Mullinahone.net

This year 2009, the GAA celebrates 125 years of existence. Next Sunday week, May 10th, has been designated La na gClub by the Croke Park authorities. This is to be a day when the paramount importance of the local Club will take precedence over all Championship fixtures and events. Club Officials all over the country have been requested to organise local events which will show the modern GAA in a positive light in every one of the GAA’s parishes all over the country. Since it’s inception in Hayes Hotel, Thurles, 125 years ago, the GAA through it’s Clubs has always been a bulwark of both parish pride and nationalism. It has been a cornerstone on which many parishes have been built.

In the absence of a local Club history, it is no harm to reflect on the GAA in Mullinahone in 25 year segments. The Mullinahone Club was founded in 1885 within a year of the birth of the association. The original Club was built around the “Ballycullen Footballers”, a group of locals who in the early days, spent hours playing football in the townland. They may indeed have spent time discussing tactics also around the Five Eye Bridge. Some of the players may have played with the Poulacapple Club which existed for a few years in the early days of the 20th Century. A number of these may have lined out with Grangemockler in what was their Golden age. When Cloneen won the County Senior Football Title in 1908, two of the members of the team were Paddy and Ned Egan of Poulacapple.

The second 25 years from 1909 to 1934 was the Golden Age of Mullinahone football. Originally organised by Frank O’Brien, at least four County Senior titles were won and possibly a fifth in 1916. Mullinahone players began to represent the County and the Mullinahone colour which was red (the colour of the British Empire) was replaced by “the Green above the red”, as the fight for freedom swept across the country. Mullinahone played a huge part in this struggle and also in the events of Bloody Sunday 1920.

The third era 1935 - 1959 was dominated by World War Two and emigration of the 1950’s. The strange game of hurling briefly flared up in 1940 while a Mullinahone 7 was the dominant force in seven aside tournaments during the 1940’s. No County Football title was won and emigration caused the Club to fade from Senior ranks. Mick Cahill won a cork Senior Football Medal with Lees in 1952 but who won an Ulster Senior Football Medal with Cavan in the 1940’s?

The 25 years 1959 - 1960 saw the games struggle on. In 1962, we won our first County Juvenile Football Title. It could have gone the way in the boardroom of the one won in 1956, but it didn’t. In 1966, we lost the 1965 Intermediate County Football Final to Newport, but in 1973, we won a County Junior Football Title. That team may not have been great footballers, but it gave us more club administrators than any previous bunch of players. Another hurling spark flared in 1979.

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