|
Teachtaireacht Uacthtarán CLG
Is cúis mhór áthais dom na focail seo a leanas a scríobh do gach éinne a bhfuil páirt acu ag cur an dramaíocht seo ar siúl arís i mbliana.
In this the 125th Anniversary of the Gaelic Athletic Association a process of reflection and stock taking has taken place across every level of the organisation highlighting the various different strands and facets that link the GAA to the nation that spawned it.
They are numerous, with our games and clubs the obvious stand out attractions and our commitment to our culture and language other noteworthy features of our charter.
However by and large outside the confines of Scór, GAA based dramas are something that have been few and far between.
With this in mind confirmation that Bondi Beach Boy Blue is to be staged again this year is to be lauded.
You don’t have to be a hurler - or in my case a former hurler - to appreciate the strong links our games and in this case hurling in particular has with the communities across the island and indeed further afield that play host to the ancient game.
The game and the community identity that underpins it, tap into the Irish sporting psyche like few of our other pastimes. In brief it would be hard to imagine the sporting landscape of this country without a game that is quintessentially ours and rightly viewed by so many as our national game.
Of course the other main theme of the play is the common practice of young Irish people leaving these shores to travel sometimes as part of the growing up process but in other instances in search of work and the prospect of a better life.
Quite often Gaelic games provide a support structure that is taken for granted when at home in Ireland and the strong bonds and passions aroused by the GAA amongst those abroad are often transported home with the return of those same people.
Once again the spectre of emigration looms large for many families across the island and for that reason there is a special resonance attached to this year’s production of the play.
That hurling acts as a central theme in the play offers a direct link to the activities and aims of the GAA and I have no doubt that large numbers of our members will avail of the opportunity to see a play that has already struck a chord with those lucky enough to have seen it.
I wish everyone associated with the production every success.
Rath Dé ar an obair,
Criostóir Ó Cuana – Uachtarán Chumann Lúthchleas Gael
Teachtaireacht Uacthtarán CLG
Is chúis mór áthais dom cúpla focail a scríobh do gach duine a bhfuil baint acu leis an dráma nua seo.
It is difficult to convey to the outsider just how deeply the GAA is engrained in the psyche of a huge number of Irish people. Founded in 1884 to promote traditional Irish games and pastimes, its influence spread (in the words of its founder Michael Cusack) "like a prairie fire" and the GAA today has a presence in literally every community in the country. The Association now has in the region of 2,000 clubs spread throughout the country and the Gaelic games of football and hurling, which are at the heart of club life, arouse the passions of the Irish like little else.
For an Association so deeply entwined in the overall fabric of Irish society and daily life, there are remarkably few dramatic works which feature Gaelic games as a primary theme. I am delighted therefore to welcome Benny Mc Donnell’s new work, Bondi Beach Boy Blue and in particular the manner in which it depicts the profound importance and influence that Gaelic games, and the game of hurling in particular, can have on the lives of young people.
Growing up in Kilkenny, hurling dominated our every waking moment. From school to church to family outings, the game was seldom far from our minds, nor the hurley far from our hands. The ghosts of Kilkenny hurling greats stalked us, their storied excellence not just a standard to which we aspired, but a source of pride in who and what we were. Being from Kilkenny meant that Hurling was our lives, and of course shaped our lives.
We talked of little else. In this context, I can easily relate to the central themes of this production.
Gaelic games have long had such an effect throughout Ireland, but most particularly in rural areas. As a community based organisation, it has often been said that it is difficult to determine where the community ends and the GAA club begins as they generally overlap and are intertwined. The sense of place, so engrained in the Irish, is seldom better demonstrated than on the GAA field. The local team play not just for themselves but for the pride and glory of the entire community. When the team wins, it is the cause of universal celebration; when they lose the community mourns as one.
This latest work should serve to capture for the observer the unique appeal and passion of Gaelic games and will offer a further insight into their pivotal role within Irish society. I trust it will be an enjoyable experience for those involved and I extend my best wishes to you all.
Le gach dea-ghuí,
Nioclás Ó Braonán,
UACHTARÁN, CLG (2006-2009)
... one of the single most important social and cultural organisations in society ...
