Setting record straight on Killimor’s win in 1884

Talking Sport with Stephen Glennon

A Killimor historian has hit out at the way a significant event in GAA history has been recorded, stating a dire depiction that appeared in a national newspaper snippet before Christmas of the historic 1884 hurling match between Killimor and Dublin outfit Metropolitans “really went to the heart”.

The game in question between the two sides took place on Easter Monday, 1884 – six months before the GAA was officially founded – and the annals would have you believe that it was nothing more than a brawl or as, the national newspaper put it, a contest that “could loosely be termed a hurling match”.

The modern day commentators added: “Michael Cusack decided that a set of rules had to be agreed, Maurice Davin supported him and the rest, as they say, is history.” However, Killimor man Iomar Whelan, who has researched this event at length, strongly disputes this take on history.

Indeed, as a Killimor man, he fumes he has had enough of the misrepresentations and notes that the recent newspaper piece demeaned and degraded that fateful day in Ballinasloe in 1884. History, they say, is written by the victors. On this occasion, it was penned by the vanquished.

Whelan’s assertion is that Cusack and his Metropolitans had travelled to the West in the belief they were superior. However, with Killimor in the lead after the first half-hour period of four, Cusack and his selection were unhappy with the direction the fixture had taken and took umbrage.

“Cusack then said this was not the way the game should be played and he and his players gave an exhibition of how he thought it should be played,” highlights Whelan. “Then, our lads did likewise. The local lads, of course, said there was no difference.

“However, I read that in the local paper of the time, the Western News, so there may have been some bias. In this respect, you would have to allow Cusack the same [bias] in what he wrote in the Dublin dailies. He was a hurler on the day and captain of the team.”

This, perhaps, is the crux of it. Although a primary school teacher by profession, Cusack was also a contributor to the Dublin newspapers and it is his accounts that historians have embraced in stitching together the fabric of this story.

Whelan is not looking to debase Cusack’s role in Irish history – and lauds the Clare native for playing his part in uniting the various strands of Irish society – but remarks “at the same time he wasn’t super-human; he had the same weaknesses that many of us have”.

For more, read this week’s Galway City Tribune.