Great picture of a recuperating Arkle getting his lunch washed down by a bottle of Guinness by his head lad Paddy Murray.
Ratoath Co Meath. 50cm x 40cm
Arkle (19 April 1957 – 31 May 1970) was an IrishThoroughbred racehorse. A baygelding by Archive out of Bright Cherry, he was the grandson of the unbeaten (in 14 races) flat racehorse and prepotent sire Nearco. Arkle was born at Ballymacoll Stud, County Meath, by Mrs Mary Alison Baker of Malahow House, near Naul, County Dublin. He was named after the mountain Arkle in Sutherland, Scotland that bordered the Duchess of Westminster’s Sutherland estate. Owned by Anne Grosvenor, Duchess of Westminster, he was trained by Tom Dreaper at Greenogue, Kilsallaghan in County Meath, Ireland, and ridden during his steeplechasing career by Pat Taaffe.
At 212, his Timeform rating is the highest ever awarded to a steeplechaser. Only Flyingbolt, also trained by Dreaper, had a rating anywhere near his at 210. Next on their ratings are Sprinter Sacre on 192 and then Kauto Star and Mill House on 191. Despite his career being cut short by injury, Arkle won three Cheltenham Gold Cups, the Blue Riband of steeplechasing, and a host of other top prizes.
On 19th April, 2014 a magnificent 1.1 scale bronze statue was unveiled in Ashbourne, County Meath in commemoration of Arkle.In the 1964 Cheltenham Gold Cup, Arkle beat Mill House (who had won the race the previous year) by five lengths to claim his first Gold Cup at odds of 7/4. It was the last time he did not start as the favourite for a race. Only two other horses entered the Gold Cup that year.
The racing authorities in Ireland took the unprecedented step in the Irish Grand National of devising two weight systems — one to be used when Arkle was running and one when he was not. Arkle won the 1964 race by only one length, but he carried two and half stones more than his rivals.
The following year's Gold Cup saw Arkle beat Mill House by twenty lengths at odds of 3/10. In the 1966 renewal, he was the shortest-priced favourite in history to win the Gold Cup, starting at odds of 1/10. He won the race by thirty lengths despite a mistake early in the race where he ploughed through a fence. However, it did not stop his momentum, nor did he ever look like falling. Arkle had a strange quirk in that he crossed his forelegs when jumping a fence. He went through the season 1965/66 unbeaten in five races.
Arkle won 27 of his 35 starts and won at distances from 1m 6f up to 3m 5f. Legendary Racing commentator Peter O'Sullevan has called Arkle a freak of nature — something unlikely to be seen again.
Besides winning three consecutive Cheltenham Gold Cups (1964, 1965, 1966) and the 1965 King George VI Chase, Arkle triumphed in a number of other important handicap chases, including the 1964 Irish Grand National (under 12-0), the 1964 and 1965 Hennessy Gold Cups (both times under 12-7), the 1965 Gallagher Gold Cup (conceding 16 lb to Mill House while breaking the course record by 17 seconds), and the 1965 Whitbread Gold Cup(under 12-7). In the 1966 Hennessy, he failed by only half a length to give Stalbridge Colonist 35 lb. The scale of the task Arkle faced is shown by the winner coming second and third in the two following Cheltenham Gold Cups, while in third place was the future 1969 Gold Cup winner, What A Myth.
In December 1966, Arkle raced in the King George VI Chase at Kempton Park but struck the guard rail with a hoof when jumping the open ditch, which resulted in a fractured pedal bone; despite this injury, he completed the race and finished second. He was in plaster for four months and, though he made a good enough recovery to go back into training, he never ran again. He was retired and ridden as a hack by his owner and then succumbed to what has been variously described as advanced arthritis or possibly brucellosis and was put down at the early age of 13.
Arkle became a national legend in Ireland. His strength was jokingly claimed to come from drinking 2 pints of Guinness a day. At one point, the slogan Arkle for President was written on a wall in Dublin. The horse was often referred to simply as "Himself", and he supposedly received items of fan mail addressed to 'Himself, Ireland'.
The Irish government-owned Irish National Stud, at Tully, Kildare, Co. Kildare, Ireland, has the skeleton of Arkle on display in its museum. A statue in his memory was erected in Ashbourne Co Meath in 2004.
Dimensions : 55cm x 60cm
Unique and unusual cast-iron Jockey Figurine in the legendary JP McManus These charming little gentleman stands 38cm tall and is approx 10cm wide at his plinth.They weigh a surprising 6kg.These limited edition figurines were part of a collection which stood pride of place at a well known public house in Co Kerry.Also available in colours such as Rich Ricci,Gigginstown,Coolmore,Arkle,Frankel.These figurines will make a stunning addition to any home bar or pub.
38cm x 10cm 6kg
Unique and unusual cast-iron Jockey Figurine in the legendary Rich Ricci colours.This charming little gentleman stands 38cm tall and is approx 10cm wide at his plinth.They weigh a surprising kg.These limited edition figurines were part of a collection which stood pride of place at a well known public house in Co Kerry.Also available in colours such as Rich Ricci,Gigginstown,Coolmore,JP McManus.These figurines will make a stunning addition to any home bar or pub.
38cm x 10cm 5kg
Unique and unusual cast-iron Jockey Figurine in the legendary Frankel colours (Khalid Abdulla-Juddmonte ).This charming little gentleman stands 38cm tall and is approx 10cm wide at his plinth.They weigh a surprising kg.These limited edition figurines were part of a collection which stood pride of place at a well known public house in Co Kerry.Also available in colours such as Rich Ricci,Gigginstown,Coolmore,JP McManus.These figurines will make a stunning addition to any home bar or pub.
38cm x 10cm 5kg
Unique and unusual cast-iron Jockey Figurine in the legendary Coolmore colours (Mrs John Magnier.This charming little gentleman stands 38cm tall and is approx 10cm wide at his plinth.They weigh a surprising 6kg.These limited edition figurines were part of a collection which stood pride of place at a well known public house in Co Kerry.Also available in colours such as Rich Ricci,Gigginstown,Coolmore,JP McManus.These figurines will make a stunning addition to any home bar or pub.
38cm x 10cm 6kg
Unique and unusual cast-iron Jockey Figurine in Gigginstown colours.This charming little gentleman stands 38cm tall and is approx 10cm wide at his plinth.They weigh a surprising 6kg.These limited edition figurines were part of a collection which stood pride of place at a well known public house in Co Kerry.Also available in colours such as Rich Ricci,Gigginstown,Coolmore,JP McManus.These figurines will make a stunning addition to any home bar or pub.
38cm x 10cm 6kg
63cm x 125cm Limerick
Large iconic poster from the glory years of Munster rugby ,when they were at the top of the tree in European Club Rugby.This particular promotional poster dates from the 2000 Final,Munster's first final appearance.
Northampton 9-8 Munster
Despite thunder, lightning, and torrential rain earlier in the morning, the sun rightly appeared to shine on the capacity crowd at Twickenham for what proved to be a magnificent occasion.
It was the fifth European Cup final, and the first time a French side had not featured, but the lack of Gallic flair took nothing away from a thrilling match.
Munster scored the only try of the match - but in a tale of two boots, Northampton secured a historic victory thanks to the ever-prolific Paul Grayson.
This has been a big season for the players and to have come this close and not won a trophy would have been a major disappointment
Northampton rugby director John Steele
He scored three penalty goals - while his counterpart, the young Ronan O'Gara missed four kicks out of four, including one just a minute from time.After his side's win, Saints' rugby director, John Steele, said: "We were very positive all week. This has been a big season for the players and to have come this close and not won a trophy would have been a major disappointment."I felt we deserved our victory today - it is fantastic. I think people perceived that we would play like a tired side and maybe it took Munster aback that we weren't the war-weary team many people thought."The power of the Northampton pack was evident from the start, and when Munster gave away a penalty in front of the posts, Grayson gave Saints the lead within two minutes.
A young Munster fan celebrates his side's try
The Irish side struggled to get any of the ball in the opening ten minutes, and they were lucky to keep the deficit to just three points.A handling error from winger Ben Cohen denied Northampton a try yards from the line, and sensing their luck, Munster picked up the pace and put together a kick and chase - allowing Jason Holland to level the score with a drop goal.Having started slugglishly, Munster began to play with more sharpness, and it was soon Northampton who found themselves having to clear within their own 22.A strong wind, was whistling its way through the West London ground, favouring Saints during the first half.Saints' captain Pat Lam was a man inspired, charging through tackle after tackle, but Northampton were let down by poor passes in promising positions.This gave Declan Kidney's side hope, and the Irish contingent were sent into raptures when a series of quick, accurate passes allowed David Wallace to score the only try of the match on 33 minutes.