Since its foundation in 1884, the GAA has been a cornerstone in Irish life. As it celebrates its 125th anniversary the Association can be rightly proud that it remains one of the single most important social and cultural organisations in society. That it has survived and prospered, against the back drop of an ever changing Ireland is important. That it has remained true to so many of its founding principles, while adapting to new circumstances, shows the strength of the vision dreamt up by Michael Cusack and Maurice Davin and launched into the world in Hayes’ Hotel in November 1884. In a world where elite sport is often viewed through cynical eyes, the GAA’s staunch defence of the twin principles of amateurism and volunteerism mark it out as unique in the world of sport. It remains true, as it was in the late nineteenth century, that the players who seek All-Ireland glory at club or county level, are known to their communities. The GAA offers an organic link, through the club - for young and old, long standing local or newcomer – that ties them to their homeplace and brings the community to life.
Bondi Beach Boy Blue, although switching spaces between Ireland and Australia, is about community. While the main character, Declan, is battling with many complex aspects of his life (indeed, can be said to have run away from them to the sunshine of Sydney), he is rooted in, and still inhabits, the world of Kilkenny and its hurling. The play centres on Declan’s relationship with best friend Gary and his girlfriend Lisa, and details the road that has led them to Australia. Essentially it is a journey about community and how, in the GAA centred mindset of the parish, heroism, at whatever level, is a core value. Through Bondi Beach Boy Blue, Declan’s heroism in representing his community in hurling – something that was real, but ended by injury – is juxtaposed with his tales of entering the Olympic games representing Ireland – something that began as a joke, but is played out at home as if it was fact. Both the accounts of Declan’s hurling career, his heroics in winning a match at the last gasp, and the belief of his community that he might be running in the Olympics, show how parish pride is a key to understanding the place of the local in Irish society. Sport, and especially hurling in a Kilkenny context, is a glue that holds people together. It offers them hope, delivers glory and failure in equal measure, and allows the sense of local place to be tied together and represented by fifteen men togged out in the jerseys of home. The importance of hurling, as bigger than anything else, is encapsulated by Declan’s comment that ‘hurling is my lifeblood’, and by the recalling of the local councillor’s slogan, ‘more hurling, less politics’ and the admission that this ‘tops the poll every time’.
As Ireland addresses a new set of challenges brought about by the global economic downturn, the GAA will remain, as it was during the Celtic Tiger years, an essential symbol of Irishness. It will allow Irish people, at home and abroad, to celebrate who they are through the games and cultural activities of the Association. Bondi Beach Boy Blue offers, through the tale of Declan, a way of understanding the place of the GAA and its people in Irish society. As Lisa tells him after the injury that ended his playing career, ‘You can’t play hurling anymore. That doesn’t means your life is over’. This truth that Declan battles with, is shared by many within the GAA now and over the past 125 years: without the GAA, their lives would feel over.
Professor Mike Cronin, Boston College is the head of the GAA Oral History Project set up as part of the Associations 125 Years celebration.
Dreaming the Real in Post-Celtic Tiger Ireland: Bondi Beach Boy Blue
Bondi Beach Boy Blue is indebted to good purpose to the vision of Brian Friel in Philadelphia Here I Come, a play that similarly deals with the conflict between reality and fantasy in the life of a young Irishman in a troubled relationship with his father and who seeks a new start abroad. Synge’s Playboy of the Western World, with its focus on the life-changing power and responsibility that attends upon telling a tall story of heroism, is also a presiding spirit of this engrossing drama set dually in Kilkenny and Australia at the height of the Celtic Tiger period.
McDonnell’s play both opens and closes on the moment when its hero, Declan, is confronted with the major crisis of his young life. That crisis is not what we expect – it is not one of the loss of his chance to become a hurling great through the fateful act of God or of misjudgement on the field of play that ended his career. It is, instead, the crisis of the challenge facing Declan to take control of his life rather than drift in the backwash of his broken ambitions and fantasies of greatness. This means that he must face up to his own practise of using the misfortune of his hurling accident as an excuse not to take control of his life. The problem, however, as for the young hero Gar in Friel’s 1964 masterpiece, is how he is to so take control, for Declan must first find his way between the claims of two opposite world views as the basis of success: the value of facing reality and the value of dreaming. The play takes us up to but not beyond the crucial moment of negotiation between them.
The first of these world views is enacted in the idea that Declan must take on board his ex-girlfriend’s advice to ‘be proactive’: to wake to the reality of his own responsibility to shape his life as he wills it, without exaggerated claims but with a clear focus towards becoming someone of genuine significance. In practical terms, this demands that he confess to spinning the yarn about being chosen for the Olympics, by admitting but also facing down both his own embarrassment and his family’s shame, so that he can build on his real success in the fun-run to Bondi Beach, by making something of himself in this land of new beginnings. This is the task of ‘growing up’ to become an individual, to become his own hero.
