As I walked to Croke Park up along Portland Row to see the match between Dublin and Westmeath, it brought me back in time to a similar journey I made as a young boy in September 1955.The all Ireland final that year was contested by Dublin and Kerry.Dublin with 13 players from the famous Saint Vincents Club in Marino were raving hot favourites. Meath had won the All Ireland final of 1954 when they had beaten an ageing Kerry on the score line of 2 goals and 7 points to 7 points for Kerry.

Dublin had played Meath in the Leinster final of 1955 on their way to the All Ireland final and had defeated them by 20 points. In the All Ireland semi final of 1955 they had played Mayo in Croke Park. It rained all day and the teams drew 7 points each. In the other semi final Kerry played Cavan and that match was also a draw. With just minutes to go Cavan lead by 4 points but the men from the Kingdom came back in the last seconds to snatch a draw.

Both replays were played in Croke Park as a double header on the same Sunday. The Kerry, Cavan game was played first and Kerry won very easily. The Dublin Mayo game was a very tight contest and Dublin secured victory by a single point to reach the final. Before the final Dublin lost Norman Allen through appendisitise. Norman played in the half back line and was one of the many stars from thr St Vincent club who had ruled Dublin football for many years. Vincents and in my humble opinion were the best club team that I have ever seen playing Gaelic football and they would have been more than a match for a lot of county teams who have won all Irelands.

I had moved to Donnycarney on Dublin’s north side in 1954 with my family but I still had friends from school that I went to Croke Park with. One of my best friends was shay Mac  who lived just off Seville Place on the North Strand. I had arranged to meet him at the North Strand at 12 30 pm so we would be in time to see the Minor Final as well. I got the Bus at Donnycarney Church and got a seat.

Artane boys industrial school

The majority of the passengers were heading to the match and the banter was about who would play well and how much would Dublin win by. The bus moved slowly down the Malahide Road Passing the boys from Artane Schools who were walking as they normally did to the Match. They were not part of the band but were in the industrial school. Some for petty offences and some whose only crime was that their Mothers or Fathers were sick or had died. And there was no one to take care of them.

This was the Ireland of De Valera and the green Tories who ruled Ireland nearly uninterrupted since the early 1930s. The boys marched two abreast and the formed a long line from beginning to end four brothers accompanied them. The boys were dressed in worsted suits and long stockings and boots. They were like a battalion of soldiers who seemed in line. Little did I know the horrors that some of those children Experienced in those Schools. Their only crime was mainly poverty. It was a situation that I could have found myself in as my mother was ill in hospital for a number of years during my childhood, and but for the care and attention of the older members of my family I too could have been another statistic.

Down the Malahide road the throng of Dublin and Kerry supporters decked out in blue and white of Dublin and the green and gold of Kerry wended their way to the match. The excitement and expectation could be felt even though the ground was still over a mile away. Could Dublin Bridge a gap of thirteen years since their last All Ireland or would the older men of the kingdom come good yet again. We would soon have all the questions answered, who I wondered would win the battle of the young and not so young.  

The five lamps at Amiens street , North Strand

We passed the inter section of Grithifh Avenue and Malahide Road which was the base of the Saint Vincent’s club and along Fairview through Ballybough to the North Strand. I met Shay at the Five Lamps and we set out on the short journey to Croke Park. .

 

 

 

typical horse trough of the day

Near the five lamps was a horse trough and further up Portland Row near the C I E depot was another one. The transport company had stables in Portland Row where they stabled their horses and it was used as a base for some of their transport operation in Dublin. A significant amount of the business would have been horse drawn at that time, and the horse troughs were dotted around the city to quench the thirsty horses and ponies.

The honorourable dublin street dealer..Apples,Oranges and chocalate on the big day

Along Portland Row as we climbed towards summer hill the usual wheelers and dealers lined the route. The three card trick merchants with their fold up tables were asking some would they be able to find the lady, the sellers of colours of the two teams were doing a roaring trade in the sale of paper hats and rosettes, and the dealers who by the way who did not sell drugs but had baskets and bread boards filled with apple, oranges, bananas biscuits, lollipops bom boms chocolate and liquorices all sorts for sale The tension was building for us, two young children as we neared the stadium.    

