Croke Park

Croke Park

Following on from the publication of my book Croke Park: A History this piece tries to capture the essence of this icon of Irish sport and culture.

First broadcast on RTE Radio 1’s Sunday Miscellany in 2004.

The earliest known published account at a match day of what is now known as Croke Park was written in 1896 about a football match between Tipperary’s Arravale Rovers and Young Ireland’s of Dublin. In many ways the scene described is utterly recognizable. The article begins;

‘All bets on bad weather being called off at dawn, and if we failed to discern the sun coming over those eastern hilltops and a heavy, murky atmosphere precluded a sky of blue, still the day ripened out into a proverbial summer’s one, rather oppressive to the players, but delightful from a spectator’s point of view. Long before the scheduled time for starting streams of spectators were seen wending their way towards Jones’s Road.’

The writer continues and tells of a Tipperary father bringing his Dublin born children to see the team of his native county play. Of the people who gather at the Canal Bridge before the match. The proverbial Gaelic man, the clerk, the artisan, and now and again an outsider.

Then, with the streets deserted, the tense seconds before the match starts.

‘…when the last buzz of excitement dwindled down and each one held his breath. A shrill blow of [the referee’s] whistle announced the advent of the fray, in goes the leather, and the spectators giving vent to their pent-up feelings, a roar awoke the surrounding echoes, which never ceased throughout the hour.’

When the article was written Croke Park was the City and Suburban Sports Ground owned by Maurice Butterly – the Gaelic Athletic Association would not purchase it for another 17 years – and it was used for everything from pony racing to Gaelic games.

The only facility for spectators was the now long gone Pavilion stand. And most people stood unimpeded at the edge of the pitch. The venue has certainly been transformed beyond recognition – there is the Hogan Stand, the Cusack Stand and Hill 16 each of which is freighted with their own history. Today in the region of 80,000 will pack into what is the third largest sports stadium in Europe with its spectacular sweeping stands, corporate boxes and hi-tech pitch.

Croke Park on All-Ireland day is a communal experience – families, villages, counties on the move. It is also one that is intensely personal, that sick feeling in your stomach, the beating heart, sweaty palms. A cocktail of emotions is shaken by anticipation and distilled by memory.

Places and buildings possess their own autobiographies and guard their own memories. Croke Park is as much about memory as it is about live action. It is memory that gives it its resonance. The memories of past victories and defeats. The memories that make countless connections between ostensible strangers.

I have my own memories of Croke Park. The ‘Twelve Apostles’ or ‘The Dirty Dozen’ of the Dublin football team who defeated Galway in the 1983 All-Ireland Final – one of the most bad tempered finals on record, hence the reduced numbers. The agony of the defeat to Meath in the epic encounters of 1991. But my own personal favourite memory of All-Ireland day comes from the time when I worked in Croke Park.

It was the morning of the 2001 All-Ireland Football Final between Meath and Galway. I arrived just after sun-up and went up into the vast bowl of seats, with the field of green in the centre. The silence of the empty cauldron was almost overpowering in its intensity. It was the silence of 80,000 voices yet to arrive. Every door unlocked echoing, every cough amplified. As the match day staff started to arrive we congregated together, almost nervous though most of the staff have done this many times before. Then came the first ritual of the day, morning mass. Only in Ireland.

I am a devout agnostic – if such a thing is possible – but was intent on attending the mass which was held in one of the rooms under the Cusack Stand. Sitting on an improvised altar, decked out in the county colours of the day, stood the Sam Maguire trophy that would be contested for that afternoon. In the mass there is a brief well-wishing for the teams.

After mass the day gradually builds up to its climax and, like in 1896, in the seconds before the throw in there was a hush in the crowd and then the release of pent-up emotion.

Today’s All-Ireland football final will trigger off a whole host of memories and create new ones. At 3.30 when Kerry and Mayo fight it out millions of people, both in Ireland and abroad, will for the duration take part in the common experience of All-Ireland day at Croke Park. The only thing is I just wish Dublin were playing.