Talk on McGahern and heroes of GAA

ON SATURDAY night at Croke Park Bono beamed out at a crowd of 80,000 fans and roared: “Thanks to the GAA for the use of the hall.”

Earlier in the day about 150km away in the parish hall at Aughawillan, Co Leitrim, close to the graveyard where John McGahern lies, lovers of his work were told that the strength of the GAA lies not in Croke Park, nor in All-Ireland titles, but in the parish club and the local sporting heroes.

As if to underline the point, Aughawillan club stalwart Michael Flanagan manned an overflowing biscuit tin as the drive to raise funds for dressing rooms at the local GAA park continues.

John McGahern wasn’t a man to wax lyrical about a solo dribble but the GAA formed the backdrop to rural life in much of his work and he understood its importance in the community, Prof Mike Cronin, the director of the Boston College, Ireland, told the International John McGahern seminar.

Prof Cronin, who is working on a four-year oral history project with the GAA that involves interviews with 20,000 people, said there are three Irish literary greats whose work is peppered with references to the games: Patrick Kavanagh, John B Keane and McGahern. Kavanagh and Keane had a more hands-on involvement, he stressed.

Keane once told an interviewer that what he would most like to be remembered for was his county championship medal.

Kavanagh was something of an all rounder it seems, and at one stage was captain, secretary and treasurer of his club – although he had been derided for once leaving the field to get an ice cream while in goal. He used to keep the club money in an attache case under his bed and admitted that occasionally he “visited the attache case for the price of a packet of cigarettes but nothing serious”. The revelation prompted former Leitrim county footballer Colin O’Regan to comment that Kavanagh was the first exponent of pay for play.

Prof Cronin, in his address McGahern and the Heroic in the GAA, pointed out that the writer wasn’t too worried about describing what happened on the pitch but was acutely aware of how identity was tied up with the sport and how the great players were the ones who got the girls and the attention. He also wrote about how, when they lost their stardust, many of the lives of these former heroes fell apart.

“Rather than being heroes he treats these people as flawed heroes who, once their star power is gone, not only leave the field but also degenerate as human beings,” said Prof Cronin, who cited the short story Love of the World as an example.

McGahern also knew the ritual of the GAA and described how each year he and his father went to the Ulster final in Clones and how the voice of Micheál O’Hehir filled the barracks as men gathered around his father’s radio, the only one in the village, and listened to the All-Ireland commentary. Part of the three-day seminar involved a trip to the barracks in Cootehall where McGahern lived with his father Frank and his siblings after his mother Susan died.