Ó hEithir's rich contribution to GAA lore

ON GAELIC GAMES:The Inis Mór man's lively and original mind, combined with a love of Ireland and the GAA, gave us writings worth remembering and savouring

YESTERDAY MARKED the 20th anniversary of Breandán Ó hEithir’s passing. By rights he should be still with us at 80, his mordant observations on Irish life penetrating a target-rich environment.

He was a force-field of productivity in Irish cultural life. His Irish language journalism was provocative and progressive and illuminated the pages of this newspaper for years from the appearance of his first column, Bruth Faoi Thirin August 1963 which, like many others he would produce, was written when he was abroad.

Most prominently he was also a driving force behind Féach, the influential current affairs magazine in RTÉ's early years that attracted bigger audiences than any other television programme in the Irish language. He also wrote Lig Sinn i gCathú, the only novel as Gaeilge to top the best-seller lists.

Ó hEithir was one of a pioneering generation, which saw Irish culture not as an isolated monument to what makes us separate but as a means of interacting on equal footing with other influences. He was keenly aware of the importance of media in the modernising of the language, as reflected in his television work, his print journalism and vigorous advocacy of the place the language should hold in national broadcasting.

His English language writings included The Begrudger's Guide to Irish Politics, which despite a title that suggested boilerplate "satire" was an astringent review of the foibles – and worse – of our polity, opening with an anecdote about a priest comforting a blacksmith on the first day after the declaration of an Irish Free State.

The blacksmith was extremely worried about the likely disappearance of his best customers, the landed British aristocracy. Encouragingly, the priest said we would now have our own gentry, prompting what Ó hEithir claimed as the state’s first example of begrudgery. “Our own gentry! We will in our arse have our own gentry.”

My favourite book by Breandán Ó hEithir – and according to the author the one he took most pleasure in writing – is Over the Bar: A Personal Relationship with the GAA, published in the association's centenary year in 1984, which remains the best sports-themed book I have read.

Like all great sports writing it places the subject in the wider context of society and the result is a memoir in which the GAA and its games provide milestones throughout the author’s life and at other times earn criticism, generally constructive but often exasperated. He draws down brilliant examples of how the GAA interacts with the community at all levels.

He relates Máirtín Ó Cadhain’s reminiscence about Seán McBride at an IRA meeting in August 1936, which spills over from Saturday into Sunday until McBride notices that many of those present have become restless and unengaged.

Ó Cadhain tells him that the All-Ireland semi-final between Mayo and Kerry is taking place in Roscommon (the Cusack Stand in Croke Park was under construction) and a good few of the lads wanted to make tracks.

On hearing McBride’s response, indignantly questioning whether a football match is more important than the future of the Irish Republic, Ó Cadhain concludes: “I knew then that he would never do any good in politics because he did not understand Ireland”.

Ó hEithir had a perfect observer’s perspective on the GAA, interested but independently minded and as anxious that the association evolve to meet the needs of a changing country as he was that the Irish language should embrace the opportunities of modern communications.

He worked as script consultant with the film maker Louis Marcus on three documentaries about Gaelic games. Over the Bar recounts fascinating details of Christy Ring being recorded for posterity in the eponymous Christy Ring. The other ones were the football companion piece Peil and Sunday after Sunday, produced to mark the GAA’s centenary.

Ó hEithir’s ability to view indigenous issues through a wider lens was partly the result of an unusual childhood on Inis Mór, the largest of the Aran Islands where his parents were school teachers. He read insatiably and was friendly with the child of the local lifeboat radio officer in Kilronan.

The officer was Roger Hammond, brother of English cricketer Wally, and when the onset of the second World War forced the family’s return to Britain, they left behind a small library of English comics and annuals, giving the young Breandán a catholic interest in all sporting pursuits, including the public school recreations of rugby – he shared de Valera’s theory that rugby and hurling were the games which best suited the Irish temperament – and cricket.

Analysing Over the Barby exclusive reference to the socio-political context does it a disservice. It's a remarkably entertaining book, filled with funny observations and amusing anecdotes through all of which an affection for the GAA and its sometimes infuriating ways shines brightly.

It’s easy nowadays to forget that the GAA wasn’t always served by the torrent of publications, let alone the quality of many of them, that the games currently inspire on an annual basis. The book ends with a wonderful definition of what the author suggests the GAA is all about.

Bill Doonan was a settled Traveller who trained as a radio operator with the Army. During the second World War, in search of adventure, he deserted and enlisted in the British army. In the autumn of 1943, during a lull in the Battle of Monte Casino in southern Italy, he went missing from his unit.

A search revealed him up a tree on the side of a steep hill, apparently in a trance. In the midst of everything, Doonan – who would go on to win All-Ireland medals with Cavan in 1947 and ’48 – had found a vantage point where he could tune in his equipment in order to hear commentary on the second half of the All-Ireland football final between Cavan and Roscommon.

Over the Barconcludes with this paragraph: "If anyone ever asks you what the GAA is all about just think of Bill Doonan, the wanderer, on the side of that hill, in the middle of a World War – at home."

Collins Press republished the book five years ago but it is again out of print.

That’s a shame, as it should continue to be available to entertain everyone with an interest in Gaelic games or the Ireland of the 1940s and ’50s and also to honour the memory of Breandán Ó hEithir, whose lively and original mind the GAA so engaged throughout a life, sadly brought to a premature end 20 years ago this week.