A drone shot of Fitzgerald Stadium in Killarney taken by Humphrey Kelleher.
By John Harrington
Ten years, thousands of car-miles, and much drone-related angst later, Humphrey Kelleher has delivered ‘A Place to Play – The people and stories behind 101 GAA grounds’.
It's an outstanding publication and easy to see why the former Dublin manager’s labour of love has been shortlisted for the An Post Irish Book Awards in the Best Irish Published Book of the Year category.
It tells the story of 101 GAA county grounds, how they came to be and were named, and includes a wealth of fascinating historical vignettes and beautifully shot aerial photographs that will keep you turning page after page.
Kelleher came up with the idea after writing his first book, GAA Family Silver, which tells the history of 101 GAA cups and trophies that the men and women they’re named after.
The premise for ‘A Place to Play’ was initially the same one, this time recounting the story behind the names of 101 county grounds, but three years into the project it became something much more comprehensive when Kelleher discovered that the GAA’s finance department had detailed files on every ground in the country.
“That opened up a huge opportunity for me to look through the history of the money that was given to these places,” explains Kelleher.
“And it was a marvellous source of good first-hand knowledge and information. You're not reading a book that somebody else wrote and this is their interpretation. These are the letters that Pádraig Ó Caoimh (GAA General Secretary 1929-1964) would have written or responded to.
“It's a marvellous resource that I had made available to me, but that was only after about three years of working on the book. I had the names of the grounds, fine, but now I have the origination of where the money came from and how they came about.
“So that's what cost me the 10 years of researching and going through it and the amount of work that in that regard was huge.
“It was worth the extra work because I already done around 15 grounds and I've given them to the book's editor, Peter Malone. And then of course I go back after finding all this knowledge and new information, and he said, 'I thought we did those'. And I’d say, ‘Yeah, but I'm after finding all this extra information’.
“I wasn't too popular with him! However, we stuck together and we came up with a book eventually. And it wouldn't have been possible without the help of Peter, the book's designer Peadar Staunton, the historian Donal McAnallen, and Merrion Press."
A drone shot of Chadwick's Wexford Park taken by Humphrey Kelleher.
The heroes of ‘A Place to Play’ are those visionaries who, usually from their own pocket, stumped up the money to purchase the land and build the grounds that endure to this day.
Former GAA President and General Secretary, Frank Dineen, has special place in the Association’s history for purchasing Croke Park in 1908 and ensuring it would remain the home of Gaelic games, but there were many other people like him who did similar.
“Telling those stories, about people whose names very few now remember, moved the book away from one about GAA grounds to one that was more of a social history book,” says Kelleher.
“They're long lost to history, unfortunately, but I tried to recover those names because they're great people. I call them the frontiersmen of the GAA.
“The GAA benefited from the work these men did because at the very outset there was no financial help from the GAA. It was only in the late 1920s and 1930s that the GAA started helping these people develop the grounds.
“So I suppose if you had to break it into a number of areas, the book is based on the origination, the development, the photographs, and the people after whom the grounds are named.”
What makes ‘A Place to Play’ such an enjoyable read is that so many of the 101 stories in it are full of interesting historical titbits and often amusing anecdotes that tell you as much about the Ireland of the time as they do the grounds themselves.
Take MacHale Park in Mayo as a case in point. It was named after Dr. John MacHale, the former Archbishop of Tuam who was called ‘The Lion of the West’ by Daniel O’Connell and was clearly a man of some substance.
The ground was established by Castlebar Mitchels who had previously played in more colourful sounding venues that included the Hat Factory Field, Old Pound Field, Piegeon Park, and the Asylum Grounds.
On a fundraising drive in 1967 MacHale Park Development Committee member, Gerry MacDonald, had the clever idea of engaging the support of the Mayo diaspora around the world.
So he enlisted the help of schoolboys in De La Salle College to collect the addresses of their relatives living aboard with a prize for the boy who gathered the most.
Gerry then sent a letter to each person on these lists enclosing raffle tickets for them to buy with a spring of heather from Croagh Patrick blessed on Reek Sunday.
The fundraiser was a huge success, but many of the winning schoolboy’s letters were returned stamped ‘not known at this address’ a couple of weeks later, presumably because his desire to win the competition overcame his morals.
Humphrey Kelleher's drone shot of Markievicz Park.
