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Commins Calling Guests and past players all paid warm tributes to Tooreen Hurling Club recently.
Joe and Michael tell a good story down Tooreen way
Commins Calling Michael Commins
THEY say everyone loves a good story. And there was no shortage of them at the recent golden jubilee anniversary dinner dance of the Tooreen Hurling Club. You could feel the infectious humour that was at the heart of the celebrations in the Belmont Hotel in Knock. Former Galway All-Ireland winning captain, Joe Connolly, and Tooreen’s Michael Henry, one of the founder members of the club, regaled the near 400 attendance with some marvellous tales. Michael Henry, who has lived in Oxford for many years, set the scene with memories of the early days of the club. “I went to college in Dublin for a brief period in the 1950s and I saw hurling for the first time and I played it for the first time. I came home to Mayo and went to work in Mitchell’s garage in Ballyhaunis. There were seven or eight lads from Tooreen working in Ballyhaunis at that time. “Tooreen in those days was a pretty depressing place and as there wasn’t anything happening and as I had played a bit of hurling, one evening as we were cycling down the road by Stanley Flanagan’s, I suggested to them that we form a hurling club. “Well they jumped off their bicycles and said ‘this is the most fantastic idea we’ve ever heard’. They went down on their knees and they said I was a God! Einstein would never think up anything like that! No, seriously, folks, they lay down on the road breaking their sides laughing. They said I was stone mad! “It took a long time to bring them on side but, gradually, a few came on board and by the end of a few months they were all on side. So we approached Fr Horan and he said ‘yes’ and was very reassuring and came to our first meeting. So we formed the hurling club in 1957. We had no money. Chris Tuohy (the club’s first chairman) played in a band at the time so we ran a function in Tooreen Hall and we finished up with the sum of eight pounds and we sent to Deeley’s in Gurtymadden in County Galway for hurleys. “Our first game was against Swinford and we had difficulty with transport. Pat McNicholas had a pick-up truck and took 25 of us in the back of the truck down through Kilkelly. We walked through Kilkelly because we thought the guards might stop us. “The first raffle we had was for a bicycle and two other prizes I can’t remember. The first prize went to someone out in China and the second prize winner was in Outer Mongolia and the third prize was someone around the Arctic Circle … so we made a good profit on it! “Around two years after the club was founded, most of the members left for England or America. Ireland was a depressing place at the time, no work, no money. But some years later, to the great credit of the people around, like Michael Nolan and my brother Tony, Jackie Coyne and Eamon Freeman, it was just about kept going. It was a hard struggle. “From 1959 to 1975, I came home to play most games for Tooreen. On the boat back on a Friday evening, you would find 50 or 60 lads returning to keep some rural clubs alive in various parts of the country and going back to England again after the weekend. “After travelling by boat and train for some years, I met one of the landed gentry in England. He owned 25,000 acres and his father had been a Black and Tan. I became very friendly with him. He had a private plane and I suggested to him that he should take us over to Ireland. So myself and Vincent Tuohy used to travel over from England by private plane to Castlebar airport, the first GAA people that ever had a private aeroplane to take us to a match! “Maggie Henry’s shop was where we made out the teams and wrote them out again and again. She always gave us a wonderful welcome, we used her kitchen, we used her house at any time of day or night. Tonight, we also recall all the loved ones that have passed on. They were great supporters of the hurling club. So many people. We lost our own parents (Austin and Annie) in the last year. My father brought us to the matches and my mother washed the jerseys. I am very proud of Tooreen and it’s a wonderful achievement what ye have done.” From the moment he took to the microphone, Joe Connolly had the audience in the palm of his hand. With the rolling rural accent of Castlegar and County Galway, Joe was on a winner from the start. Little wonder that both himself and Michael Henry were accorded standing ovations on the night. “The first time I heard of Tooreen was in St Mary’s College in Galway in 1969 when I first met Joe Henry and for five years we played on the same teams. We later played together for Connacht in the Railway Cup. The story about Tooreen is unbelievable. It’s wonderful to be here. There’s a hurling bond and don’t ever think there isn’t. “Nickey Brennan had pure respect for what he saw here last night. Not for one second would he have been condescending about being in Tooreen in Mayo. The GAA is all about the heart of the village and the parish. It gives ye such an identity. Ye have an amazing success story in Tooreen.” Then it was on to the humour and Joe was in his element. “I was on a train from Dublin to Galway a few years ago and I got talking to this fella from Killimordaly, the next parish to Sarsfields in Galway. And I said to him ‘were you at the All-Ireland club final where Sarsfields were playing?’ and he said ‘I was’. ‘What did you think of them winning it?’ I asked him and he said ‘Ara, you’d be clapping for them all right, but you’d be hoping that they’d be beaten!’ “There’s another story about a match in Galway one time. One of the umpires didn’t like one of the teams that were playing. A high ball went in and he looked at it and he went and waved it wide. And the manager of the team came up to him and said ‘that was a point’. The umpire said ‘it wasn’t’. Yer man said back to him ‘it was a f****** point.’ And the umpire said ‘”it was a ‘f****** wide’. The play restarted and as the manager walked away, the umpire shouted after him: ‘I’ll tell you something, a mhac, the next one is going to be wide as well!” For Joe and his wife Cathy, being guests at the Tooreen jubilee was an occasion to remember. “I am fiercely delighted to be here for this incredulous story of Tooreen hurling club. There’s great respect for ye outside the county. I never knew ye’re real story. I often wondered how ye could be such a successful club in the middle of a football heartland. Ye deserve every single credit for what done what ye have. It’s a great story altogether.” New children’s book
A Kilmaine woman who has resided in Dublin for many years is the co-writer, along with her husband, of a new children’s book entitled Young Spring – The Underdog. Carmel Meyler, formerly Hughes from Kilmaine, attended the Girls’ National School in Kilmaine in former times and has continued to stay in touch with the relatives and friends around Kilmaine and that region of Mayo. The book was launched recently by Independent TD, Finian McGrath, a native of Tuam, in the Pebble Beach lounge in Clontarf. It is aimed at the seven to eleven-year-old age group but will have general interest for all people who have a fondness for dogs. Ruth Buchanan, in a brief review, says: “If you love dogs … and who could possibly not … you’ll read this book in one sitting. I couldn’t put it down. I was charmed all the way from the puppy’s birth, her time in the Pound to her mostly happy life with the Meanleys. I can’t wait to find out what happened next.” Carmel Meyler is a retired post-primary teacher and drama teacher while John is a former ESB employee and was secretary of his Trade Union branch in Dublin. The book runs to 80 pages and is the story of the early life of a Jack Russell dog named Spring who brought joy and humour to those who came to know her. It is told from the dog’s perspective and it is hoped to have a sequel to Young Spring released before the end of the year. The profits from the sale of book are being donated to Dogstrust.
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