Tyrone go Back to the Future
The GAA in Tyrone went ‘back to the future’ again in the Cardinal Ó Fiaich Library and Archive, Armagh, last Thursday, and once more a capacity crowd attended to hear talks, see old films and learn about the history of Gaelic games in the O’Neill County.
Joseph Martin, the author of The GAA in Tyrone, opened proceedings with an illuminating talk which examined the county’s dismal failure to make an impact in inter-county Gaelic games in the period up to the 1950s, and outlined the factors which underlay this disappointment.
The second speaker on the night was Jody O’Neill, the captain of the first Tyrone football team to win the Anglo-Celt Cup, in 1956. Jody delivered a succinct and impressive analysis of the breakthrough era of the mid-1950s, in which Tyrone went from being unsuccessful to the winners of half a dozen senior competitions in two years.
The second half of the bill featured the showing of two rarely seen colour films of the Tyrone football teams in 1956-57. The first was a film of the Tyrone v. Armagh challenge match at Maghery on 19 August 1956, a week after the Red Hand team had lost its first-ever All-Ireland senior semi-final to Galway.
The second film shown was that of the Tyrone team’s milestone trip to New York in May-June 1957. This film showed the team playing in the last major Gaelic game in the city’s famous Polo Grounds and in Gaelic Park, as well as the players’ civic reception by the Mayor of New York, the team’s sight-seeing tour around Manhattan, and the grand banquet and dance that was hosted for them.
The films revived many old memories for the various members of the 1956-57 teams. Eddie Devlin, for one, recalled to the crowd how he was interviewed for a television programme in New York in 1957; and how some American citizens mistook the players for communists, on account of their distinctive Moygashel linen white suits, emblazoned with a red hand symbol.
The other notable part of the programme was the formal donation of 14 old minute-books from the Tyrone County Board. These books stretch from the mid-1920s to the 1970s, and they are an invaluable historical resource. The library has already set in train the process of digitalisation of these books, and in due course digital copies will be presented back to the county board.
Pictured are the 1956-57 Tyrone players who attended the event. Back, L-R: Dessie Ryan, Tony McKenna, John Joe O’Hagan, Thady Turbett, Jody O’Neill, Michael Kerr, Frank Higgins. Front, L-R: Tony Connolly, Dónal Donnelly, Alma Brown (wife of team-trainer, Gerry Brown (deceased), Eddie Devlin, Fr Brian Hackett, Mick McIlkenny.
