“Ah here now, before you start onto me about the state of our dressing rooms, what about that ould hut ye had with the leaky roof”.
It’s the late summer or early autumn of 1996. The buzz is back in Meath football as Sean Boylan’s side hurtle towards what must be regarded as the county’s greatest All Ireland SFC win. Quite simply because nearly nobody saw it coming. Now read on…
I say nearly because, as my namesake and neighbour relayed to me some eight years later “One night at the end of January I said to Dennis (Murtagh, one of his most trusted lieutenants) on the way home from training, with any bit of luck this year we could win the All Ireland”.
Even allowing for the fact there aren’t enough words to articulate the reverance in which Sean is held, not only in Meath but all over, if anybody bar him made the above statement, the crew in white coats couldn’t be summoned quick enough.
Sean, a different story. The man could convince a soul – most especially this one – that he, and whoever he was talking to – could make water run up a hill.
How else could one rationalise grown men running up and down the Hill Of Tara or around Fairyhouse Racecourse – guided only by the spotlights of two jeeps.
Or cycling around the streets of Navan in a time trial. Or – my personal favourite – the entire panel being sent down the Grand Canal with two rowing boats in teams of eight. His own version of the Oxford/Cambridge boat race.
Anyway, it’s late August or early September and the building of my flat/office is well under way. When four o’clock teatime rolls around, our builder – former Kiltale, Kilmessan and Meath hurler Cyril Maguire – gives me the wink which only means one thing, mischief is afoot!
“Here, Bren, weren’t ye (Dunboyne) playing in Dunsany yesterday, how did ye get on?”.
“Ah twas grand Cyril, though jazus the dressing rooms are woeful small. It took the two of them for our lads to have enough room to tog out”.
The bait cast, our electrician on the job, the great Mick Costello, fell for it hook, line and sinker. Exactly as it was hoped he would. Which was the point at which the man who was an integral part of the Meath panel which won the Leinster SFC in 1970 riposted with the quote at the beginning of this piece.
To the immense credit of all concerned with the club, a decade later, Dunsany opened the resplendent Pairc Na nGael, and, it has been a home away from home for yours truly – as it was also for my late father – ever since. Following the club’s story in the years that followed, from a certain angle, it encompassed a lot of the train of thought which prompted production of what you are reading.
From the perspective of entities who, it seems, at the very least, appear to be more consumed with the construction and development of facilities than the rudiments of player development of and excellence with the club’s playing pool. Now, in no way are Dunsany being pitched into that category. In fact, they are the antitheses to the scenario which will play out hereafter.
In that, yes, they had the tremendous infrastructure in place, but at no stage did their focus divert from on-field matters and, in particular, their quest to win the Meath JFC. Their endurance finally paying off just a few short months ago when the code to the Promised Land was finally cracked.
Now contrast that to the jaw dropping story detailed by Dermot Crowe in the current issue of the Sunday Independent outlining the utter malaise the Parnells club in Dublin have found themselves in.
Besides the incomparable Stephen Cluxton and a gifted forward by the name of Steven Mills, I cannot recall the Coolock/Artane outfit pulling up any trees since the time of their last SFC triumph in the capital way back in 1988.
How they were in the news, though, other than Cluxton’s heroics, that is, was due to the gargantuan infrastructural development which left them with facilities which would be the envy of many professional sports teams. Remember that, its importance becomes critical very quickly.
Now, at this point, it should be said that the next facet of the story is absolutely not exclusive to Parnells. Their reaction to and the outcomes to the developments are, regrettably all theirs mind you. First the good part – the sale of land by the club in the middle of the Celtic Tiger boom.
The completion of which netted the black and greens somewhere in the region of €23m. Not that the following will ever materialise to be a thing, but, if you or I came into a windfall of such obscene proportions, wouldn’t your first instinct be to clear whatever debts or overheads hovered on the horizon.
But no, for reasons only they know, the Brains Trust of the club named after the man with Charles Stewart before his surname took the Menendez Brothers approach. That is to say, spend, spend, spend until one day the bucket comes up from the well empty.
With what gained from it all? Yes, state of the art facilities, indeed, with lavish add-ons that no other ‘amateur’ sports club or entity of any sort could even think about, never mind actually go for. Nobody would have any qualms with a club putting in a bar, they are ten-a-penny now. Whereas when, for example, Simonstown Gaels opened their bar in what I’m going to guess was 1990, it was genuinely seen as ground breaking.
When clubs go for an embellishment of their facilities, it generally showcases the best of the GAA’s spirit shining through like a beacon. Communities coming together for their own self betterment. If those undertaking the development have the backing of an individual or body with plenty of clout – financial or otherwise – that, notionally at least, makes bringing such mammoth undertaking to fruition all the more achievable.
Be that as it may, there was something wholly illogical – to this observer at least – about Parnells, having got in an excess of €23m from the sale of lands previously, still having to pay a leasehold of €11m to the Marist Fathers order for the use of what has been their home adjacent to Chanel College since the sale of the land at Collinstown.
The audacious administration didn’t end there. Not only did the club commit to build a hall for the Marists, but, and this is the part where the club may well be on very dicey ground, if my reading of the situation is correct, the club’s bar and restaurant are ran as a LIMITED COMPANY. That surely blurs the lines with regards to the amateur status of GAA individuals or bodies to the nth degree.
Needless to say, with such financial frivolity at play, the contractual obligation to build the hall for the religious order has gone unmet. Which has led to the sorrowful ignominy of having to surrender the properties back to the Marist Fathers.
Apart from the glaringly obvious and fundamental problem of the club being effectively homeless, a fair lump would be wagered that, among the ordinary folk within the club – particularly those with any sort of longstanding or familial connection thereto – a bit of silverware in the trophy cabinet would be of far greater value than having said trophy storage ankle deep in carpet and no prospect of having anything to fill it with.
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