Both teams found it hard to break each other down
Ronan O'Gara found the kick too testing and Munster had to be satisfied with a five-point lead.Northampton, who have played outstanding rugby all season, were only able to add three points to their score before the interval - Grayson slotting an easy penalty.O'Gara on the other hand missed an opportunity to add to the Munster lead - missing a late penalty.Irish skipper Keith Wood, made Munster's intentions clear from the re-start, taking a brilliant catch and following it with a stunning 40 yard run.But, before the Irish were able to capitalise, Saints' scrum-half Dom Malone, intercepted and took the ball upfield.The initiative finally swung Northampton's way, when Grayson scored his third penalty to put Saints into a one-point lead.Rare opportunityMunster squandered a rare opportunity to go back into the lead when they opted to put the ball into touch instead of kicking a penalty.Having won the line-out however, the forwards were unable to make any headway against the immovable Northampton pack.Minutes later, another chance went begging when O'Gara missed his third kick of the match.Munster were beginning to dominate in terms of possession but were finding it impossible to tranform their advantage into points.They suffered a further blow when captain Mick Galwey was sin-binned for failing to allow Saints to take a quick penalty.With just seven minutes to go, Grayson surprised everyone by missing a simple kick.But he had done enough to secure the victory Northampton's performances this season so richly deserved.Teams:Northampton: Grayson, Moir, Bateman, Allen, Cohen, A. Hepher, Malone, Pagel, Mendez, Stewart, Newman, Rodber, MacKinnon, Pountney, Lam.
Replacements: Bramhall, Tucker, Northey, Walter, Scelzo, Metcalfe, Phillips.Munster: Crotty, Kelly, Mullins, Holland, Horgan, O'Gara, Stringer, Clohessy, Wood, Hayes, Galwey, Langford, E. Halvey, Wallace, Foley.
Replacements: O'Neill, Keane, Tierney, Quinlan, O'Callaghan, Sheahan, Horan.
Referee: Joel Dume (Franc
Fantastic image from bygone times of a rather squashed terrace at the Munster Hurling Final between Limerick and Tipp in 1950.However cramped the terrace appears to be,the kid supporters seem to be very happy at their birds eye view of the proceedings!
Limerick City 33cm x 29cm
There are many chapters in Munster’s storied rugby journey but pride of place remains the game against the otherwise unbeaten New Zealanders on October 31, 1978.
23cm x 31cm Dromkeen Co Limerick
In this image from the Limerick Leader,we see the traditional haka as performed by the visiting All Blacks Team in 1978.
There were some mighty matches between the Kiwis and Munster, most notably at the Mardyke in 1954 when the tourists edged home by 6-3 and again by the same margin at Thomond Park in 1963 while the teams also played a 3-3 draw at Musgrave Park in 1973. During that time, they resisted the best that Ireland, Ulster and Leinster (admittedly with fewer opportunities) could throw at them so this country was still waiting for any team to put one over on the All Blacks when Graham Mourie’s men arrived in Limerick on October 31st, 1978.
There is always hope but in truth Munster supporters had little else to encourage them as the fateful day dawned. Whereas the New Zealanders had disposed of Cambridge University, Cardiff, West Wales and London Counties with comparative ease, Munster’s preparations had been confined to a couple of games in London where their level of performance, to put it mildly, was a long way short of what would be required to enjoy even a degree of respectability against the All Blacks. They were hammered by Middlesex County and scraped a draw with London Irish.
Ever before those two games, things hadn’t been going according to plan. Tom Kiernan had coached Munster for three seasons in the mid-70s before being appointed Branch President, a role he duly completed at the end of the 1977/78 season.
SEA OF EMOTION: Munster’s players and supporters celebrate a famous victory.
However, when coach Des Barry resigned for personal reasons, Munster turned once again to Kiernan. Being the great Munster man that he was and remains, Tom was happy to oblige although as an extremely shrewd observer of the game, one also suspected that he spotted something special in this group of players that had escaped most peoples’ attention. He refused to be dismayed by what he saw in the games in London, instead regarding them as crucial in the build-up to the All Blacks encounter. He was, in fact, ahead of his time, as he laid his hands on video footage of the All Blacks games, something unheard of back in those days, nor was he averse to the idea of making changes in key positions. A major case in point was the introduction of London Irish loose-head prop Les White of whom little was known in Munster rugby circles but who convinced the coaching team he was the ideal man to fill a troublesome position.
Kiernan was also being confronted by many other difficult issues. The team he envisaged taking the field against the tourists was composed of six players (Larry Moloney, Seamus Dennison, Gerry McLoughlin, Pat Whelan, Brendan Foley and Colm Tucker) based in Limerick, four (Greg Barrett, Jimmy Bowen, Moss Finn and Christy Cantillon) in Cork, four more (Donal Canniffe, Tony Ward, Moss Keane and Donal Spring) in Dublin and Les White who, according to Keane, “hailed from somewhere in England, at that time nobody knew where”.
Always bearing in mind that the game then was totally amateur and these guys worked for a living, for most people it would have been impossible to bring them all together on a regular basis for six weeks before the match. But the level of respect for Kiernan was so immense that the group would have walked on the proverbial bed of nails for him if he so requested. So they turned up every Wednesday in Fermoy — a kind of halfway house for the guys travelling from three different locations and over appreciable distances.
Those sessions helped to forge a wonderful team spirit. After all, guys who had been slogging away at work only a short few hours previously would hardly make that kind of sacrifice unless they meant business.
October 31, 1978 dawned wet and windy, prompting hope among the faithful that the conditions would suit Munster who could indulge in their traditional approach sometimes described rather vulgarly as “boot, bite and bollock” and, who knows, with the fanatical Thomond Park crowd cheering them on, anything could happen. Ironically, though, the wind and rain had given way to a clear, blue sky and altogether perfect conditions in good time for the kick-off.
Surely, now, that was Munster’s last hope gone — but that didn’t deter more than 12,000 fans from making their way to Thomond Park and somehow finding a spot to view the action. The vantage points included hundreds seated on the 20-foot high boundary wall, others perched on the towering trees immediately outside the ground and some even watched from the windows of houses at the Ballynanty end that have since been demolished.
The atmosphere was absolutely electric as the teams took the field, the All Blacks performed the Haka and the Welsh referee Corris Thomas got things under way.
The first few skirmishes saw the teams sizing each other up before an incident that was to be recorded in song and story occurred, described here — with just the slightest touch of hyperbole! — by Terry McLean in his book ‘Mourie’s All Blacks’.
“In only the fifth minute, Seamus Dennison, him the fellow that bore the number 13 jersey in the centre, was knocked down in a tackle. He came from the Garryowen club which might explain his subsequent actions — to join that club, so it has been said, one must walk barefooted over broken glass, charge naked through searing fires, run the severest gauntlets and, as a final test of manhood, prepare with unfaltering gaze to make a catch of the highest ball ever kicked while aware that at least eight thundering members of your own team are about to knock you down, trample all over you and into the bargain hiss nasty words at you because you forgot to cry out ‘Mark’.
Moss Keane recalled the incident: “It was the hardest tackle I have ever seen and lifted the whole team. That was the moment we knew we could win the game.” Kiernan also acknowledged the importance of “The Tackle”.
He said: “Tackling is as integral a part of rugby as is a majestic centre three-quarter break. There were two noteworthy tackles during the match by Seamus Dennison. He was injured in the first and I thought he might have to come off. But he repeated the tackle some minutes later.”
Many years on, Stuart Wilson vividly recalled the Dennison tackles and spoke about them in remarkable detail and with commendable honesty: “The move involved me coming in from the blind side wing and it had been working very well on tour. It was a workable move and it was paying off so we just kept rolling it out. Against Munster, the gap opened up brilliantly as it was supposed to except that there was this little guy called Seamus Dennison sitting there in front of me.
“He just basically smacked the living daylights out of me. I dusted myself off and thought, I don’t want to have to do that again. Ten minutes later, we called the same move again thinking we’d change it slightly but, no, it didn’t work and I got hammered again.”
The game was 11 minutes old when the most famous try in the history of Munster rugby was scored.
Tom Kiernan recalled: “It came from a great piece of anticipation by Bowen who in the first place had to run around his man to get to Ward’s kick ahead. He then beat two men and when finally tackled, managed to keep his balance and deliver the ball to Cantillon who went on to score. All of this was evidence of sharpness on Bowen’s part.”
