Drawing inspiration from the past

Cavanman's Diary

“It’s what Offaly football is about, what it was built on in the ’70s, the ’80s, all the way up. Boys with Grandads and even older who played on those great Offaly teams. We thought we needed to re-instill that back into this team.”

- Cormac Egan, Offaly footballer, speaking after winning the U20 Leinster title this year.

A few years ago, I wrote a column bemoaning the lack of permanent public art installations in Cavan honouring the county’s great football tradition.

Nothing quickens the pulse here like Gaelic football does. It is the main topic of conversation most of the year and, when the county team is doing well, it has a transformative effect. The Ulster final is the Drumlin Mardi Gras and, when we last won it, grown men cried – some of them on television! This is a serious, tangible thing.

It follows that football heroes – usually after they have retired when the notoriously-demanding Cavan fans indulge in some nostalgia or maybe, at a remove, realise what their team has lost - are held in the highest esteem, too. Yet a quirk in all of this is that a stranger could drive through the county on a random day when there is no match on and never know that its people are in thrall to this sport, nor that we were ever or are really any good at it.

It is a curious thing that there are no statues commemorating great GAA figures or teams in Cavan or, indeed, Ulster. They are plentiful elsewhere in Ireland; they are numerous in Kerry where there are statues honouring Páidí Ó Sé, John Egan and Mick O’Dwyer. Kilkenny is littered with them. Galway has a couple, so does Roscommon.

In Killeigh, Co Offaly, there is a statue of a greyhound, Mick The Miller, with an accompanying plinth detailing the dog’s achievements (bred by a local curate, Mick became the most famous greyhound in the world in the late 1920s).

In Castleblayney, there has been recently erected a statue of Big Tom McBride, the Country and Western superstar and legend of the showband era. These beautiful pieces of art do not spring up by themselves; their subjects meant enough to enough people to make it happen. That says a lot, I believe.

In Cavan Town, the only statue I know of is that of Lord Farnham, outside the Johnston Central Library. There are a couple of plaques commemorating storied footballers and a handful of club grounds are named after great county players of old. After that, there is nothing.

This, in my opinion, reflects poorly on the people of Cavan and in particular, the football fraternity.

I’ve always felt that this is a great opportunity wasted. Statues are no longer being placed up high, removed from the public; the modern style is to make them interactive, a focal point which draws people in. A life-size statue, incidentally, is actually larger than life, literally and figuratively; sculptors make them bigger, out-sized so as to represent their contribution.

I believe a well-crafted statue is like an exclamation mark – it signifies a statement that is bold and brash, in our case: We are Cavan and proud!

At the beginning of this year, a committee got together to see what could be done about it. The committee includes Arthur Sullivan, Lochlann Egan, Mark O’Rourke, Susan Brady, Jimmy Finlay, Cllr John Paul Feeley, George Cartwright and myself.

The committee decided early on that John Joe O’Reilly should be the subject of the statue and the preferred location was in the Market Square in Cavan Town. After some discussions with the council, a site became available. The next job was to engage an artist to take on the project.

Arthur and Lochlann put in Trojan work in identifying the best man for the job and came up with Seamus Connolly, a Clare native who is renowned as one of the very best in his field and has created sculptures of some iconic GAA figures including Páidí Ó Sé, as well as writer John B Keane, who stands sentinel over the square in Listowel.

Why John Joe? Why not Mick Higgins or Hughie O’Reilly, Tony Tighe or Charlie Gallagher? All are worthy, in my view. But the opinion of the committee was that someone has to be first and, once one is in place, maybe others will follow.

Why the Market Square and not Cornafean or Killeshandra or Breffni Park? Well, the square is at the heart of the biggest town, which itself is at the heart of the county. Placing the statue there, on a symbolic level, is saying that this man and what he represents – an army officer, an athlete, a leader, a modest and generous star – is the best of us and what we as a county aspire to.

And if I am being a little sentimental there, well, on a practical level, putting the statue there will draw people into the town, become a tourist attraction and benefit local businesses, too.

Some will sneer and say that Cavan are always looking back to the sepia-tinted days and I get that, too. Sometimes, it feels like Cavan’s great history is a weight on the shoulders of our football teams. The plain facts are that prior to last November, we had won two Ulster senior titles in half a century.

Yet the achievements of those great men over the middle decades of the last century generate, to this day, a sense of pride and exceptionalism among Cavan people. Modern history may show us to be mid-ranking in a sport played on one small island (although Cavan won its first All-Ireland in 1933, this newspaper described it as “an event of international importance”!) but there is something there in the tribal memory that tells us we are different from our peers around us, that at one time, our small place was the best of the best in the only game that mattered.

There is no mistaking the deep affinity that exists between Cavan people and Gaelic football and in particular, the legends of bygone days. It is one of those things that defines us as a people, that makes us stand out. What would we be without it?

Honouring the past is important but drawing inspiration from it is the key, as Cormac Egan mentioned in the quote above. The past can give confidence and belief to the younger generations. That can be tapped into in countless ways and this is just one.

When I spoke to Seamus Connolly recently, he made the tantalising suggestion that ‘John Joe’ could become a place where successful teams, club or county, go to have their photo taken when they are celebrating. Imagine the scenes; imagine Cavan bringing the cup back to the man described by Fr Dan Gallogly as “the county’s lost leader”?

Erecting a statue is relatively inexpensive as these things go. Given how the price of everything from a cup of coffee to a house seems to be spiralling, the approximate cost of putting this permanent monument in place - €70,000, give or take – is a pittance, really.

The committee are currently beginning to fundraise and the hope is that the statue may be ready for unveiling in the autumn of 2022, to mark the 70th anniversary of John Joe’s sudden passing and the 75th of his greatest day, captaining Cavan to All-Ireland success in the Polo Grounds.

The primary means of fundraising at present is via online donations, with the hope that there will be corporate support forthcoming down the line. To donate, search GoFundMe.com for ‘Gallant John Joe O’Reilly Memorial Statue’ or follow the links from social media. Alternatively, contact any committee member who will be able to assist. Every cent is appreciated.

To donate to the GoFundMe page, click here.

JJOR Memorial Committee Bank Details:

BIC: BOFIIE2D

IBAN: IE43 BOFI 9032 9393 0596 09