We walked up Portland Row and along the way we met some Kerry supporters some who were having sandwiches and some who were eating fruit that had been purchased from the fruit sellers. We passed across summerhiil road and on to North Circular Road which was lined on both sides by Georgian houses that had been built when Dublin was a corner of the British Empire, and the well off and the leaders of industry lived on the tree lined thoroughfare.

The one and only Brendan Behan

We passed O Connells School, which was the Headquarters of the Irish Christian Brothers. O’Connell’s was the school that Tom Kettle the war poet had attended, and the area of this part of the Dublin inner city that gave us

Scupture of James Joyce in Earl street Dublin

James Joyce, Brendan Behan and

Sean O Casey

Sean O Casey. Croke Park beckoned and we arrived in good time to see the start of the Minor Final.

We were behind the Canal end goal and very quickly the ground began to fill .Two Kerry men behind us seeing that we were only young boys and fearing we might be crushed, lifted us over the wall and through the wire that surrounded the pitch and we ended up on the pitch .The stewards came and told us to sit behind the goal .We had a great view of the playing area and we waited in anticipation for our heroes to enter the arena. The teams came on we sang the usual songs of the Ireland of the fifties, A Nation Once again, followed by Faith of our Fathers. The teams marched behind the band and then the National Anthem was sung.

The ball was then thrown in and the game was on. Kerry seemed more relaxed and as the game reached the mid point of the first half they seemed to be taking charge. Dublin had only sporadic attacks and the free flowing style that was their norm did not manifest itself, Kerry were on top and the Dublin we expected to see had not yet shown up. The Kerry full back was called Ned Roche and he did not stray far from the edge of the Parrolegram. Dublin’s plan was to draw him out this was a tactic that had worked well for Dublin. Kevin Heffernan the Dublin full forward would move out the field and the player marking him would follow this would leave room for his fellow forwards to exploit. Unfortunately Ned Roche did not take the bait and Dublin seemed to lose their way.

When I thing back to Ned Roche my memory of him was that he was a big strong powerful looking man and perched on his head was a peaked cap which seemed to cast a shadow around the Kerry goal. For two young boys like Shay and myself we had heard of the Colossus of Rhodes but we had not seen him till that September day in Croke Park. Dublin did have one chance of a goal in the first half but when the ball came across the Kerry goal and it only needed the slightest touch the inrushing Dublin forward missed the connection by inches.

At half-time Kerry were in the lead and as the game wore on into the second half Dublin seemed to lose heart and Kerry were in control. Not to long before the final whistle they led by 12points to 6 points. Dublin got a fourteen-yard free, which Ollie Freaney took. He took the free and it squirmed through a forest of legs and into the net. Dublin were now only 3 points behind and we wondered could they produce a grandstand finish, unfortunately time ran out and Kerry took another All Ireland. We left the Stadium that day dejected and the result was a harsh lesson for us. The Kerry team that day also had household names like Tagh Lynne, Sean Murphy, Jim Brosnan, and T J Cronin who also was a big man hewn from the same Quarry as Ned Roche.

Football then was a tough game and there was no place to hide if a player suffered a heavy tackle he got to his feet as quick as he could because if you lay down you would be called a sissy. Ireland has changed over the past 50 years and mostly for the better .The Georgian houses still line North Circular Road O, Connell’s School is still there the horses troughs are long gone the Five Lamps remain but the gas lighting is gone. The women who sell the fruit, daughters and more than likely granddaughters of the women of 1955 ply their wares on the approaches to the venue. Artane Industrial School is gone and is missed by no one. I would suggest instead of singing our national anthem this year at the All Ireland Finals that a minute’s silence be observed for the victims of what was a sick society.

Dublin after the massive win over westmeath two weeks ago are being spoken of as likely champions in 2009, Kerry are still there but we are told in the doldrums and past their sell by date, and Mayo are considered by some to be likely contenders. We also have Tyrone Cork and the Men from the Glens ready to strain every sinew to taste victory in September. A lot has not changed; The All Ireland is not won in June, July, or even August, but on the third Sunday in September. My questions is can the tired men of the Kingdom resurrect   themselves as they did in 1955 and win the Sam Maguire. Only time will tell.