Bosco’s archive beats the best

WITH over 4,000 GAA programmes in his collection – at the last count! – Ballinderreen’s Michael ‘Bosco’ Gallagher boasts one of the finest archives in the country.

It’s Monday evening and Gallagher has a selection of programmes spread out across his desk in his ‘man cave’ – a converted garage that now houses his collection of programmes and GAA jerseys, of which he has over a hundred.

Every evening he will take several programmes from his collection and work his way through them, fascinated by these moments in GAA history and the players and mentors who brought the occasions to life.

Anyone who knows ‘Bosco’ will know his passion for the GAA – and not just as a collector. A former Ballinderreen hurler, in the late 1990s and 2000s he played his hurling with Naomh Padraig in San Francisco, of which he also served as chairman for a period.

When he returned to Galway in 2008, he was employed by Galway County Board as a schools coaching officer and, for the past decade, he has managed Galway’s U14 Tony Forrestal team. He is also a GAA tutor.

Throughout all this time, he has collected his programmes. It’s something that has always interested him but it was only when he went to America in the mid-1990s that it progressed from a hobby to a vocation.

“Then, a fellow called Rory Hickey from Clare, who went on to become an inter-county referee, came over for the summer in ‘98 and he brought out programmes from a challenge match between Galway and Clare and the All-Ireland club final that Corofin won. He gave them to me and, I suppose, from that point on, I went ballistic in collecting programmes.”

When State-side, his collection received a big boost after the father of a Kilkenny player they had at Naomh Padraig – Ballyraggett’s Kieran Delaney – came to visit. “Kieran’s father came out before the end of the summer and he brought a box of programmes.

“A lot of it was Kilkenny stuff – Kilkenny county finals and so – but there were also All-Ireland colleges, Leinster colleges and Leinster (senior) championships in it. So, that was how it all started, really.”

Being thousands of miles away from mainstream GAA games didn’t deter Gallagher, either. Over his 11 years in the States, he was constantly ringing his friends at home to get him programmes from everything from colleges matches to club and inter-county games. “There were a few around Ballinderreen who I would call and you’d find out if they were going to the matches. And if they weren’t going, you’d ask did they know somebody who was.

For more, read this week’s Connacht Tribune.

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