Very soon it would be 9-0. In the first five minutes, a towering garryowen by skipper Canniffe had exposed the vulnerability of the New Zealand rearguard under the high ball. They were to be examined once or twice more but it was from a long range but badly struck penalty attempt by Ward that full-back Brian McKechnie knocked on some 15 yards from his line and close to where Cantillon had touched down a few minutes earlier. You could sense White, Whelan, McLoughlin and co in the front five of the Munster scrum smacking their lips as they settled for the scrum. A quick, straight put-in by Canniffe, a well controlled heel, a smart pass by the scrum-half to Ward and the inevitability of a drop goal. And that’s exactly what happened.
The All Blacks enjoyed the majority of forward possession but the harder they tried, the more they fell into the trap set by the wily Kiernan and so brilliantly carried out by every member of the Munster team.
The tourists might have edged the line-out contest through Andy Haden and Frank Oliver but scrum-half Mark Donaldson endured a miserable afternoon as the Munster forwards poured through and buried him in the Thomond Park turf.
As the minutes passed and the All Blacks became more and more unsure as to what to try next, the Thomond Park hordes chanted “Munster-Munster–Munster” to an ever increasing crescendo until with 12 minutes to go, the noise levels reached deafening proportions.
And then ... a deep, probing kick by Ward put Wilson under further pressure. Eventually, he stumbled over the ball as it crossed the line and nervously conceded a five-metre scrum. The Munster heel was disrupted but the ruck was won, Tucker gained possession and slipped a lovely little pass to Ward whose gifted feet and speed of thought enabled him in a twinkle to drop a goal although surrounded by a swarm of black jerseys. So the game entered its final 10 minutes with the All Blacks needing three scores to win and, of course, that was never going to happen.
Munster knew this, so, too, did the All Blacks. Stu Wilson admitted as much as he explained his part in Wardy’s second drop goal: “Tony Ward banged it down, it bounced a little bit, jigged here, jigged there, and I stumbled, fell over, and all of a sudden the heat was on me. They were good chasers. A kick is a kick — but if you have lots of good chasers on it, they make bad kicks look good. I looked up and realised — I’m not going to run out of here so I just dotted it down. I wasn’t going to run that ball back out at them because five of those mad guys were coming down the track at me and I’m thinking, I’m being hit by these guys all day and I’m looking after my body, thank you. Of course it was a five-yard scrum and Ward banged over another drop goal. That was it, there was the game”.
The final whistle duly sounded with Munster 12 points ahead but the heroes of the hour still had to get off the field and reach the safety of the dressing room. Bodies were embraced, faces were kissed, backs were pummelled, you name it, the gauntlet had to be walked. Even the All Blacks seemed impressed with the sense of joy being released all about them. Andy Haden recalled “the sea of red supporters all over the pitch after the game, you could hardly get off for the wave of celebration that was going on. The whole of Thomond Park glowed in the warmth that someone had put one over on the Blacks.”
Controversially, the All Blacks coach, Jack Gleeson (usually a man capable of accepting the good with the bad and who passed away of cancer within 12 months of the tour), in an unguarded (although possibly misunderstood) moment on the following day, let slip his innermost thoughts on the game.
“We were up against a team of kamikaze tacklers,” he lamented. “We set out on this tour to play 15-man rugby but if teams were to adopt the Munster approach and do all they could to stop the All Blacks from playing an attacking game, then the tour and the game would suffer.”
It was interpreted by the majority of observers as a rare piece of sour grapes from a group who had accepted the defeat in good spirit and it certainly did nothing to diminish Munster respect for the All Blacks and their proud rugby tradition.
And Tom Kiernan and Andy Haden, rugby standard bearers of which their respective countries were justifiably proud, saw things in a similar light.
“Jack’s comment was made in the context of the game and meant as a compliment,” Haden maintained. “Indeed, it was probably a little suggestion to his own side that perhaps we should imitate their efforts and emulate them in that department.”
Tom Kiernan went along with this line of thought: “I thought he was actually paying a compliment to the Munster spirit. Kamikaze pilots were very brave men. That’s what I took out of that. I didn’t think it was a criticism of Munster.”
And Stuart Wilson? “It was meant purely as a compliment. We had been travelling through the UK and winning all our games. We were playing a nice, open style. But we had never met a team that could get up in our faces and tackle us off the field. Every time you got the ball, you didn’t get one player tackling you, you got four. Kamikaze means people are willing to die for the cause and that was the way with every Munster man that day. Their strengths were that they were playing for Munster, that they had a home Thomond Park crowd and they took strength from the fact they were playing one of the best teams in the world.”
You could rely on Terry McLean (famed New Zealand journalist) to be fair and sporting in his reaction to the Thomond Park defeat. Unlike Kiernan and Haden, he scorned Jack Gleeson’s “kamikaze” comment, stating that “it was a stern, severe criticism which wanted in fairness on two grounds. It did not sufficiently praise the spirit of Munster or the presence within the one team of 15 men who each emerged from the match much larger than life-size. Secondly, it was disingenuous or, more accurately, naive.”
“Gleeson thought it sinful that Ward had not once passed the ball. It was worse, he said, that Munster had made aggressive defence the only arm of their attack. Now, what on earth, it could be asked, was Kiernan to do with his team? He held a fine hand with top trumps in Spring, Cantillon, Foley and Whelan in the forwards and Canniffe, Ward, Dennison, Bowen and Moloney in the backs. Tommy Kiernan wasn’t born yesterday. He played to the strength of his team and upon the suspected weaknesses of the All Blacks.”
You could hardly be fairer than that – even if Graham Mourie himself in his 1983 autobiography wasn’t far behind when observing: “Munster were just too good. From the first time Stu Wilson was crashed to the ground as he entered the back line to the last time Mark Donaldson was thrown backwards as he ducked around the side of a maul. They were too good.”
One of the nicest tributes of all came from a famous New Zealand photographer, Peter Bush. He covered numerous All Black tours, was close friends with most of their players and a canny one when it came to finding the ideal position from which to snap his pictures. He was the guy perched precariously on the pillars at the entrance to the pitch as the celebrations went on and which he described 20 years later in his book ‘Who Said It’s Only a Game?’
“I climbed up on a gate at the end of the game to get this photo and in the middle of it all is Moss Keane, one of the great characters of Irish rugby, with an expression of absolute elation. The All Blacks lost 12-0 to a side that played with as much passion as I have ever seen on a rugby field. The great New Zealand prop Gary Knight said to me later: ‘We could have played them for a fortnight and we still wouldn’t have won’. I was doing a little radio piece after the game and got hold of Moss Keane and said ‘Moss, I wonder if ...’ and he said, ‘ho, ho, we beat you bastards’.
“With that, he flung his arms around me and dragged me with him into the shower. I finally managed to disentangle myself and killed the tape. I didn’t mind really because it had been a wonderful day.”
Dimensions :47cm x 57cm
Enlarged ,framed ticket stub for the 1949 Irish Hospital Sweepstake for the Epsom Derby.
Dublin 23cm x 31cm
The Irish Hospital Sweepstake was a lottery established in the Irish Free State in 1930 as the Irish Free State Hospitals' Sweepstake to finance hospitals. It is generally referred to as the Irish Sweepstake, frequently abbreviated to Irish Sweeps or Irish Sweep. The Public Charitable Hospitals (Temporary Provisions) Act, 1930 was the act that established the lottery; as this act expired in 1934, in accordance with its terms, the Public Hospitals Acts were the legislative basis for the scheme thereafter. The main organisers were Richard Duggan, Captain Spencer Freeman and Joe McGrath. Duggan was a well known Dublin bookmaker who had organised a number of sweepstakes in the decade prior to setting up the Hospitals' Sweepstake. Captain Freeman was a Welsh-born engineer and former captain in the British Army. After the Constitution of Ireland was enacted in 1937, the name Irish Hospitals' Sweepstake was adopted.
The sweepstake was established because there was a need for investment in hospitals and medical services and the public finances were unable to meet this expense at the time. As the people of Ireland were unable to raise sufficient funds, because of the low population, a significant amount of the funds were raised in the United Kingdom and United States, often among the emigrant Irish. Potentially winning tickets were drawn from rotating drums, usually by nurses in uniform. Each such ticket was assigned to a horse expected to run in one of several horse races, including the Cambridgeshire Handicap, Derby and Grand National. Tickets that drew the favourite horses thus stood a higher likelihood of winning and a series of winning horses had to be chosen on the accumulator system, allowing for enormous prizes.
