75 years on from Cavan's greatest day
Cavanman's Diary
I know I made a vow on these pages not that terribly long ago to stop writing about my favourite subject – the 1947 All-Ireland final which, insanely but magnificently, was staged in New York – but you will forgive me giving the topic just one more spin.
Today (Wednesday), after all, is the 75th anniversary of the final, to the day. And what a day it was; maybe even the greatest in the county's history.
Earlier that afternoon, in Cavan, the Cathedral was consecrated, an occasion of gigantic proportions at the time.
The national press descended on the town to cover that event but the excitement was only starting. At 8.07pm, Irish time, the ball was thrown in for the All-Ireland final in New York.
Back in 2012, I travelled to New York while researching for my book on that final. I was lucky to meet Brian and Jerry McGovern, sons of Owen Roe, in Cranford, New Jersey, and they told me what became my favourite anecdote from the whole saga.
It concerned their uncle Pat, Owen Roe’s eldest brother, who had emigrated from west Cavan to the Big Apple in the late 1920s.
Pat worked hard – times were tough back then in the post-Depression years – and eventually landed a steady job in General Motors in Tarrytown. He had nine brothers and two sisters and kept in touch with home via letters.
One missive informed him that Owen Roe was heading for New York as part of the Cavan team who were to take on Kerry in the All-Ireland final. The pair hadn’t met since Owen Roe was a small boy, waving him off at the family homestead in Drumbar.
As the Mauretania moored and the passengers began to disembark, Pat soon located the football party, nine Cavanmen, nine Kerrymen and seven officials from around the country.
“The thought struck him then that he wouldn’t know Owen Roe,” was how Jerry and Brian described it and how I wrote it in the book.
“He stopped a man and asked him where Owen was. He wasn’t sure. He asked a couple more and kept looking
“Eventually, he spotted a stocky guy, biceps bulging, 20-something with a wide grin and wave of black hair falling down over his forehead.
“Where’s Owen Roe McGovern?” he asked him, looking around.
“You’re talking to him,” smiled Owen.
It was an amazing tale and I’ve often thought it would make a great opening scene for a movie. The Polo Grounds final, and the crazy build-up to it, the mad fact that it ever happened at all, would probably be dismissed as too far-fetched were it to be pitched to a studio today.
The cast of characters was enthralling, from Willie Doonan, the swarthy ‘townie’ with a fondness for socialising and experience fighting in the hell of Montecassino, to the Greek scholar John Wilson. The flame-haired, effervescent young student PJ Duke and his friend, Phil ‘the Gunner’, a handsome Garda from a famed Mullahoran clan.
Paddy Smith, the corner-back, won a gold medal for acting in the Cavan Drama Festival that year; Columba McDyer, from Glenties, was a carpenter who followed the work, and the football, to Cavan.
Then there was Mick Higgins and Tony Tighe, two of the all-time great forwards, and anchoring the team, the peerless John Joe O’Reilly, about whom there is a full book on its own, lovingly crafted by George Cartwright.
Another fact, which I still find mind-blowing in relation to this match, was that 22 years earlier, when Cavan played Kerry in an All-Ireland semi-final in Tralee, the first word to reach Cavan with the result was via two carrier pigeons, liberated in the Kingdom at 5.30pm with the result tagged to their feet, arriving home at 10pm.
Twenty-two years is not a long time; think back to 2000. A lot has changed but not that much either.
The week before that game in 1925, transporting the team to the Kingdom was described in this newspaper as “a stupendous proposition”. The players met on the Thursday night, staying in Cavan Town, and got the 6.30am train on the Friday, reaching Tralee that evening. The match was Sunday and the Celt agreed that the free day on Saturday would be badly needed “to recuperate after the wearisome journey of 250 miles”.
And here they were, in 1947, sending their finest athletes to New York – on an aeroplane!
