Galway’s win over Dublin in yesterday evening’s All Ireland quarter final at Croke Park was the Westerners first championship victory over the Boys in Blue since 1934. When I heard that fact announced yesterday evening, a bell rang loud in my head, and my mind went back to a story I had written on the Saffron Gael during lockdown, four years ago this month. The story was about Hugo Carey, who played at corner back on that Galway team of ’34, who was a son of Glenravel’s Henry J Carey. Just a few weeks ago Martan Carey and his siblings were back in Glenravel to check out the Carey homestead at Killygore, Rathkenny. We called down to see the house that his grandfather left all those years ago and I took a few photos of them along with his brothers and sisters and their hosts for the day Dolores and Angela O’Loan, whose father Kieran now owns the house. Little did we think that day that just a few weeks later Galway would bridge that 90 year gap and end the run of the mighty Dubs, probably the best team in the history of the game.
Members of the Carey family outside the family homestead at Killygore Road, Rathkenny in at May of this year – L-R: Pàdhraic Ó Ciardha, ex Deputy Head TG4, Mairéad Ní Chiardha (sister) Galway, Bairbre Ní Chiardh (Milwaukee USA), Angela O’ Loan (Glenravel), Máire Ní Chiardha (Galway), Claire Carey (double first cousin) Dublin, Mártan Ó Ciardha ex Head of Sport, Raidió na Gaeltachta (An Spidéal), Tim van Wagoner (Milwaukee, USA).
This is the original story I wrote in the Saffron Gael in June 23rd 2020
Last week I spotted a post on the Once Upon A Time in Glenravel Facebook page from Mártan Ó Ciardha from An Spidéal Co. Galway enquiring if anyone had history on his grandfather Henry J Carey who was born in Rathkenny, Glenravel in 1872. I did not know a lot about his ancestors to be honest but Mártan was soon flooded with info about his heritage from some of the many experts on the Glenravel site, and in this short time is now more or less an honourary Glenravel man.
What caught my eye was the fact that Mártan was from Spidal, Co Galway, so I messaged him to say that the local Con Magees club had spent two Easter weekends there in 1973 and ’74 in the Teach Furbo Hotel, had great memories of the place . We played a couple of challenge games both years, among the teams the seniors faced were the mighty Corofin, who have since gone on to win five All Ireland titles, including a 3-in-a-row in 2018, 19 and 20. However it has to be said that football was not the main focus of those trips for some of us.
Mártan got back right away and thanked me for getting in touch. He told me he was a dyed in the wool GAA man himself and had covered the games in Galway, working as Head of Sport at Raidió na Gaeltachta. He then dropped a real bombshell as he told me about how he felt his uncle Hugo might possibly be the first son of a Glenravel man to win an All Ireland Senior Football medal. Having worked on the team that produced the club history just four years ago I was knocked sideways by this statement. Nobody in the club had ever heard of Hugo Carey so I ask Mártan to send me on all the info he had on his famous uncle, and true to his word he sent me the following email and photographs.
Hugo Carey became the first son of a Glenravel man to win an All Ireland Senior Football medal when he lined out at corner-back for Galway in their win over Dublin in 1934.
Named after his grandfather Hugh, Hugo was the son of Henry J. Carey, born to Hugh Carey (b. Rathkenny 1824) and his wife Mary McGowan (b.1829). Henry J. became a member of the RIC and was posted to Carna in Connemara.
There he and his wife Margaret Berry reared a family of seven, Hugo being the middle child was born in 1908.
He was on the Galway teams that won the Connacht titles in 1933 and ’34, reaching the All Ireland Finals on both occasions. They were beaten by Cavan in ’33 but the following year Hugo Carey earned his All Ireland medal playing on a side that took revenge on the Brefni men in the semi-final, and then defeated Dublin (3-5, 1-9) in the final.
Within days of that win Galway headed to the USA where they played games in Boston, Jersey City, Philadelphia and in Giant’s Stadium New York, where Hugo marked Joe Stynes, noted republican and grand-uncle of the Great Jim Stynes, the only non Australian-born footballer to be awarded the Brownlow Medal.