In the second world view, Declan’s challenge is to accept the possibility that he still actually is someone through whom people can legitimately dream: that his family and community in Ireland can rightfully imagine him in a position of glory. This, strangely enough, is a much more frightening prospect for him. The idea that he could be spotted by sports scouts as of true Olympic potential may be the self-comforting and self-decieving fantasy typical of the kind of failed individual that Declan feels himself to be, in the emptiness of his life after his serious hurling career is ended. He dreads this image of himself being confirmed in the disappointment of those at home once the true story comes out. But worse still may be the possibility that such an ambition is not necessarily delusional.
The idea that a young man who has lived and breathed hurling in one of the heartlands of its excellence – hurling, one of the most skilled games in the world, and one where the status of potential champion is not publicly accorded without due evidence – the idea that such a player could be an Olympic-standard athlete, is far from foolish. Declan’s community knows this, their hunger to match local to global recognition of greatness echoing the catch-call to victory made immortal in Charles Kickham’s Knocknagow and still central to the ethos of the GAA: ‘for the credit of the little village’. One of the most riveting moments of the play occurs where we learn that the Irish at home have so run with the dream of the local boy made good, that they pragmatically set about turning fantasy into reality as they try – proactively - through the media, to get these young men actually accepted onto the Irish Olympic team. That this attempt will not succeed because it contravenes official protocol, is irrelevant to the fact that through it the community have been given the chance to dream.
The play closes on tenderhooks as Declan may be about to miss the fact that he has already been forgiven by the people at home for his fooling of them. Can he recognize that the tragedy of his hurling career cut short, was their loss too, and therefore that the possibility of his turning this misfortune around – even if it is only a dream - subliminally represents their communal chance to make good the losses in their own lives? This, surely, is one of the main functions of spectator sport. Can Declan recognize that a hero can only be a hero on behalf of his community who he empowers through pushing himself beyond his limits, or will he judge himself by the harsh utilitarian standards of individualist success, where winning always means victory over, rather than through and for, others?
That there are lessons here for an Ireland bewildered by the speed with which the Celtic Tiger is departing our shores, is clear. If the tide of national success has suddenly gone out, we are being presented with an opportunity to rethink the basis of that success, as we are faced with the challenge to actually believe in ourselves rather than seeing ourselves as a nation, either as being just lucky (‘walking between the raindrops’), or somehow as being owed our good fortune. This, then, is a play about and for young Irish people and for the generations and the traditions that have nurtured them. The authenticity of the play’s language – the delight with which we recognize the idioms and cultural place markers of the Irish south-east and especially of the huge influence of the GAA in that world – lends itself, not to any exclusivity of vision, but to a confirmation of that intimate connection between local and universal understanding, which this drama – in the best tradition of Irish theatre –makes available to us.
Dr. Catriona Clutterbuck,
School of English, Drama and Film,
University College Dublin
Hurling is a game for the Gods and his messengers.
I often wondered did Adam and Eve play hurling in the Garden Of Eden?.Boughs from the famed apple tree could easily have been moulded into hurleys in the perfect state that existed within the orchard walls;and what would be wrong with an apple itself as a substitute sliothar on a brisk morning solo run round the rockery quarter of Páirc Eden.
The notion may be but fantasy yet it is difficult to divorce hurling from the mythology that finds it’s way into our consciousness at different times of our lives.In our innocent younger existences we as Irish people had no difficulty in imagining the hectic games of hurling played by the Fianna,that noble band of community guardians in pre-christian Hibernia.
We all accept that Kilkenny’s hurling in the 2008 All-Ireland final was as flawless as any brand ever witnessed since the foundation of the GAA;but let no one advance the theory that it would in any way match that in the repertoire of the beloved Fianna.They were the real masters of camán craft and their invincible team was built round famed warrior/sage, Fionn Mac Cumhail at midfield,his son Oisín on the Forty,his grandson Oscar at fullback and Diarmuid Ó Duibhne,the favourite of the women-folk of the land in Eddie Brennan’s corner.Did you know that the ‘twenty in a row’ was within the reach of that panel of sportsmen when the advance guard of St. Patrick arrived.But the man with the sublime principles convinced them to cease hurling forthwith and turn to bell-ringing for the remainder of their futures.Alas, that was the end of their earthly hurling.