F. F. Warren, the engineer who designed the mixing drums from which sweepstake tickets were drawn
The original sweepstake draws were held at The Mansion House, Dublin on 19 May 1939 under the supervision of the Chief Commissioner of Police, and were moved to the more permanent fixture at the Royal Dublin Society (RDS) in Ballsbridge later in 1940.
The Adelaide Hospital in Dublin was the only hospital at the time not to accept money from the Hospitals Trust, as the governors disapproved of sweepstakes.
From the 1960s onwards, revenues declined. The offices were moved to Lotamore House in Cork. Although giving the appearance of a public charitable lottery, with nurses featured prominently in the advertising and drawings, the Sweepstake was in fact a private for-profit lottery company, and the owners were paid substantial dividends from the profits. Fortune Magazine described it as "a private company run for profit and its handful of stockholders have used their earnings from the sweepstakes to build a group of industrial enterprises that loom quite large in the modest Irish economy. Waterford Glass, Irish Glass Bottle Company and many other new Irish companies were financed by money from this enterprise and up to 5,000 people were given jobs."[3] By his death in 1966, Joe McGrath had interests in the racing industry, and held the Renault dealership for Ireland besides large financial and property assets. He was known throughout Ireland for his tough business attitude but also by his generous spirit.At that time, Ireland was still one of the poorer countries in Europe; he believed in investment in Ireland. His home, Cabinteely House, was donated to the state in 1986. The house and the surrounding park are now in the ownership of Dún Laoghaire–Rathdown County Council who have invested in restoring and maintaining the house and grounds as a public park.
In 1986, the Irish government created a new public lottery, and the company failed to secure the new contract to manage it. The final sweepstake was held in January 1986 and the company was unsuccessful for a licence bid for the Irish National Lottery, which was won by An Post later that year. The company went into voluntary liquidation in March 1987. The majority of workers did not have a pension scheme but the sweepstake had fed many families during lean times and was regarded as a safe job.The Public Hospitals (Amendment) Act, 1990 was enacted for the orderly winding up of the scheme which had by then almost £500,000 in unclaimed prizes and accrued interest.
A collection of advertising material relating to the Irish Hospitals' Sweepstakes is among the Special Collections of National Irish Visual Arts Library.
At the time of the Sweepstake's inception, lotteries were generally illegal in the United Kingdom, the United States and Canada. In the absence of other readily available lotteries, the Irish Sweeps became popular. Even though tickets were illegal outside Ireland, millions were sold in the US and Great Britain. How many of these tickets failed to make it back for the drawing is unknown. The United States Customs Service alone confiscated and destroyed several million counterfoils from shipments being returned to Ireland.
In the UK, the sweepstakes caused some strain in Anglo-Irish relations, and the Betting and Lotteries Act 1934 was passed by the parliament of the UK to prevent export and import of lottery related materials. The United States Congress had outlawed the use of the US Postal Service for lottery purposes in 1890. A thriving black market sprang up for tickets in both jurisdictions.
From the 1950s onwards, as the American, British and Canadian governments relaxed their attitudes towards this form of gambling, and went into the lottery business themselves, the Irish Sweeps, never legal in the United States,declined in popularity.
Origins: Co Galway
Dimensions :39cm x 31cm
The Irish Hospitals Sweepstake was established because there was a need for investment in hospitals and medical services and the public finances were unable to meet this expense at the time. As the people of Ireland were unable to raise sufficient funds, because of the low population, a significant amount of the funds were raised in the United Kingdom and United States, often among the emigrant Irish. Potentially winning tickets were drawn from rotating drums, usually by nurses in uniform. Each such ticket was assigned to a horse expected to run in one of several horse races, including the Cambridgeshire Handicap, Derby and Grand National. Tickets that drew the favourite horses thus stood a higher likelihood of winning and a series of winning horses had to be chosen on the accumulator system, allowing for enormous prizes.
F. F. Warren, the engineer who designed the mixing drums from which sweepstake tickets were drawn
The original sweepstake draws were held at The Mansion House, Dublin on 19 May 1939 under the supervision of the Chief Commissioner of Police, and were moved to the more permanent fixture at the Royal Dublin Society (RDS) in Ballsbridge later in 1940.
The Adelaide Hospital in Dublin was the only hospital at the time not to accept money from the Hospitals Trust, as the governors disapproved of sweepstakes.
From the 1960s onwards, revenues declined. The offices were moved to Lotamore House in Cork. Although giving the appearance of a public charitable lottery, with nurses featured prominently in the advertising and drawings, the Sweepstake was in fact a private for-profit lottery company, and the owners were paid substantial dividends from the profits. Fortune Magazine described it as "a private company run for profit and its handful of stockholders have used their earnings from the sweepstakes to build a group of industrial enterprises that loom quite large in the modest Irish economy. Waterford Glass, Irish Glass Bottle Company and many other new Irish companies were financed by money from this enterprise and up to 5,000 people were given jobs."By his death in 1966, Joe McGrath had interests in the racing industry, and held the Renault dealership for Ireland besides large financial and property assets. He was known throughout Ireland for his tough business attitude but also by his generous spirit. At that time, Ireland was still one of the poorer countries in Europe; he believed in investment in Ireland. His home, Cabinteely House, was donated to the state in 1986. The house and the surrounding park are now in the ownership of Dún Laoghaire–Rathdown County Council who have invested in restoring and maintaining the house and grounds as a public park.
In 1986, the Irish government created a new public lottery, and the company failed to secure the new contract to manage it. The final sweepstake was held in January 1986 and the company was unsuccessful for a licence bid for the Irish National Lottery, which was won by An Post later that year. The company went into voluntary liquidation in March 1987. The majority of workers did not have a pension scheme but the sweepstake had fed many families during lean times and was regarded as a safe job.The Public Hospitals (Amendment) Act, 1990 was enacted for the orderly winding up of the scheme,which had by then almost £500,000 in unclaimed prizes and accrued interest.
A collection of advertising material relating to the Irish Hospitals' Sweepstakes is among the Special Collections of National Irish Visual Arts Library.
At the time of the Sweepstake's inception, lotteries were generally illegal in the United Kingdom, the United States and Canada. In the absence of other readily available lotteries, the Irish Sweeps became popular. Even though tickets were illegal outside Ireland, millions were sold in the US and Great Britain. How many of these tickets failed to make it back for the drawing is unknown. The United States Customs Service alone confiscated and destroyed several million counterfoils from shipments being returned to Ireland.
In the UK, the sweepstakes caused some strain in Anglo-Irish relations, and the Betting and Lotteries Act 1934 was passed by the parliament of the UK to prevent export and import of lottery related materials.[6][7] The United States Congress had outlawed the use of the US Postal Service for lottery purposes in 1890. A thriving black market sprang up for tickets in both jurisdictions.
From the 1950s onwards, as the American, British and Canadian governments relaxed their attitudes towards this form of gambling, and went into the lottery business themselves, the Irish Sweeps, never legal in the United States,[8]:227 declined in popularity.
29cm x 34cm. New York
The enormous prize that is Sam Maguire proudly paraded across a Manhattan street by Kerry Captain Liam Hassett during a post All Ireland visit to the city that never sleeps in 1997.A semi nterested New Yorker looks on whilst the 'big yellow taxis' add to the atmosphere in this superb photograph that links the countries of Ireland and its big cousin in the United States.
The Sam Maguire Cup, often referred to as Sam or The Sam (Irish: Corn Sam Mhic Uidhir), is a trophy awarded annually by the Gaelic Athletic Association (GAA) to the team that wins the All-Ireland Senior Football Championship, the main competition in the medieval sport of Gaelic football. The Sam Maguire Cup was first presented to the winners of the 1928 All-Ireland Senior Football Championship Final. The original 1920s trophy was retired in the 1980s, with a new identical trophy awarded annually since 1988.
The GAA organises the series of games, which are played during the summer months. The All-Ireland Football Final was traditionally played on the third or fourth Sunday in September at Croke Park in Dublin. In 2018, the GAA rescheduled its calendar and since then the fixture has been played in early September
Old trophy
The original Sam Maguire Cup commemorates the memory of Sam Maguire, an influential figure in the London GAA and a former footballer. A group of his friends formed a committee in Dublin under the chairmanship of Dr Pat McCartan from Carrickmore, County Tyrone, to raise funds for a permanent commemoration of his name. They decided on a cup to be presented to the GAA. The Association were proud to accept the Cup. At the time it cost £300. In today's terms that sum is equivalent to €25,392. The commission to make it was given to Hopkins and Hopkins, a jewellers and watchmakers of O'Connell Bridge, Dublin.
