It’s one of the lesser spotted potholes on the road to dealing with the loss of a loved one but, for me at least, was one of toughest aspects of dealing witb my own father’s passing. Going through the personal effects and deciding what to keep and what to let go of.
To that end, I was always going to keep a couple of his flat caps, his walking stick and his beloved Meath headband, but, one item which one would have loved to hold on to was his hurl, with which he won his Meath JHC medal in 1956. Of which he was immensely proud. But it was a bit like Trigger’s sweeping brush in Only Fools And Horses it was in perfect working order apart from needing four new handles and three new heads!
Mind you, as much as the old man was immeasurably proud of that medal and that I had preserved the hurl throughout his lifetime, the greatest kick he got was the stories surrounding that Dunboyne team. The fact that the ‘back four’ – Jim Reilly in goal and himself, Paddy McIntyre and Aidan Curley in the full back line – didn’t concede a goal for the entire competition.
That they had defeated Warrenstown Agricultural College – who had inter county hurlers from all over the country in their ranks – in the semi final. And he also always mentioned that it was Sean McManus who started the Wilkinstown they had beaten in the final. Indeed, not only did he start it, he started at centre half back in the final. Of course, what we now know is that that team was a forerunner to the foundation of the Wolfe Tones club in Kilberry. Well, I say Kilberry, but their catchment area actually encapsulates Kilberry, Gibbstown, Oristown and Wilkinstown.
So, in effect, not only did Sean start and play on that Wilkinstown team back in ’56, he, along with Joey McKeown and others, was one of the founders of what we now know as Wolfe Tones. But then, as news spread, with deep sadness, around the county and much further afield, of Sean’s passing after a long illness, on Saturday, February 1st, somebody asked me how did I think he would be remembered.
A hugely passionate GAA man – especially the promotion and development of hurling. A staunch GAA conservative, a man of principle – or downright stubbornness if he didn’t agree with what you were trying to tell him – but somebody who never had less than the best of intentions for anything with which he was involved.
(Slightly) away from GAA matters, the one thing I am sure there would be unanimous agreement on regarding Sean McManus would be his unwavering personal generosity. Something I was a very grateful recipient of in my time too. However, it was a generosity which was vital to the running and prosperity of our club when the world was a different place.
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Sean McManus was born on November 16th, 1932. Thanks to having a sister living in Trim for nigh on a quarter century, I was able to get a few snippets from a book relating to the history of the land of red and white. Contained therein referring to himself was the following – “A hurler of considerable style and great determination” and it’s clear that he was regarded as a key member of Trim hurling teams in the mid to late 1940s.
At my own expense, it will be admitted that one is unsure as to what year Sean became involved with the club here in Dunboyne, but, what I do know is, the qualities which were attributed to the man himself in the Trim book were exactly what he would spend decades inculcating into generations of players, particularly hurlers, in our club. Though it should also be placed on record that he was also a fervent promoter of underage football when help was required there also.
Not just during his stint as Chairman of the Juvenile Committee either. Also at a time when there was very little in the way of organised football for players of Primary School-going age in Meath, Sean and the late Peter Clarke were among those involved in entering Dunboyne teams in what I think was a North Dublin Winter League.
However, it’s probably much greater than coincidence that it was upon Sean’s accession to the role of Juvenile Chairman that signs of an upturn at club and – more importantly – schools level began to take hold. During this time he supported and was supported by people such as, but undoubtedly not limited to, Peter Clarke, Willie Lyons, Peter Moran and John Moriarity over different spells of time. Though Cathaoirleach na nOg left his own unique stamp on that side of things too.
For it would be ventured that not many – if any – Primary School teams had their own training kit. But our lads were indeed that fortunate because Sean – through his McManus Distributors business – was able to acquire a set of jerseys with KOSANGAS emblazoned across them – long before sponsors appearing on GAA jerseys was a thing.
Styled like the Tyrone jerseys of the time (early to mid 90’s in the case of my own age group) it was quite the big deal if you were picked on the team in the KOSANGAS jerseys for the match at the end of every training session.
