Cushendun’s Leanne Blaney

Cushendun born Dr. Leanne Blaney recently co-authored UCD Collegians All-Ireland Senior Hurling Champions 1917 along with Dr. Paul Rouse. Educated at St. Ciaran’s P.S. and St Louis Grammar School, Ballymena she completed her BA Joint Major in History and Geography (2011) and her MA in History of the Media (2012)  at University College Dublin. Her PhD thesis examined the impact and influence of the car upon Irish and Northern Irish society and was funded by the Irish Research Council. Following her graduation in 2016, she has lectured and taught modern Irish history, culture and sport at UCD and at the National Library of Ireland. A former Podcast Editor for historyhub.ie, she has written for various newspapers including the Irish Independent and the Irish Times as well as RTÉ’s Century Ireland. A frequent contributor to RTÉ’s The History Show and Newstalk FM, she has worked as a researcher and historical consultant for various organisations including political commentator Vincent Browne. Previously commissioned to write a school textbook for Easons on the 1916 Easter Rising, Leanne is currently an affiliated member of staff in the University of Glasgow’s School of History.

Most importantly, she’s a loyal Saffron Gael follower who can be found furiously refreshing Facebook and Twitter for updates on match days when she can’t make it to the game.

UCD Collegians: All-Ireland Senior Hurling Champions 1917

“Fancy writing something on the Collegians?” A phone call from Dr. Paul Rouse, one of Ireland’s leading sports historians and the author of some of the best GAA histories written in recent years, posing this question is the equivalent of Brian Cody ringing you up and asking if you fancy togging out in the black and amber on Sunday. The response is about the same.

UCD’s Collegians were a team who managed to achieve the greatest accolade that any band of hurlers can when they won the 1917 senior All-Ireland Hurling championship. The fact that they achieved it representing Dublin, with not a single Dublin native on the team, playing against the princes of Tipperary hurling – and reigning All-Ireland champions – Boherlahan while in the midst of war makes their story unique.

The name ‘Collegians’ referenced the University College Dublin’s hurling team, made up of medical and veterinary students lead by the visionary powerhouse Dr. John Ryan, who formed the spine of the great team. The Collegians had begun their hurling season by winning the Fitzgibbon Cup for the third year in a row, overcoming UCC 3-2 to 3-1. This victory enabled them to enter the Dublin county championship which they dominated. Indeed, the county final between Collegians and Faughs was billed by the press as a “brilliant exposition of hurling” and the Collegians emerged victorious with a scoreline of 3-1 to 1-2.

Under the rules of the time, Collegians were allowed to supplement their university team with players from the other Dublin clubs in order to compete in the Leinster Championship. Bearing in mind that GAA regulations insisted that players could only play for clubs which were located in the area in which they resided, Collegian’s selectors, notably Ryan and his close friend the radical republican Harry Boland had their pick of some of Ireland’s finest hurlers. Including Tipperary-born Bob Mockler, Ballyragget’s Tommy Moore (forever immortalised for his dedication to his adopted club Faughs in the Tommy Moore Cup) and Clare’s legendary Brendan Considine, the youngest person to ever win an All-Ireland senior hurling medal.

Determined to perform well in the championship, this group of men from various counties and backgrounds- united only by their love of hurling-  devoted themselves to the rigorous coaching and physical training imposed on them by Ryan and Boland.  This was no mean feat as in 1917, only a year after the 1916 Easter Rising which had witnessed Dublin city centre earn the rather dubious honour of being the only European city decimated during the course of World War I owing to the efforts of radical republicans, the GAA were viewed with great suspicion by both the authorities and the general public. Many of the young hurlers drafted in from Faughs and other club teams worked as barmen and shop assistants in businesses that  did not appreciate their workers taking time off to play a ‘nationalist’ sport or worse yet turning up to work injured. Moreover, representing UCD’s Collegians added to the suspicion as UCD was considered at the time to be a hotbed for radicalism given that many of the leaders of the Easter Rising including Glenarm-born Eoin MacNeill, Patrick Pearse and Thomas MacDonagh had been former students and staff within the university. Plus Sean O’Donovan and Frank Burke, (two of Collegians best players) had recently been interned due to their participation in the Rising.

Despite this, the Collegians managed to overcome all obstacles which they faced during the Leinster championship and met Tipperary in the All-Ireland final, held in Croke Park on 28 October 1917. Tipperary, represented by the Boherlahan club lead by “the living expression of the Gaelic Athletic Association” Johnny Leahy  had been crowned 1916 All-Ireland Hurling Champions only nine months previously as the 1916 final had been cancelled in the wake of the Rising. Widely considered to be the better team, Boherlahan took the field convinced that their victory was assured. However, in front of a crowd of 12,000 spectators the hard training and astute tactics employed by Collegians paid off and they enjoyed a “sensational” win.

The winning Collegians never once played together again as a team. Life and politics intervened. Within three years a number of the team would enter into the realms of militant nationalism as foot soldiers, officers and in the case of Sean Hyde; as an intelligence agent for Michael Collin’s Irish Republican Army. However, the bonds forged during that remarkable campaign of 1917 remained. In 1936 when the team’s goalie Tommy Daly “the greatest goalman to ever clutch a ball” was killed in a car accident, his grieving former teammates formed an executive committee to bring Daly’s long-held ambition of equipping Clare with an adequate hurling arena to fruition. Once again, they succeeded- in 1941 the Dr. Tommy Daly Gaelic Park was opened in Tulla.

Researching this book took me from the reverential reading rooms of the National Library of Ireland to the living rooms of former Tipperary hurling greats. I’ve stood in the hallowed halls of Croke Park’s GAA museum and found myself knee-deep in soaking wet fields of Boherlahan trying to imagine what it looked like over 100 years ago when farmers sons whiled away long summer evenings pucking sliothars across hedges and rivers eager to sharpen their skills. Newspaper clippings, faded photographs, folded letters and the gusty renditions of old club songs all helped to recapture what precisely it took to win an All-Ireland in 1917.  Lacking sponsorship, conditioning or nutritional advice as well as fundamental necessities such as proper training gear, hurls and even family support the hurlers of 100 years ago made up for it with their grit and determination to succeed.  As Tommy Moore put it: “These were tough times, tough games and tough men that played them.”

At the book launch, held in UCD’s Sports Clubrooms this was reiterated by the guest-speaker Limerick hurler and footballer Stephen Lucey and the family of Collegian’s hurler Sean Hyde who travelled from Leinster, Munster and Connacht to be present.