When the final whistle sounded, the county erupted. The Irish Press reported: “On the broadcaster’s announcement that Cavan had won, every door was thrown open and the people hurried into the streets. Bonfires were lit and children and their parents joined in singing local ballads and cheering.”
The party went on all around the county and in bordering areas. Oldcastle was “thronged”. The scenes in Bailieborough were, said the Celt, “beyond description”.
Even in west Belfast, it was reported, thousands poured out of their homes on the Falls Road when the match finished. Shouts of “Up Cavan, up Ulster!” rang in the air. The crowd was swollen by stragglers arriving from dance halls and cinemas and the streets were rocking until after midnight.
Cavan Town was already buzzing due to the big event at the Cathedral. Now, it was mayhem. An impromptu band was mobilised and paraded around the town – the following night, there would be two.
The late Paddy Donohoe, future county board chairman and father of our photographer Adrian, was working in the post office as a young man on the day and described the scene to me some years back.
Paddy remembered the delight, the dancing in the moonlight, men drunk, embracing and crying with the novelty and brilliance of it all. And in the middle of it all, a panicked army reserve commander, trying to round up his inebriated men, a slapstick scene.
“One vivid memory I have is of a bus trying to get FCA men,” he laughed, “who were there for a guard of honour during the day, on to the bus. But the commander forgot there was a second door on the bus! They went in one door and out the other. An awful caper.”
Meanwhile, in faraway New York, the Cavan party were being feted. A fascinating angle to the event was that the major news outlets in the US sent their top men to cover the final. It was Arthur Daley, who would go on win a Pullitzer Prize, who famously christened Peter Donohoe “the Babe Ruth of Gaelic football”, maybe the only time a Kilnaleck man has ever been lauded in such a way on the pages of the New York Times.
“He is Dead Eyed Dick with his accurate kicking,” wrote Daley. “Cavan were younger and fitter and able to carry their handpassing game with speed and deadly accuracy while Kerry, with their more direct approach of catch and kick, played into the hands of the Cavan defence. It was amazing and uplifting to see two teams, after kicking the stuffing out of one another, go over and embrace one another at the end of a great final. If it was here they would surely each want to land another blow.
“Tighe of Cavan came in for dog’s abuse; knocked out three times, he came back for more each time. Outside the stadium, an impromptu Fleadh Cheoil took place with musicians, singers and dancers displaying the custom and traditions of Ireland oblivious to the deafening roars of the nearby subway.”
In the Herald Tribune, Harold Rosenthal concurred. “The name Donohoe, a 23-year-old publican’s assistant, rang out all over New York and throughout Ireland last night to acclaim the Cavan sharpshooter who was instrumental in landing Cavan’s third senior All-Ireland title. It was a long afternoon of fierce battling in unrelenting heat where hard knocks were the order of the day and each embraced friend and foe at the end of the game.”
It was a story like no other in Irish sporting history and I must say I have been surprised at how little coverage the 75th anniversary has garnered in the media this week. I suppose, it is a lifetime or two ago now but while none of the players are still alive, their names live on, football immortals.
Postscript
Speaking of which, another, more sombre anniversary arrives in November – 70 years since John Joe O’Reilly’s passing. The committee tasked with raising funds to erect a statue of John Joe are well on with their work, thanks in large part to the sterling efforts of Arthur Sullivan, Lochlann Egan and Jimmy Finlay.
The artist commissioned was the internationally-renowned Seamus Connolly and he has created a masterpiece,which will be a wonderful addition to the county. It will sit in the Market Square in Cavan Town and will be the first statue of a GAA figure in Ulster. It is most fitting that it is a Cavanman and even more so that it is John Joe.
More funds are needed, however, to complete the job and the associated groundworks. To donate or assist in any way, email johnjoememorial@gmail.com or search for same on social media. Alternatively, contact Mark O’Rourke or Susan Brady in Cavan county board, George Cartwright or any committee member.
The bank account is as follows:
BIC: BOFIIE2D
IBAN: IE43BOFI90329393059609