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I’ve agonised, self-doubted and actually even fretted about the inclusion of what follows, but, as one of my oldest and most treasured acquaintences in the agriculture community puts it, if the front wheels go in, the rest must follow.
In the realm of GAA politics – if you were to title it thus – it generally follows suit that lf a person has chaired either Juvenile or Minor Committees in a club (or county) that ending up the Chairman of the club as a whole is more or less a right of passage.
So it was that Sean McManus succeeded Oliver Brady as Chairman of St Peter’s GAA Club at the end of the 1993 season. Personally, I think the first time was introduced to him properly was at the end of the 1995 season.
He had obviously spotted myself and da at a few of the matches involving what was a very talented Dunboyne Minor hurling team that year. For, he arrived down to the house late in the year and presented me with one of the McManus Distributors bags he had sponsored for the team.
That became my own gearbag for going to matches – yes, I do need one, for raingear, a rug, drinks and equipment for dealing with the needs of nature – until the strap broke many years thereafter.
What he could never have known, though, was that (i) I had got my first powered wheelchair during that same year so was venturing up and down to the pitch at every available opportunity – even if it was only to ‘help’ his great friend and mine, Aidan Curley, mow and mark the field. And (ii) that it was also during 1995 that I had begun to write up match reports – back then on a typewriter – from whatever match I happened to be at. They were all dated and filed in ring binders (which are still here in the Boylan Talks Sport archives), and, eventually, somebody that was involved with the club – I honestly can’t remember who it was – asked me would I consider running for the position of P.R.O. for the club at the next AGM.
Now, for me, the attraction was instant and obvious. I was wired to everything GAA as it was, had just got the first powered wheelchair, for which da had got our first adapted vehicle so I would go to any match this side of China. And to top it all off, I wanted to go on and be a sports writer, so the whole scenario was a perfect fit. Indeed, without request or suggestion, I had begun to submit my own match reports on the club’s U-15 and U-16 hurling teams – the lads my own age – to the local press. They were obviously impressed enough with them too, because they were all published.
However, the old adage that if something looks too good to be true it generally is rang through, because, even after flattering speeches of endorsement in my favour from Brendan Reilly and Vinny Maguire, two hugely respected and decorated figures within the club, my dream was dashed when Chairman Sean, in his own matter-of-fact and, frankly, blunt, way observed “I notice you’re nominated for a number of positions here tonight, but you’re too young so you can’t”. End of discussion. For that night at least.
To this day, it’s a mystery to me how I managed to contain my reaction to a single, quiet tear. Though at least part of the reason for that was the fact that another (very) senior figure within the club retorted “We bent the rules plenty of times when it suited in the past, what’s wrong with doing it again?” In the end I don’t think there was any rule bending involved, instead, I got my first sighting of the concept of being co-opted onto a committee. Thus began the best 11 years of my life.
That said, whether this was down to my own lack of confidence and naivety or not I’ll never know now, but, I had myself convinced he didn’t like me, or at the very least didn’t trust me. In that, anything I wrote had to be inspected by “Somebody senior” within the club before it went to press. Even though at that stage I had qualified as a journalist – a huge chunk of which was Media Law – so, no more than himself, I would hope he at least knew that my efforts had the best interest of the club at heart.
Though with time, more maturity on my part and, to a certain extent, being slightly removed from things, it was most likely just a misunderstanding of each other. Different generations having different ways of doing things. Mind you, the greatest misunderstanding of all now has a poignant lair of sadness to it.
Sean’s passion for and devotion to hurling has already been mentioned in these paragraphs. And it is true that from the time of his sponsorship of that Minor team referred to earlier and, in particular, from the time he was the driving force behind the establishment of and was then appointed Chairman of the Hurling Committee in 1998, it almost became his sole mission to take the small ball code to the highest echelons possible, within and outside the club.
However, if he got the slightest inclination that your buy-in to that wasn’t absolute, he let you know what he thought of it. Which is why, I think, he got this idea that I was ‘anti hurling’. That wasn’t or absolutely never would be the case. The fact is that a deterioration in my eyesight connected to my disability meant that if the game was confined to ground hurling I’d be grand, but once the sliotar goes airborne, I may as well be looking for white blackbirds!