The silver cup was crafted, on behalf of Hopkins and Hopkins, by the silversmith Matthew J. Staunton of D'Olier Street, Dublin. Maitiú Standun, Staunton's son, confirmed in a letter printed in the Alive! newspaper in October 2003 that his father had indeed made the original Sam Maguire Cup back in 1928.
Matthew J. Staunton (1888–1966) came from a long line of silversmiths going back to the Huguenots, who brought their skills to Ireland in the 1600s. Matt, as he was known to his friends, served his time in the renowned Dublin silversmiths, Edmond Johnson Ltd, where the Liam MacCarthy Hurling Cup was made in 1921.
The 1928 Sam Maguire Cup is a faithful model of the Ardagh Chalice. The bowl was not spun on a spinning lathe but hand-beaten from a single flat piece of silver. Even though it is highly polished, multiple hammer marks are still visible today, indicating the manufacturing process.
It was first presented in 1928 - to the Kildare team that defeated Cavan by one point in that year's final. It was the only time Kildare won old trophy. They have yet to win the new trophy, coming closest in 1998, when Galway defeated them by four points in that year's final.
Kerry won the trophy on the most occasions. They were also the only team to win it on four consecutive occasions, achieving the feat twice -first during the late-1920s and early-1930s (1929, 1930, 1931, 1932), and later during the late-1970s and early 1980s (1978, 1979, 1980, 1981).
In addition, Kerry twice won the old trophy on three consecutive occasions, in the late 1930s and early-1940s (1939, 1940, 1941) and in the mid-1980s (1984, 1985, 1986). They also won it on two consecutive occasions in the late-1960s and early-1970s (1969, 1970).
Galway won the old trophy on three consecutive occasions in the mid-1960s (1964, 1965, 1966).
Roscommon won the old trophy on two consecutive occasions during the mid-1940s (1943, 1944), as did Cavan later that decade (1947, 1948).
Mayo won the old trophy on two consecutive occasions during the early-1950s (1950, 1951), while Down did likewise in the early-1960s (1960, 1961).
Offaly won the old trophy on two consecutive occasions during the early 1970s (1971, 1972), while Dublin did likewise later that decade (1976, 1977).
Six men won the old trophy twice as captain: Joe Barrett of Kerry, Jimmy Murray of Roscommon, John Joe O'Reilly of Cavan, Seán Flanagan of Mayo, Enda Colleran of Galway and Tony Hanahoeof Dublin.
The original trophy was retired in 1988 as it had received some damage over the years. It is permanently on display in the GAA Museum at Croke Park.
Original 1928 Sam Maguire Cup on display in the GAA Museum at Croke Park
New trophy
The GAA commissioned a replica from Kilkenny-based silversmith Desmond A. Byrne and the replica is the trophy that has been used ever since. The silver for the new cup was donated by Johnson Matthey Ireland at the behest of Kieran D. Eustace Managing Director, a native of Newtowncashel Co. Longford .Meath's Joe Cassells was the first recipient of "Sam Óg". Meath have the distinction of being the last team to lift the old Sam Maguire and the first team to lift the new one following their back-to-back victories in 1987 and 1988.
Cork won the new trophy on consecutive occasions in the late-1980s and early-1990s (1989, 1990), while Kerry did likewise during the mid-2000s (2006, 2007).
Dublin are the only team to win the new trophy on more than two consecutive occasions, achieving a historic achievement of five-in-a-row during the second half of the 2010s (2015, 2016, 2017, 2018 and 2019).
Stephen Cluxton of Dublin is the only captain to have won the new trophy six times as captain, doing so in 2013, 2015, 2016, 2017, 2018 and 2019. No other person as ever won either the old or new trophy as captain more than twice. Two other men have won the new trophy twice as captain: Declan O'Sullivan of Kerry and Brian Dooher of Tyrone.
In 2010, the GAA asked the same silversmith to produce another replica of the trophy (the third Sam Maguire Cup) although this was to be used only for marketing purposes.
26cm x 33cm
Not so much the clash of the ash as the bend of the ash in this unbelievable action photograph as Clare and Limerick Hurlers do battle in a challenge game in Sixmilebridge.The art of Hurley making & the raw materials used have not changed a lot since time immemorial as this article demonstrates ;
Cad a dhéanfaimid feasta gan adhmaid, tá deireadh na gcoillte ar lár…” seems an appropriate opening to an article about hurley making, as we speak to Pat Cronin in his workshop overlooking the Comeragh Mountains in Kilcash, Tipperary. “Over 90% of the timber used in hurley-making now is foreign. Irish ash is very scarce, although Coillte are working to change this”, explained Pat. “I get most of my timber from Coillte in Dundrum (Tipperary). This comes from Denmark and Sweden”. Although some makers have produced hurleys from 14 year old ash Pat believes this is too soon. “You might only get two or three slabs out of a tree that young. If you left it another five or more years you’d get more than double that. It’d really take up to 25 years to get a decent return.”
Pat’s uncle, Larry Welsh, made hurleys, but Pat didn’t realise this when he started out. “John Joe O’Brien in Cahir taught me. I used to call to him to get a few now and then and it went from there. I started about 25 years ago and gave up working with Eircom to go at it full time five years ago. I’m kept busy throughout the year.”
Brian Dowling’s “Star Hurleys” workshop is in the heart of Kilkenny. Despite the fact that his son Mark is also in the business they’re under constant pressure to meet demand. Brian, who served his time to become a carpenter, has been making hurleys since 1980. His father Ramie was a well known maker, who started in the early 1960’s with Brian’s grandfather Tom Neary.
It probably takes about thirty minutes to make a hurley, if you were to go at it from start to finish. However, neither Pat nor Brian make them in this way. Both use copying machines to rough cut “slabs” three or four at a time. Each then finishes the hurleys by hand, to meet specific requirements. “You get phases of popularity in styles”, explained Pat Cronin, “Because of the O’Connor’s of Cork for instance, big bosses are in favour now. But there’s also a trend towards shorter and lighter sticks. There’s a risk if the hurley is too light it’ll snap more easily. And you don’t get the same distance on a puck out.”
Brian, recently in Italy looking at a replacement for his aging copying machine, only cuts 33 inch sticks and bigger this way. “I do the smaller ones entirely by hand”. The style of hurling has changed over the years and naturally the hurley changes to reflect this. “Demands for particular styles naturally reflect the styles of the successful teams of the time”. Certainly the demand for personalised sticks has grown. Brian, who supplies most of the Kilkenny senior team, explains that most of them have specific demands.
Every hurley maker will advise you differently about how best to look after your stick! wever, you need good quality timber to start with. Pat Cronin suggests that when you get your new hurley you should put it away for a while. “Some people hang them, rather than prop them against a wall, so they won’t warp. There are those who put them in water until they get the right weight. Then they’ll varnish or linseed oil them to keep them at that weight. Like a good wine it should also be stored somewhere cool! You definitely shouldn’t keep them in the kitchen or in the boot of your car, or they will dry out.”
Brian suggests that it’s better to buy the stick unbanded. “You need to allow a bit of time for timber to settle. You might also put five or six coats of linseed oil on, or even drop them into a barrel of linseed oil for a while, to get more penetration. You have to remember that this will add weight ‘though. But whether you oil them or not, you should leave them for a good week or so before banding them. And don’t keep them in the house!”
There is a Hurley Makers Guild, which was formed almost ten years ago when ash became scarce. Makers felt the need to organise themselves to address the problem. There are about fifty active members these days.
Both Pat Cronin and Brian Dowling are curious to see how Jack Carey – brother of the illustrious DJ – gets on with his plan to import finished hurleys from Eastern Europe. This could have quite an impact on what might be regarded as a quintessentially Irish cottage industry. However, time will tell. Just to set up a workshop and kit it out here in Ireland would probably cost about half a million Euro, according to both Pat and Brian. Not a cheap business to get into! Little wonder the notion of foreign manufactured hurleys doesn’t seem that strange…
Two great Craftsmen, continuing the wonderful tradition of hurley-making.