Another joy of the book is the new perspective you gain on county grounds thanks to Kelleher’s well-taken drone shots, though he admits himself the learning curve was a step one.
“At my age to buy a drone! My daugher said you can hardly put on the television never mind put up a drone!
“But I did, I learned. And it wasn't the first or second photograph I took. I'd sometimes have to go to the same pitch three or four times because I learned as I went along how to get the best photograph.
“The guy who designed the book, Peadar Staunton, would sometimes say, 'that's okay, but I'm sure you could do better'. And you'd see how the when the sun hit the grass it would just light up.”
Kelleher was assisted in this venture by his good friend and former Ballymun Kickhams and Dublin footballer, Eoin Kelly, whose job it was to keep an eye on the drone in the air while Kelleher commanded the controls on his phone.
For the most part this arrangement worked well, apart from one day in Grattan Park in Inniskeen, Monaghan.
“I put up the drone but it came back down as quick as I put it up and what happened was that I turned left too quickly and went into a floodlight pylon.
“It was Eoin's job to keep an eye on it but he didn't warn me I was heading for trouble.
“I always have a hurley and sliotar in the car and when I put the drone up Eoin was fine-tuning his hurling skills by hitting the ball against the wall rather than watching my drone.
“After the drone came down to the ground the journey home from Inniskeen to Malahide was rather quiet!”
Humphrey Kelleher's drone shot of Fr. Tierney Park in Ballyshannon.
On other days luck was with Kelleher rather than again him, such as when he visited Loughiel in Antrim in search of Fr. Healy Park.
“Loughiel is a tiny place and we were out of the town before we realised we had gone through it,” says Kelleher. “I did a u-turn and saw these goal-posts and said that must be it.
“So we went in and put up the drone and then this van came down the driveway towards us and the driver asked, 'are ye alright lads?'
“So I told them I was writing a book and including Fr. Healy Park in it. Said he, 'This isn't Fr. Healy Park, this is Fr Barrett Park. Fr Healy Park is 500 yards up the road!
“I was in the wrong bloody ground! The club had two fine pitches in the one village.
“So they brought me up to Fr Healy Park which is a magnificent ground. I'd say it's one of the best laid out grounds I saw and from a hurling surface point of view it was as good as Thurles, I'd say. Just magnificent, probably the best I've ever seen.
“I asked the man I’d met would he know someone who might have a photo of Fr. Healy. Now, Fr Healy had died in 1928, so I thought the chances were slim. 'I do', he said. He had an original photograph of Fr. Healy himself, I couldn’t believe it. So, I went into the wrong pitch and I came out with the right result.
“And it also turned out that the man who helped me, Bobby McIlhatton, actually has an incredible museum of GAA artefacts in his own home which he brought me to visit.
“One of the great joys of producing the book was that I spoke to so many people that I had never known or met previously but now feel like are marvellous friends. You couldn't meet a nicer crowd. That to me was a huge satisfaction in that regard.”
Author Humphrey Kelleher pictured with his book, 'A Place to Play - The people and stories behind 101 GAA grounds’.
One of the recurring themes throughout the book is the effort so many people have made to ensure that clubs and counties have a place to play.
From financial woes to flooding, many of the 101 grounds in the book have had to overcome some significant setbacks over the years.
Keeping the surface in good order remains the primary challenge for all of the grounds featured in the book, which is why the people who impressed Kelleher the most on his travels were the hard-working groundsmen he met along the way.
“One story sumps that up,” says Kelleher. “I went up to Cootehill in Cavan with my drone and I was taking photographs and the drone was up in the sky and I was moving it around and up came the groundsman and asked in a very nice way what I was doing. The colloquial way of asking, 'Are ye alright lads?'
“I showed him the screen and he was flabbergasted and said, 'God almighty, why didn't you tell me you were coming. I'd have cut the grass for you!' To me, that summed up what these guys do.
“They make sure that the grass is cut ready for the match on Sunday and nobody gives two thoughts about what those people have done.
“I think they're marvellous people within the GAA that very few people would recognise very often. We recognise the players, the referee, the umpires, and the linesmen, but nobody talks about the groundsmen.
“That moment highlighted for me how these guys are so proud of these places and they want it to be the best.”
A Place to Play – The people and stories behind 101 GAA grounds’ by Humphrey Kelleher can be purchased in all good book-shops and online HERE.