Ok, this is not strictly a match report! However, it’s undoubtedly the best piece of writing ever done about the club (even better than the weekly newsletter…) so definitely deserves it’s place here. Famous Cavan Playright, Shane Connaughton, may be more associated with Redhills but he actually grew up in Kingscourt and football was a major part of his life.

In 2001, as part of the 50yr commeration of O’Raghallaigh Park, Shane kindly wrote this piece about his memories of Kingscourt GAA and in particlular his unfilled wish to wear the famous blue jersey with the white star.

A fantastic piece of writing, that you could read over and over again. I think this guy may have a future in this writing lark

Enjoy!

Stars In My Eyes   

by Shane Connaughton

The star with the five points – it was all I ever wanted to wear. But the journey to get that blue jersey would prove to be a long and unfulfilled one. Before O’Raghaillaigh Park,there was Carney’s field. And before Carney’s there was the back road to school. It ran from McKeevers to the school (now the Matt Talbot Hall) and on our way back after lunch it became an elongated pitch were we played our version of the Eton Wall game. The Johnstons from Dun-Na-Ri plus all of us lot from Turners Hill versus Main Street and Peppers Hill.

Turners Hill was the Kennedys, Brian Smith, Kit Finnegan, Fonsie Kane, Raphael McGowan and any amount of Carolans… The rules of the game were simple. We kicked the ball along the road towards the Bailieboro Road. Like the Eton Wall game no one ever won. Except the cobbler! That was when my father started making me wear clogs!

In school there was a big press, and in that press was a big silver cup, a version of the Sam Maguire, won by Kingscourt Boys. It was there for years. I loved when Master McGlynn opened the press doors. Immediately we filled that cup with dreams. We were proud the school had won it. And devastated when it was taken from us by Kilmainhamwood.

The match was in the new park in late Summer 1951. It was refereed by Fr. Foley, who shall we say was slightly biased. The match was a draw with time up. Fr. Foley gave Kingscourt a fourteen yard free which was tapped over by Mickey Carolan, much to our delight. The Kilmainhamwood mentors, parents, and supporters invaded the pitch and surrounded the Ref and wouldn’t let him out, until he agreed a replay. Who said the clergy were all-powerful in those days?

In the replay we were beaten and the classroom press, the cupboard, was cupless. School was never the same again. Carney’s field was where I first saw Victor play. We followed him round the streets, carried his boots. I still idolise him to this day. Being from Turner’s Hill we sometimes tried to pretend that Josie “The Geezer” Yorke, was just as good. “The Geezer’s” finest hour was in Carney’s field when he had to mark Simon Deignan, the greatest half-back ever to play the game. “The Geezer” told us in advance how he was going to take care of him “Stick to him like putty”. This he did and ever afterwards we talked in Turners Hill, about how “The Geezer” had “played Simon Deignan out of it”.

I remember Victor holding aloft the Sam Maguire in 1948, when the team visited the town. There was a torch light procession, headed by the Kingscourt Band. I also remember gathering tyres for a bonfire to celebrate Cavan’s certain win over Meath in 1949.Alas it didn’t happen. But Brendan Kennedy and Lanzie Carolan told me that Micheal O’Heihir had made a mistake and that Cavan had won by a point!

I hared down the town and told my father the great news. He quickly punctured my hopes. Brendan,the same year, sent me into Mrs.Shekleton “to buy a rubber hammer and glass nails”. I hadn’t realised it was April 1st. Carney’s field was no more after Gene Murtagh,Fr. Marry, Mr. Blake,Tommy Sherlock, Dennis Farrelly and many others,bought Barnes’ field from Major Pratt for four hundred and fifty pounds.

Soon Charlie “The Knuckler” McArdle levelled it on his bulldozer. There are many hills in Cavan,as if you didn’t know. Some of them like mountains,and some of them quite low. Now one of them is missing . I won’t keep you in the dark. It was levelled by The Knuckler to make a Gaelic Park. Before the grand opening of the park,all the school kids gathered up the stones and sheep droppings.

Fr. Marry bought us tuppenny ice creams in Paddy Willie O’Briens. An aeroplane flew over and Fr. Marry told us he’d only get up in one if he could keep one leg on the ground. We needed heroes. We had nothing else. A most unlikely hero was Eddie Murray.

He was on the small side and worked at the Railway Station for CIE. Kingscourt were playing camogie against Castletara. They were very good and our girls weren’t quite as good. Enter Eddie Murray. In a skirt, blouse and a cap. The opposition weren’t aware of the gender-bending. One woman was heard to remark, with feminist vigour – “That girl is as good as any man”. To which Owenie Yorke replied,”Aye, and she’s a train driver in her spare time”.

The most incredible occasion of all took place in the new park. Kingscourt were playing Knockbride. This was always a fierce encounter. Spiced up by the confrontation between Victor and “The Gunner” Brady, Knockbride were giving us a dreadful hammering. Myself, Mattie Kennedy and Raphael McGowan were standing at the back of the Kingscourt goal when Knockbride stuck yet another point over the bar. I retrieved the ball for the kick out. But somebody took it from me and surreptitiously stuck a penknife in it, bursting it. The ball was kicked out and spiralled uselessly to the ground. In those days the visiting team had to supply a ball if anything happened to the first one. But some of the lads noticed before the game commenced, Knockbride didn’t have one. The game had to be abandoned. Knockbride even sent a man on a bicycle the whole way to Bailieboro to get a ball. But by the time he got one, darkness had come down. That’s what I call passion!

Football meant so much back then. It was the sun and stars to us. We played in the garden at the back of Kane’s. All we had was a tennis ball. Sometimes Fonsie Kane trained us unofficially. We’d hear the Cavan team trained by running round the pitch leapfrogging over one another. Fonsie decided we’d do the same. Except he added a stick on the back of the person you were jumping over. You had to jump and at the same time pick the stick up. Val Andrews, Sean Boylan – please don’t try this! It’s impossible. Fonsie and I have a good laugh about it every year at Muff Fair…..

It’s the oldest horse fair known to man It’s been around since Time began When Eve wanted a pony sure enough Adam bought her one at the Fair of Muff.

The handball alley was a place of intense feelings. We kids loved sitting on the steps and watching Bernard O’ Reilly, Cecil, Matt Donagh playing there on a Sunday morning. Many’s the bored Garda, on B.O. in the nearby barracks, ignored the heavy responsibilities of State, to challenge Bernard to a game. The passions were as intense as football.

We had nothing else. Turners Hill,the ball alley and O’Raghaillaigh Park were out theatre of dreams. When we were tired we nipped into Kane’s or Yorke’s and lay down in the feathers as Mr. Yorke or Terry Kane plucked geese, hens and turkeys. At night from my bedroom I could hear the anvil still sounding in McKeever’s forge. In the summer the corncrake woke us from Carolan’s meadow.

Alas I never wore that blue jersey with the five-pointed star. But I still got my dreams. I can still see the lads training in the park of an evening, kicking the ball away up so high, followed a second later by the thud of boot on leather. It was a first lesson in the laws of Physics – Memory travels furthest of all.

Shane Connaughton