Great picture of a recuperating Arkle getting his lunch washed down by a bottle of Guinness by his head lad Paddy Murray. Ratoath Co Meath. 50cm x 40cm Arkle (19 April 1957 – 31 May 1970) was an Irish Thoroughbred racehorse. A bay gelding by Archive out of Bright Cherry, he was the grandson of the unbeaten (in 14 races) flat racehorse and prepotent sire Nearco. Arkle was born at Ballymacoll Stud, County Meath, by Mrs Mary Alison Baker of Malahow House, near Naul, County Dublin. He was named after the mountain Arkle in Sutherland, Scotland that bordered the Duchess of Westminster’s Sutherland estate. Owned by Anne Grosvenor, Duchess of Westminster, he was trained by Tom Dreaper at Greenogue, Kilsallaghan in County Meath, Ireland, and ridden during his steeplechasing career by Pat Taaffe. At 212, his Timeform rating is the highest ever awarded to a steeplechaser. Only Flyingbolt, also trained by Dreaper, had a rating anywhere near his at 210. Next on their ratings are Sprinter Sacre on 192 and then Kauto Star and Mill House on 191. Despite his career being cut short by injury, Arkle won three Cheltenham Gold Cups, the Blue Riband of steeplechasing, and a host of other top prizes. On 19th April, 2014 a magnificent 1.1 scale bronze statue was unveiled in Ashbourne, County Meath in commemoration of Arkle.In the 1964 Cheltenham Gold Cup, Arkle beat Mill House (who had won the race the previous year) by five lengths to claim his first Gold Cup at odds of 7/4. It was the last time he did not start as the favourite for a race. Only two other horses entered the Gold Cup that year. The racing authorities in Ireland took the unprecedented step in the Irish Grand National of devising two weight systems — one to be used when Arkle was running and one when he was not. Arkle won the 1964 race by only one length, but he carried two and half stones more than his rivals. The following year's Gold Cup saw Arkle beat Mill House by twenty lengths at odds of 3/10. In the 1966 renewal, he was the shortest-priced favourite in history to win the Gold Cup, starting at odds of 1/10. He won the race by thirty lengths despite a mistake early in the race where he ploughed through a fence. However, it did not stop his momentum, nor did he ever look like falling. Arkle had a strange quirk in that he crossed his forelegs when jumping a fence. He went through the season 1965/66 unbeaten in five races. Arkle won 27 of his 35 starts and won at distances from 1m 6f up to 3m 5f. Legendary Racing commentator Peter O'Sullevan has called Arkle a freak of nature — something unlikely to be seen again. Besides winning three consecutive Cheltenham Gold Cups (1964, 1965, 1966) and the 1965 King George VI Chase, Arkle triumphed in a number of other important handicap chases, including the 1964 Irish Grand National (under 12-0), the 1964 and 1965 Hennessy Gold Cups (both times under 12-7), the 1965 Gallagher Gold Cup (conceding 16 lb to Mill House while breaking the course record by 17 seconds), and the 1965 Whitbread Gold Cup(under 12-7). In the 1966 Hennessy, he failed by only half a length to give Stalbridge Colonist 35 lb. The scale of the task Arkle faced is shown by the winner coming second and third in the two following Cheltenham Gold Cups, while in third place was the future 1969 Gold Cup winner, What A Myth. In December 1966, Arkle raced in the King George VI Chase at Kempton Park but struck the guard rail with a hoof when jumping the open ditch, which resulted in a fractured pedal bone; despite this injury, he completed the race and finished second. He was in plaster for four months and, though he made a good enough recovery to go back into training, he never ran again. He was retired and ridden as a hack by his owner and then succumbed to what has been variously described as advanced arthritis or possibly brucellosis and was put down at the early age of 13. Arkle became a national legend in Ireland. His strength was jokingly claimed to come from drinking 2 pints of Guinness a day. At one point, the slogan Arkle for President was written on a wall in Dublin. The horse was often referred to simply as "Himself", and he supposedly received items of fan mail addressed to 'Himself, Ireland'. The Irish government-owned Irish National Stud, at Tully, Kildare, Co. Kildare, Ireland, has the skeleton of Arkle on display in its museum. A statue in his memory was erected in Ashbourne Co Meath in 2004. Dimensions : 55cm x 60cm
Unique and unusual cast-iron Jockey Figurine in the legendary JP McManus These charming little gentleman stands 38cm tall and is approx 10cm wide at his plinth.They weigh a surprising 6kg.These limited edition figurines were part of a collection which stood pride of place at a well known public house in Co Kerry.Also available in colours such as Rich Ricci,Gigginstown,Coolmore,Arkle,Frankel.These figurines will make a stunning addition to any home bar or pub. 38cm x 10cm 6kg
Unique and unusual cast-iron Jockey Figurine in the legendary Rich Ricci colours.This charming little gentleman stands 38cm tall and is approx 10cm wide at his plinth.They weigh a surprising kg.These limited edition figurines were part of a collection which stood pride of place at a well known public house in Co Kerry.Also available in colours such as Rich Ricci,Gigginstown,Coolmore,JP McManus.These figurines will make a stunning addition to any home bar or pub. 38cm x 10cm 5kg
Unique and unusual cast-iron Jockey Figurine in the legendary Frankel colours (Khalid Abdulla-Juddmonte ).This charming little gentleman stands 38cm tall and is approx 10cm wide at his plinth.They weigh a surprising kg.These limited edition figurines were part of a collection which stood pride of place at a well known public house in Co Kerry.Also available in colours such as Rich Ricci,Gigginstown,Coolmore,JP McManus.These figurines will make a stunning addition to any home bar or pub. 38cm x 10cm 5kg
Unique and unusual cast-iron Jockey Figurine in the legendary Coolmore colours (Mrs John Magnier.This charming little gentleman stands 38cm tall and is approx 10cm wide at his plinth.They weigh a surprising 6kg.These limited edition figurines were part of a collection which stood pride of place at a well known public house in Co Kerry.Also available in colours such as Rich Ricci,Gigginstown,Coolmore,JP McManus.These figurines will make a stunning addition to any home bar or pub. 38cm x 10cm 6kg
Unique and unusual cast-iron Jockey Figurine in Gigginstown colours.This charming little gentleman stands 38cm tall and is approx 10cm wide at his plinth.They weigh a surprising 6kg.These limited edition figurines were part of a collection which stood pride of place at a well known public house in Co Kerry.Also available in colours such as Rich Ricci,Gigginstown,Coolmore,JP McManus.These figurines will make a stunning addition to any home bar or pub. 38cm x 10cm 6kg
63cm x 125cm Limerick Large iconic poster from the glory years of Munster rugby ,when they were at the top of the tree in European Club Rugby.This particular promotional poster dates from the 2000 Final,Munster's first final appearance. Northampton 9-8 Munster Despite thunder, lightning, and torrential rain earlier in the morning, the sun rightly appeared to shine on the capacity crowd at Twickenham for what proved to be a magnificent occasion. It was the fifth European Cup final, and the first time a French side had not featured, but the lack of Gallic flair took nothing away from a thrilling match. Munster scored the only try of the match - but in a tale of two boots, Northampton secured a historic victory thanks to the ever-prolific Paul Grayson.
This has been a big season for the players and to have come this close and not won a trophy would have been a major disappointment
Northampton rugby director John Steele
A young Munster fan celebrates his side's try
Both teams found it hard to break each other down
Fantastic image from bygone times of a rather squashed terrace at the Munster Hurling Final between Limerick and Tipp in 1950.However cramped the terrace appears to be,the kid supporters seem to be very happy at their birds eye view of the proceedings! Limerick City 33cm x 29cm
There are many chapters in Munster’s storied rugby journey but pride of place remains the game against the otherwise unbeaten New Zealanders on October 31, 1978. 23cm x 31cm Dromkeen Co Limerick In this image from the Limerick Leader,we see the traditional haka as performed by the visiting All Blacks Team in 1978. There were some mighty matches between the Kiwis and Munster, most notably at the Mardyke in 1954 when the tourists edged home by 6-3 and again by the same margin at Thomond Park in 1963 while the teams also played a 3-3 draw at Musgrave Park in 1973. During that time, they resisted the best that Ireland, Ulster and Leinster (admittedly with fewer opportunities) could throw at them so this country was still waiting for any team to put one over on the All Blacks when Graham Mourie’s men arrived in Limerick on October 31st, 1978. There is always hope but in truth Munster supporters had little else to encourage them as the fateful day dawned. Whereas the New Zealanders had disposed of Cambridge University, Cardiff, West Wales and London Counties with comparative ease, Munster’s preparations had been confined to a couple of games in London where their level of performance, to put it mildly, was a long way short of what would be required to enjoy even a degree of respectability against the All Blacks. They were hammered by Middlesex County and scraped a draw with London Irish. Ever before those two games, things hadn’t been going according to plan. Tom Kiernan had coached Munster for three seasons in the mid-70s before being appointed Branch President, a role he duly completed at the end of the 1977/78 season.
Many years on, Stuart Wilson vividly recalled the Dennison tackles and spoke about them in remarkable detail and with commendable honesty: “The move involved me coming in from the blind side wing and it had been working very well on tour. It was a workable move and it was paying off so we just kept rolling it out. Against Munster, the gap opened up brilliantly as it was supposed to except that there was this little guy called Seamus Dennison sitting there in front of me.
