Joe Barrett was an outstanding Gaelic footballer, winning six All-Ireland medals with Kerry. Although he took the republican side in the Civil War, he was later a member of county teams with pro-Treaty activists, as Gaelic games played a critical role in healing deep and bitter divisions. In the spring of 1952, just 49 years old, he was dying from an illness related to high blood pressure. He asked his nine-year-old son, J.J., to take a black velvet cloth, containing his medals, from the bottom of the wardrobe in the bedroom where he was spending his final days.
Inevitably, the poignant memory stayed with his young son. "On that day, the embryo was planted. From then on there grew a fanatical love for the game and an enthusiasm to follow in my father's footsteps in the field of play. The enthusiasm was easier than following in his footsteps," writes J.J. Barrett in his book, In the Name of the Game. The book is much more than a personal memoir, and shows, through the author's detailed research and profiles of famous players, what a unifying force Gaelic football was at a critical period in Irish history.
As Paddy Downey, Gaelic Games Correspondent of The Irish Times for 30 years, writes in the back cover of the book: "J.J. Barrett chose his native Kerry as an example of the reconciliation wrought by Gaelic games nationwide in the aftermath of the Civil War. He chose rightly, for Kerry was at the core of Civil War atrocities and, being a heartland of Gaelic football, crucially central to the healing which the game helped to bring to a bitterly divided people."
Dying father
For J.J. Barrett, himself a winner of senior and under-21 All-Ireland medals with Kerry, and currently Dublin Gaelic Games Correspondent of the Evening Herald, it was the encounter with his dying father which spawned the book. "The memory of a brave, dying man of 49 brought to tears as he examined and handled each medal, has stayed with me through the years. He would finger one of his six All-Ireland medals, look at the date, think a little and replace it," he writes. "I have thought in my adult years that it was probably the first time Joe Barrett had ever handled or actually paid much attention to those same medals."
Some years ago, he penned a poem, A Little Bag of Memories, which vividly captures the perspective of a young boy attending the funeral of his father, a public figure, GAA star, republican veteran and staunch admirer of Eamon de Valera, who was buried with the full honours of the time.
Last Post bugler
It contains the following lines:
There was a huge funeral,
A guard of honour of Rock Street Club, Kerry teams,
Old IRA comrades,
Wreaths, tears, handshakes,
Much sympathy, some hypocrisy,
Six volleys with spent shells falling by his grave.
Eulogies, priests, bishops, nuns,
And the Last Post bugler.
I was nine years old,
Seemed to have to look up
At everything and everyone
That day
Except the coffin.
I looked down at that.
The Tricolour flag, the football jersey and boots,
And the spent shells.
Apart from being a riveting read, the book is timely, given the ongoing controversy over the GAA's Rule 21 which prohibits members of the security forces in the North from joining the association. J.J. Barrett says the GAA traditionalists might be asked to yield a certain amount of nationalistic ritual by removing the prohibition. But, he adds: "That may be a small price to pay for welcoming into the organisation our brethren from the unionist tradition who have for so long been isolated from their native games."
He provides several examples of the healing power of participation in Gaelic games. He recalls his father being among those released from internment camps in the Curragh after the Civil War. Some went on to win All-Ireland senior medals, after first losing the postponed 1923 All-Ireland final to Dublin.
"On that Kerry team were IRA members, Free State Army soldiers and other players who sympathised with the ruling Cosgrave Government but would not have been actively involved in politics," writes J.J. Barrett.
"After captaining Kerry to All-Ireland victory in 1929, Joe Barrett handed over the next captaincy in 1931 to Captain Con Brosnan, a Free State Army Officer, who was a member of the Army which had incarcerated Barrett in various locations for almost a year-and-a-half." Death of Collins Inevitably, Eamon de Valera and Michael Collins feature in the book. J.J. Barrett writes that the killing of Collins "was, arguably, the saddest of all the regrettable killings of the Civil War." Compounding the tragedy, he adds, was the belief in some quarters that Dev could have participated in some way in the killing. He goes on to quote Sean Quilter, a former priest now living in Florida, who was chaplain to Dev when he was President. Sean Quilter recalls sharing "a glass of Guinness or two" with Dev and his friend, Colonel Tom McNamara, in the late 1960s. "The Chief rarely talked politics, but I do recall that he said he was in Co Cork to bring about a truce when Michael Collins was shot. He personally regretted and tried to avert this tragedy," he adds.