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Having said all of the above in the interest of honesty, one thing I would also herald without fear or favour is Sean’s unflinching generosity. To our club, to myself personally, to numerous people around the locality he provided employment to over the years and, finally, to what I used to call The Merc Crew. There were several incarnations of Mercedes during the lifetime I knew Sean – and indeed of the crew who travelled in it – but, for as long as he was still with us – the only permitted, self appointed co-pilot was Aidan Curley. Regardless of who else was aboard, nobody other than Curley got the passenger seat!
But then, the dynamic between Sean and Aidan was such that there may not be enough words in the dictionary to cover it. It always seemed part best friend, part employer/employee and part big brother.
Because, aside from the fact you rarely saw one without the other, whenever Sean needed something done, manual work that required a bit of grunt, whether at the home place in Dunboyne or up at the club or at his beloved bolthole in Barna, Curley was THE man. Of course, if it was the latter and it meant a few days of a roadtrip, so be it!
Though for all the pair of them liked to have a good time, Sean looked after his sidekick in a way that could be described as a big brother scenario. In that he looked out for him in a way that would stretch above and beyond the strains of accepted norms.
A couple of examples, now that the two of them are reunited in the great committee room far away. One night, Aidan wanders into Brady’s and, with yhe layout of the place at the time, the first thing you met coming in the back door was the hatch at the end of the counter. For whatever reason, GAA folk – myself included in time – seemed to gravitate towards the hatch.
Anyway, this particular night, the place was absolutely jammed. The bould Curley swore blind that he’d ordered a pint but was becoming ever more displeased at not being served quick enough.
Even though none of the rest of us weren’t remotely convinced he had in fact ordered a drink at all. Anyhow, next thing a beer mat whizzes in through the hatch and misses the owner’s wife by inches.
Thus Aidan got his pint, but word of his alternative ‘smoke signal’ found its way back to Sean (McManus, not Nealon) and HE barred Aidan from going near Brady’s until such times as he apologised for his moment of “Public Disorder! “
Somewhat unbelievably, the ‘guilty party’ obviously did produce some manner of contrition because he was back in Brady’s on another occasion, only this time it was something serious. Aidan had taken ill while enjoying his pint and, Sean Nealon being the kind, caring blessing to our village that he was summoned an ambulance. As it happened, Aidan ended up in sickbay for quite a while, but on return to the watering hole, the proprietor thereof enquired as to the patient’s wellbeing. “I better not tell you, ya might call a f*****g ambulance”. Cue another internal suspension!
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Enda. I’m sure many of you are perplexed as to why there’s been little or no mention of him yet. Well perplex no more. The only son. Undoubtedly the greatest gift Sean and his wife Miriam bequeathed to the people of Dunboyne and Meath. Arguably, if not actually, Meath’s most decorated Gael. Holder of five All Ireland medals (2 x SFC, U-21, MFC, MHC B), All Ireland MFC winning Captain (1990), first Dunboyne man to lift the Keegan Cup (Meath SFC) in 1998, and those are only the bits I can recall off the top of my head.
Personally though, and I know I’m safe enough saying this now, I think Enda’s greatest achievement will be seen to be his reaching of his father’s soft side! I’d only started going to matches in 1990, so wasn’t in situ to see Enda mount the steps of the Hogan Stand and lift the Tom Markham Cup but know from people that were adjacent to Sean in the Lower Hogan that day that he was – as anybody would be in the circumstances – moist-eyed and and emotional when Archbishop Diarmuid Clifford – Chaplain of the GAA – handed the silverware to our flame haired skipper.
Three years later, I didn’t need anybody to describe him beaming with pride out on the pitch in Portlaoise after his son and his comrades had defeated a Kerry team containing future luminaries as Tomas O’Se, Darragh O’Se, Billy O’Shea and Dara O’Cinneide to capture the county’s first and so far only All Ireland U-21 FC title. Reason being that he ended up beside myself and Da out on the pitch as Tommy Hanley was presented with the Cup.
A proud dad and deservedly so. As his own family should now be equally proud of his achievements in Dunboyne, Meath and further afield. Rest easy Sean, though you’ll probably “Keep Working, two hands on the … stick!”
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