ABOVE – Donal McAnallen with former Irish Times journalist Johnny Watterson
The Antrim Football history talk on Friday night was given by the brilliant GAA historian Dónal McAnallen. This was the 80th anniversary of Antrim winning the Ulster title, playing a unique style of hand passing and running football. The Irish Times award winning sports journalist Johnny Watterson highlighted this anniversary in his Irish Times sports column earlier this year and it was great that Johnny travelled from Dublin to attend the event. His father George had captained the team and was one of the outstanding players.
The talk, held in the magnificent St Mary’s University College hall, was compered by Paul McErlean who kept the night flowing with anecdotes of Antrim football. Seamus McMullan the County Chairperson thanked the event organiser Hugh McGettigan and the audience of over 260 for attending the event and stressed the importance of continually organising historical talks both at club and county level.
The night started with a video from the main sponsors Eastwood Demolition who have a long standing relationship with the county and who helped with the original construction of the Casement Park stand back in the 1950s.
Then Dr Angela Feeney the German based soprano took centre stage, singing Fill a Rún Ó. Her father Billy was a dual star for Antrim and St John’s and he was a member of the Antrim Ulster championship side of 1946. Angela won the All-Ireland Scór in 1974 and this win helped her become a professional opera singer.
Dónal McAnallen, author and historian was the main speaker for the event. Dónal is an expert on Antrim GAA, having supported a number of GAA history events in the county including the famous talk on the Antrim football teams between 1908 -1913, held in November 2012 in the Titanic Quarter.
Last Friday night he recounted what was happening in Ulster football in the 1920’s and the historical relevance of the 1926 Antrim football team. Dónal explained that the first McKenna Cup was actually won by Antrim, although a lot of ambiguity about this exists and he hopes that the record books will soon be adjusted correctly and this will be recognised. He explained that Antrim were unfortunate during the 1920s and that despite having a great team they had to play all their games outside the county with the exception of the McKenna Cup final of 1926. This made it difficult to compete with the giants of Ulster football at that time, who were Monaghan and Cavan.
Dónal talked about Antrim football in the 1940’s and how they often got poorly treated on and off the field. They received no protection from the officials and many players suffered awful injuries, mostly in off the ball tackles, particularly in the 1946 All-Ireland semi final by Kerry. The 1946 Antrim team were the best placed Antrim team who could have won an All-Ireland title, but unfortunately lady luck was not on their side. Antrim lost their appeal against the Kerry result after bringing all their medical evidence to Central Council.
The Armstrong and McAteer families at Friday’s event at St Mary’s University
A question and answer session followed, with Bishop McGuckian whose Uncle Patsy played on the 1926 Antrim team and Eithne Cunning whose father Paddy Cunning was one of the first exponents of the solo run representing the 1926 team. Pat Armstrong, son of the great Kevin Armstrong and John McKeown, whose father Pat from Creggan was an outstanding dual player represented the 1946 team, also participated in this section of the event.
Nearly all the players from the 1946 team were represented by family members and this proved to be a fantastic occasion for all the team’s relatives.
The 64 page souvenir programme of the event is sure to be a collector’s item. It details the big games Antrim played in that period. It also explains Antrim’s appeal and describes Ulsters 1947 Railway Cup victory. Antrim had 8 players on the winning team. Kevin Armstrong was the only Antrim player to captain a winning team and he brought the prestigious trophy back to the Glens. Profiles of all the members of the 1946 team are included in the programme.
The evening was concluded by Dr Angela Feeney, who delighted the audience with her rendition of ‘Habanera’ from Bizet’s opera Carmen.
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