{"id":157,"date":"2007-08-25T16:40:28","date_gmt":"2007-08-25T16:40:28","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/54.229.91.100\/libraryandarts\/library\/ehistory\/?p=157"},"modified":"2024-06-17T10:53:26","modified_gmt":"2024-06-17T09:53:26","slug":"centenary-of-kildares-first-all-ireland-victory-in-1907","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/kildarelibraries.ie\/ehistory\/centenary-of-kildares-first-all-ireland-victory-in-1907\/","title":{"rendered":"CENTENARY OF KILDARE’S FIRST ALL-IRELAND VICTORY IN 1907"},"content":{"rendered":"
Kildare Voice 15 June 2007<\/strong><\/em><\/div>\n
<\/div>\n
Centenary of Kildare\u2019s first All Ireland victory<\/strong><\/span><\/div>\n
<\/div>\n
by <\/span><\/strong><\/div>\n
<\/div>\n
EOGHAN CORRY<\/span><\/strong><\/div>\n
June 16 1907, a hundred years ago was when Kildare won the first of their four All Ireland titles and an important date in forging the identity of our county.
\nThe first of our four All Ireland football championships was won with the minimum of fuss and with little impact compared with the razzmatazz connected with such occasions nowadays.
\nThe creation of parliamentary constituencies (North and South Kildare both elected one MP to the English House of Commons) and local elections of 1898 had helped initiate something resembling a Kildare identity.
\nBut it was the GAA that elevated our counties something more than lines on a map. And it was the surge of popularity created by Kildare\u2019s performances in four big football matches against Kerry that enabled the GAA to do so, placing it at the heart of popular culture for the first time a century ago.
\nThree of these matches were played in 1905, for the All Ireland \u201chome\u201d title of 1903 because the chaotic GAA championship ran two years late in those days.
\nKildare lost at the third attempt, having filled newspaper columns, special trains, makeshift stands in borrowed agricultural showgrounds, and the coffers of the GAA in the meantime.
\nThe same counties were back playing the 1905 final two years later, on June 16 1907, exactly a hundred years before the launch of this paper.
\nThere was a sense of unfinished business for both counties. The customary wrangle over the venue for the final took three Central Council meetings to resolve. Kildare initially refused to travel to Munster to play and at one stage the title was awarded to Kerry on a walkover.
\nEventually they went to Thurles and won, invoking the spirit of Wolfe Tone and his grave in Bodenstown in the dressing room pre match address.<\/div>\n
Who were these men? Writing the Centenary History of the GAA in Kildare I tried to encounter them through the memories of half a dozen or so old men who had witnessed some of those games.
\nNone of the players were alive, and a bit like a boy in a Dickens story, I started with an evening visit to Mainham graveyard to imagine their football heroism through tombstone inscriptions.
\nThe graveyard analogy was apt. These were solid men who did something today\u2019s heroes would love to emulate.
\nWas it easier then? Probably. Fewer counties competed. Ulster was a pushover. When Kildare played the semi-final some of the selected Cavan team did not show up and a newspaper columnist concluded “Cavan would not even win the junior championship of Kildare.\u201d
\nDublin and Kerry were Kildare\u2019s only real opponents. Kildare\u2019s own club structure was undergoing a bit of a revivial, new clubs were springing up all over the flatlands, but the experience of the men of Newbridge Sarsfields, or rather their predecessors Roseberry, and Clane meant those clubs dominated the local championship.
\nA bit like the way Munster\u2019s forwards and Leinster\u2019s backs make up the current Irish rugby team, the two clubs balanced each other out to make up the winning 17 – the 15 a side game was not introduced until 1913.
\nJoe Rafferty, the captain and mentor of 1903 was in command of operations from midfield, and he apparently picked his 17 with breath-taking simplicity, Roseberry men in the backs, Clane men in the forwards.
\nThe trains to Thurles stopped at stations along the Kildare line that have long been closed. Some of the spectators still had excitement in their voices as they recalled the crush of that journey.
\nTrains were cheap but wages were low. It could cost most of a labourer\u2019s salary to get there and back. We can estimate that 15,000 showed up, not much more than a county final nowadays.
\nA telephone was used for the first time to send the result back to ecstatic Kildare. Bonfires were lit at the crossroads so the returning spectators saw the heather blazing in the midsummer light.<\/div>\n
We don\u2019t know much about the game itself. Newspapers credit Kildare\u2019s victory on their wing play with a newcomer Tom Kelly the apparent star of the show.
\nThe ball was heavier in those days and football, if the rules of the time were followed, was more likely a pushing game than the high fielding propulsion game we have today.
\nKildare lost the toss. But when Kerry chose to play against the breeze Kildare went 0-6 to 0-1 up at half-time and never lost the lead.
\nJoe Rafferty’s “deft punching” caused havoc at centre-field and Kildare got the game’s only goal when Jack Connolly hit the crossbar, only to power his own rebound over the line “after a few minutes of life-and-death struggle.”
\nThe heroes dispersed, many of them to America. Fractious relationships with their employers made the prospects of a life abroad very appealing.
\nIt always struck me as ironic that while Kildare\u2019s two premier fee-paying boys boarding schools, Clongowes and Dominican Newbridge, sent rugby teams to the fields cheered on by the middle classes, the college farmhands were virtually inventing Gaelic Football as we know it in borrowed rugby jerseys.
\nNone of them thought that a hundred years later the GAA would be loaning its stadium back to rugby.<\/div>\n
Goalkeeper: Jack Fitzgerald (Roseberry);
\nFull back line Jack Murray (Roseberry), Jack Gorman (Roseberry), Larry Cribben;
\nHalf back line Tom Keogh (Roseberry), William Merriman, Ned Kennedy 0-3 (Roseberry);
\nMidfielders Mick Fitzgerald (Roseberry), Joe Rafferty, Mick Murray (Roseberry), Jack Connolly 1-0 (Roseberry);
\nHalf forwards: Jem Scott, Bill Bracken, Matt Donnelly;
\nFull forward line Bill “Steel” Losty 0-2, Tom Kelly, Frank “Joyce” Conlan 0-1 (Roseberry).<\/div>\n
<\/div>\n
Key dates
\n1884 John Wyse Power, editor of Leinster Leader, among seven men who found the GAA in Thurles
\n1887 Kildare GAA board established under chairmanship of Dr William O\u2019Connor.
\n1900 GAA in Kildsre revived by Dick Radley
\n1905 Kildare reach All Ireland final of 1903 and are defeated by kerry
\n19078 Kildare defeat Kerry to win first of four All Ireland titles<\/div>\n


\nEoghan Corry comments on early GAA success for County Kildare from his weekly column in the Kildare Voice. Our thanks to Eoghan. <\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Eoghan Corry comments on early GAA success for County Kildare from his weekly column in the Kildare Voice. Our thanks to Eoghan.<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":12,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[118],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-157","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-people"],"blocksy_meta":[],"featured_image_src":null,"featured_image_src_square":null,"author_info":{"display_name":"Kildare Local Studies","author_link":"https:\/\/kildarelibraries.ie\/ehistory\/author\/localstudies\/"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/kildarelibraries.ie\/ehistory\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/157","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/kildarelibraries.ie\/ehistory\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/kildarelibraries.ie\/ehistory\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kildarelibraries.ie\/ehistory\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/12"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kildarelibraries.ie\/ehistory\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=157"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/kildarelibraries.ie\/ehistory\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/157\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/kildarelibraries.ie\/ehistory\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=157"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kildarelibraries.ie\/ehistory\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=157"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kildarelibraries.ie\/ehistory\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=157"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}