“He just basically smacked the living daylights out of me. I dusted myself off and thought, I don’t want to have to do that again. Ten minutes later, we called the same move again thinking we’d change it slightly but, no, it didn’t work and I got hammered again.”
The game was 11 minutes old when the most famous try in the history of Munster rugby was scored.
Tom Kiernan recalled: “It came from a great piece of anticipation by Bowen who in the first place had to run around his man to get to Ward’s kick ahead. He then beat two men and when finally tackled, managed to keep his balance and deliver the ball to Cantillon who went on to score. All of this was evidence of sharpness on Bowen’s part.”
Very soon it would be 9-0. In the first five minutes, a towering garryowen by skipper Canniffe had exposed the vulnerability of the New Zealand rearguard under the high ball. They were to be examined once or twice more but it was from a long range but badly struck penalty attempt by Ward that full-back Brian McKechnie knocked on some 15 yards from his line and close to where Cantillon had touched down a few minutes earlier. You could sense White, Whelan, McLoughlin and co in the front five of the Munster scrum smacking their lips as they settled for the scrum. A quick, straight put-in by Canniffe, a well controlled heel, a smart pass by the scrum-half to Ward and the inevitability of a drop goal. And that’s exactly what happened.
The All Blacks enjoyed the majority of forward possession but the harder they tried, the more they fell into the trap set by the wily Kiernan and so brilliantly carried out by every member of the Munster team.
The tourists might have edged the line-out contest through Andy Haden and Frank Oliver but scrum-half Mark Donaldson endured a miserable afternoon as the Munster forwards poured through and buried him in the Thomond Park turf.
As the minutes passed and the All Blacks became more and more unsure as to what to try next, the Thomond Park hordes chanted “Munster-Munster–Munster” to an ever increasing crescendo until with 12 minutes to go, the noise levels reached deafening proportions.
And then ... a deep, probing kick by Ward put Wilson under further pressure. Eventually, he stumbled over the ball as it crossed the line and nervously conceded a five-metre scrum. The Munster heel was disrupted but the ruck was won, Tucker gained possession and slipped a lovely little pass to Ward whose gifted feet and speed of thought enabled him in a twinkle to drop a goal although surrounded by a swarm of black jerseys. So the game entered its final 10 minutes with the All Blacks needing three scores to win and, of course, that was never going to happen.
Munster knew this, so, too, did the All Blacks. Stu Wilson admitted as much as he explained his part in Wardy’s second drop goal: “Tony Ward banged it down, it bounced a little bit, jigged here, jigged there, and I stumbled, fell over, and all of a sudden the heat was on me. They were good chasers. A kick is a kick — but if you have lots of good chasers on it, they make bad kicks look good. I looked up and realised — I’m not going to run out of here so I just dotted it down. I wasn’t going to run that ball back out at them because five of those mad guys were coming down the track at me and I’m thinking, I’m being hit by these guys all day and I’m looking after my body, thank you. Of course it was a five-yard scrum and Ward banged over another drop goal. That was it, there was the game”.
The final whistle duly sounded with Munster 12 points ahead but the heroes of the hour still had to get off the field and reach the safety of the dressing room. Bodies were embraced, faces were kissed, backs were pummelled, you name it, the gauntlet had to be walked. Even the All Blacks seemed impressed with the sense of joy being released all about them. Andy Haden recalled “the sea of red supporters all over the pitch after the game, you could hardly get off for the wave of celebration that was going on. The whole of Thomond Park glowed in the warmth that someone had put one over on the Blacks.”
Controversially, the All Blacks coach, Jack Gleeson (usually a man capable of accepting the good with the bad and who passed away of cancer within 12 months of the tour), in an unguarded (although possibly misunderstood) moment on the following day, let slip his innermost thoughts on the game.
“We were up against a team of kamikaze tacklers,” he lamented. “We set out on this tour to play 15-man rugby but if teams were to adopt the Munster approach and do all they could to stop the All Blacks from playing an attacking game, then the tour and the game would suffer.”
It was interpreted by the majority of observers as a rare piece of sour grapes from a group who had accepted the defeat in good spirit and it certainly did nothing to diminish Munster respect for the All Blacks and their proud rugby tradition.
“Jack’s comment was made in the context of the game and meant as a compliment,” Haden maintained. “Indeed, it was probably a little suggestion to his own side that perhaps we should imitate their efforts and emulate them in that department.” Tom Kiernan went along with this line of thought: “I thought he was actually paying a compliment to the Munster spirit. Kamikaze pilots were very brave men. That’s what I took out of that. I didn’t think it was a criticism of Munster.” And Stuart Wilson? “It was meant purely as a compliment. We had been travelling through the UK and winning all our games. We were playing a nice, open style. But we had never met a team that could get up in our faces and tackle us off the field. Every time you got the ball, you didn’t get one player tackling you, you got four. Kamikaze means people are willing to die for the cause and that was the way with every Munster man that day. Their strengths were that they were playing for Munster, that they had a home Thomond Park crowd and they took strength from the fact they were playing one of the best teams in the world.” You could rely on Terry McLean (famed New Zealand journalist) to be fair and sporting in his reaction to the Thomond Park defeat. Unlike Kiernan and Haden, he scorned Jack Gleeson’s “kamikaze” comment, stating that “it was a stern, severe criticism which wanted in fairness on two grounds. It did not sufficiently praise the spirit of Munster or the presence within the one team of 15 men who each emerged from the match much larger than life-size. Secondly, it was disingenuous or, more accurately, naive.” “Gleeson thought it sinful that Ward had not once passed the ball. It was worse, he said, that Munster had made aggressive defence the only arm of their attack. Now, what on earth, it could be asked, was Kiernan to do with his team? He held a fine hand with top trumps in Spring, Cantillon, Foley and Whelan in the forwards and Canniffe, Ward, Dennison, Bowen and Moloney in the backs. Tommy Kiernan wasn’t born yesterday. He played to the strength of his team and upon the suspected weaknesses of the All Blacks.” You could hardly be fairer than that – even if Graham Mourie himself in his 1983 autobiography wasn’t far behind when observing: “Munster were just too good. From the first time Stu Wilson was crashed to the ground as he entered the back line to the last time Mark Donaldson was thrown backwards as he ducked around the side of a maul. They were too good.” One of the nicest tributes of all came from a famous New Zealand photographer, Peter Bush. He covered numerous All Black tours, was close friends with most of their players and a canny one when it came to finding the ideal position from which to snap his pictures. He was the guy perched precariously on the pillars at the entrance to the pitch as the celebrations went on and which he described 20 years later in his book ‘Who Said It’s Only a Game?’And Tom Kiernan and Andy Haden, rugby standard bearers of which their respective countries were justifiably proud, saw things in a similar light.“With that, he flung his arms around me and dragged me with him into the shower. I finally managed to disentangle myself and killed the tape. I didn’t mind really because it had been a wonderful day.” Dimensions :47cm x 57cm“I climbed up on a gate at the end of the game to get this photo and in the middle of it all is Moss Keane, one of the great characters of Irish rugby, with an expression of absolute elation. The All Blacks lost 12-0 to a side that played with as much passion as I have ever seen on a rugby field. The great New Zealand prop Gary Knight said to me later: ‘We could have played them for a fortnight and we still wouldn’t have won’. I was doing a little radio piece after the game and got hold of Moss Keane and said ‘Moss, I wonder if ...’ and he said, ‘ho, ho, we beat you bastards’.