Fair play to them though they took up the game again on arrival at the Otherworld,the existence of which they were aware of even before the coming of Aspal Mór na h-Éireann, St. Patrick himself.Doesn’t folklore inform us that the greatest hurling games of all were played by spirits on release from eternity between midnight and sunrise on moonlit nights.The chiming stroke of midnight was the call to action from grave or dolmen and the finish was signalled by the first cock-crow of the dawn co-inciding with an instant return to subterranean rest by hurlers to whom exhaustion was unknown.What a privilege it must have been for the spirit-commentator of those days to attempt to describe the indescribable grandeur of the seraphic brand of hurling served up in those matches.Their legacy is that hurling has come to mean something special to Irish people and surely it was that far off bond between heaven and earth that ensured that an Ireland without hurling would never materialize.
The hurley made of ash is now an Irishman’s passport and there is great pride even in carrying it not to mention the excitement and pleasure generated when two teams swing into action in the oldest field game in the world.Why shouldn’t we hail it in ballad,poem and drama.
Micheál Ó Muircheartaigh is an RTE Radio Sports Commentator, he has succeeded Micheál Ó Hehir as the quintessential voice of the G.A.A.
… the way of the family …
The explanation in the Collins English dictionary is grey and brief - hurling is a traditional game, resembling hockey. That tells you the bare facts but nothing of the colour, excitement, appeal or real life meaning of one of the fastest field games in the world.
"Hurling is to Kilkenny what rugby is to New Zealand."
Hurling, nor the GAA, needs no introduction in Kilkenny. The county has won the All- Ireland senior title 30 times, level at the top of the roll of honour with Cork. That a county with a population of less than 90,000 has consistently punched above its weight has long since ceased to be a story. People merely expect that to happen now, especially those in and from the Noreside county.
Hurling is to Kilkenny what rugby is to New Zealand. Youngsters grow up thinking they can be the best, wanting to be the best. At every turn they will be helped realise their dream - by schools, colleges, clubs, the County Board under-age Squads System and coaches who believe the real beautiful game is played with shaped ash in hand.
Hurling in Kilkenny is not the domain of any one sector. The success is the result of a combined effort, a way of life passed from one generation to the next. Children are introduced to the game at primary schools. By the time they reach second level colleges, the good and the promising are already identified. The most likely future stars already known.
In institutions like St Kieran’s College, a peerless hurling nursery that helped hone the wonderful talents of DJ Carey, Henry Shefflin, Eddie Keher and many others, young players are exposed to major inter- county competition for the first time. With 16 All- Ireland colleges senior hurling championships, St Kieran’s heads the honours list. From within its grey walls emerged the Godfather of hurling coaching, Mons Tommy Maher - Kilkenny senior team trainer/manager for around two decades.
He was the man who preached the importance of mastering the individual skills of the game. He was the man who introduced, and taught, players the importance of the hand- pass. But, perhaps his greatest gift was that he prompted the flow of thinking coaches - people who challenged and changed the norm, the accepted practices in the game. St Kieran’s old boys - Diarmuid Healy, Nicky Cashin, Tommy Lanigan and Adrian Finan are among those who have sampled All- Ireland success as sideline walkers with college and county.
Beyond the schools/colleges boundaries there is a vibrant club set- up. Working hand- in- hand, the clubs and colleges co- operate to deliver a more rounded player, one who will have a better grasp of hurling life on leaving school.
"Late developers need only ask"
By the time a youngster gets into the scope of the Kilkenny Squads System (financed by the County Board), he is already on his way to stardom. But no one is excluded either. Late developers need only ask for a chance and show their interest. Eight of the 2006 Kilkenny All- Ireland winning team emerged through the Squads System that has been in operation for a mere six seasons.
How deep does the GAA seep into the Kilkenny psyche? About a decade ago a young woman, with a large young family - bereaved by the sad death of her husband, turned to the local GAA club for help. She promised to take the lads to games everywhere and anywhere if the club agreed to encourage them to keep playing, to keep involved. Two of those young lads made it through to the senior inter- county scene, and were winners in Croke Park. The way of the Kilkenny hurling family …. united, supportive, winners.
John Knox is Sports Editor with The Kilkenny People.
|
