from Knock, County Mayo is team manager.
Uncle Sam will witness the result of the combined efforts of the above when a planeload of players and supporters (107 in all) touches down in Boston on the 13th of October.
CIE Transport Gaels will play a team from NYPD for the Moira Smith Perpetual Cup. Moira Smith was the only female police officer to die at the World Trade Center on that tragic day. Her father came from Larkfield Gardens in Dublin.
They will also play a Boston selection and, like on all their foreign trips, they will raise funds for a local charity.
On the night before homecoming, all 107 visitors will assemble at a well known “Irish” venue in Boston, each wearing his or her county jersey.
Francis M. Cornfard said that nothing should ever be done for the first time. Well, “first” is John Cassidy’s middle name. The “multi-culture” match in Coldcut in 2004 was a definite first and on Saturday 2nd February 2008 he brought his team to Omagh to meet a team from Ulster Bus at the Tattireagh/Saint Patrick’s ground. It was the first time a CIE team had played north of the border. .
2008 was the first time the Gaels played in America, and who knows what “first” he has up his sleeve for next October?
Commenting on the historic trip, Dublin Bus Chief executive Joe Meaghar said:
“As a Kilkenny man, I am a staunch supporter of GAA I was very proud to play for Donnybrook and Dublin Bus in the Inter Depot and Inter Firms competitions in the 80s. It is great to see a revival of Gaelic games in Dublin Bus and CIE and I am delighted that for the first time a football team will represent us in Boston this October. All participating can be very proud to represent CIE in these games, and I wish the team every success.”
When jerseys are being exchanged and the post-mortem is getting under way in Canton Park in October (win lose or draw), as John Cassidy stands behind the fruits of his labor he’ll be secure in the knowledge that there is no danger of a pitch-invasion by Mc. Gettigan’s cattle!