Enlarged ,framed ticket stub for the 1949 Irish Hospital Sweepstake for the Epsom Derby. Dublin 23cm x 31cm The Irish Hospital Sweepstake was a lottery established in the Irish Free State in 1930 as the Irish Free State Hospitals' Sweepstake to finance hospitals. It is generally referred to as the Irish Sweepstake, frequently abbreviated to Irish Sweeps or Irish Sweep. The Public Charitable Hospitals (Temporary Provisions) Act, 1930 was the act that established the lottery; as this act expired in 1934, in accordance with its terms, the Public Hospitals Acts were the legislative basis for the scheme thereafter. The main organisers were Richard Duggan, Captain Spencer Freeman and Joe McGrath. Duggan was a well known Dublin bookmaker who had organised a number of sweepstakes in the decade prior to setting up the Hospitals' Sweepstake. Captain Freeman was a Welsh-born engineer and former captain in the British Army. After the Constitution of Ireland was enacted in 1937, the name Irish Hospitals' Sweepstake was adopted. The sweepstake was established because there was a need for investment in hospitals and medical services and the public finances were unable to meet this expense at the time. As the people of Ireland were unable to raise sufficient funds, because of the low population, a significant amount of the funds were raised in the United Kingdom and United States, often among the emigrant Irish. Potentially winning tickets were drawn from rotating drums, usually by nurses in uniform. Each such ticket was assigned to a horse expected to run in one of several horse races, including the Cambridgeshire Handicap, Derby and Grand National. Tickets that drew the favourite horses thus stood a higher likelihood of winning and a series of winning horses had to be chosen on the accumulator system, allowing for enormous prizes.The original sweepstake draws were held at The Mansion House, Dublin on 19 May 1939 under the supervision of the Chief Commissioner of Police, and were moved to the more permanent fixture at the Royal Dublin Society (RDS) in Ballsbridge later in 1940. The Adelaide Hospital in Dublin was the only hospital at the time not to accept money from the Hospitals Trust, as the governors disapproved of sweepstakes. From the 1960s onwards, revenues declined. The offices were moved to Lotamore House in Cork. Although giving the appearance of a public charitable lottery, with nurses featured prominently in the advertising and drawings, the Sweepstake was in fact a private for-profit lottery company, and the owners were paid substantial dividends from the profits. Fortune Magazine described it as "a private company run for profit and its handful of stockholders have used their earnings from the sweepstakes to build a group of industrial enterprises that loom quite large in the modest Irish economy. Waterford Glass, Irish Glass Bottle Company and many other new Irish companies were financed by money from this enterprise and up to 5,000 people were given jobs."[3] By his death in 1966, Joe McGrath had interests in the racing industry, and held the Renault dealership for Ireland besides large financial and property assets. He was known throughout Ireland for his tough business attitude but also by his generous spirit.At that time, Ireland was still one of the poorer countries in Europe; he believed in investment in Ireland. His home, Cabinteely House, was donated to the state in 1986. The house and the surrounding park are now in the ownership of Dún Laoghaire–Rathdown County Council who have invested in restoring and maintaining the house and grounds as a public park. In 1986, the Irish government created a new public lottery, and the company failed to secure the new contract to manage it. The final sweepstake was held in January 1986 and the company was unsuccessful for a licence bid for the Irish National Lottery, which was won by An Post later that year. The company went into voluntary liquidation in March 1987. The majority of workers did not have a pension scheme but the sweepstake had fed many families during lean times and was regarded as a safe job.The Public Hospitals (Amendment) Act, 1990 was enacted for the orderly winding up of the scheme which had by then almost £500,000 in unclaimed prizes and accrued interest. A collection of advertising material relating to the Irish Hospitals' Sweepstakes is among the Special Collections of National Irish Visual Arts Library. At the time of the Sweepstake's inception, lotteries were generally illegal in the United Kingdom, the United States and Canada. In the absence of other readily available lotteries, the Irish Sweeps became popular. Even though tickets were illegal outside Ireland, millions were sold in the US and Great Britain. How many of these tickets failed to make it back for the drawing is unknown. The United States Customs Service alone confiscated and destroyed several million counterfoils from shipments being returned to Ireland. In the UK, the sweepstakes caused some strain in Anglo-Irish relations, and the Betting and Lotteries Act 1934 was passed by the parliament of the UK to prevent export and import of lottery related materials. The United States Congress had outlawed the use of the US Postal Service for lottery purposes in 1890. A thriving black market sprang up for tickets in both jurisdictions. From the 1950s onwards, as the American, British and Canadian governments relaxed their attitudes towards this form of gambling, and went into the lottery business themselves, the Irish Sweeps, never legal in the United States,declined in popularity. Origins: Co Galway Dimensions :39cm x 31cm
F. F. Warren, the engineer who designed the mixing drums from which sweepstake tickets were drawn
29cm x 34cm. New York The enormous prize that is Sam Maguire proudly paraded across a Manhattan street by Kerry Captain Liam Hassett during a post All Ireland visit to the city that never sleeps in 1997.A semi nterested New Yorker looks on whilst the 'big yellow taxis' add to the atmosphere in this superb photograph that links the countries of Ireland and its big cousin in the United States. The Sam Maguire Cup, often referred to as Sam or The Sam (Irish: Corn Sam Mhic Uidhir), is a trophy awarded annually by the Gaelic Athletic Association (GAA) to the team that wins the All-Ireland Senior Football Championship, the main competition in the medieval sport of Gaelic football. The Sam Maguire Cup was first presented to the winners of the 1928 All-Ireland Senior Football Championship Final. The original 1920s trophy was retired in the 1980s, with a new identical trophy awarded annually since 1988. The GAA organises the series of games, which are played during the summer months. The All-Ireland Football Final was traditionally played on the third or fourth Sunday in September at Croke Park in Dublin. In 2018, the GAA rescheduled its calendar and since then the fixture has been played in early September
Original 1928 Sam Maguire Cup on display in the GAA Museum at Croke Park
26cm x 33cm Not so much the clash of the ash as the bend of the ash in this unbelievable action photograph as Clare and Limerick Hurlers do battle in a challenge game in Sixmilebridge.The art of Hurley making & the raw materials used have not changed a lot since time immemorial as this article demonstrates ; Cad a dhéanfaimid feasta gan adhmaid, tá deireadh na gcoillte ar lár…” seems an appropriate opening to an article about hurley making, as we speak to Pat Cronin in his workshop overlooking the Comeragh Mountains in Kilcash, Tipperary. “Over 90% of the timber used in hurley-making now is foreign. Irish ash is very scarce, although Coillte are working to change this”, explained Pat. “I get most of my timber from Coillte in Dundrum (Tipperary). This comes from Denmark and Sweden”. Although some makers have produced hurleys from 14 year old ash Pat believes this is too soon. “You might only get two or three slabs out of a tree that young. If you left it another five or more years you’d get more than double that. It’d really take up to 25 years to get a decent return.” Pat’s uncle, Larry Welsh, made hurleys, but Pat didn’t realise this when he started out. “John Joe O’Brien in Cahir taught me. I used to call to him to get a few now and then and it went from there. I started about 25 years ago and gave up working with Eircom to go at it full time five years ago. I’m kept busy throughout the year.” Brian Dowling’s “Star Hurleys” workshop is in the heart of Kilkenny. Despite the fact that his son Mark is also in the business they’re under constant pressure to meet demand. Brian, who served his time to become a carpenter, has been making hurleys since 1980. His father Ramie was a well known maker, who started in the early 1960’s with Brian’s grandfather Tom Neary. It probably takes about thirty minutes to make a hurley, if you were to go at it from start to finish. However, neither Pat nor Brian make them in this way. Both use copying machines to rough cut “slabs” three or four at a time. Each then finishes the hurleys by hand, to meet specific requirements. “You get phases of popularity in styles”, explained Pat Cronin, “Because of the O’Connor’s of Cork for instance, big bosses are in favour now. But there’s also a trend towards shorter and lighter sticks. There’s a risk if the hurley is too light it’ll snap more easily. And you don’t get the same distance on a puck out.” Brian, recently in Italy looking at a replacement for his aging copying machine, only cuts 33 inch sticks and bigger this way. “I do the smaller ones entirely by hand”. The style of hurling has changed over the years and naturally the hurley changes to reflect this. “Demands for particular styles naturally reflect the styles of the successful teams of the time”. Certainly the demand for personalised sticks has grown. Brian, who supplies most of the Kilkenny senior team, explains that most of them have specific demands. Every hurley maker will advise you differently about how best to look after your stick! wever, you need good quality timber to start with. Pat Cronin suggests that when you get your new hurley you should put it away for a while. “Some people hang them, rather than prop them against a wall, so they won’t warp. There are those who put them in water until they get the right weight. Then they’ll varnish or linseed oil them to keep them at that weight. Like a good wine it should also be stored somewhere cool! You definitely shouldn’t keep them in the kitchen or in the boot of your car, or they will dry out.” Brian suggests that it’s better to buy the stick unbanded. “You need to allow a bit of time for timber to settle. You might also put five or six coats of linseed oil on, or even drop them into a barrel of linseed oil for a while, to get more penetration. You have to remember that this will add weight ‘though. But whether you oil them or not, you should leave them for a good week or so before banding them. And don’t keep them in the house!” There is a Hurley Makers Guild, which was formed almost ten years ago when ash became scarce. Makers felt the need to organise themselves to address the problem. There are about fifty active members these days. Both Pat Cronin and Brian Dowling are curious to see how Jack Carey – brother of the illustrious DJ – gets on with his plan to import finished hurleys from Eastern Europe. This could have quite an impact on what might be regarded as a quintessentially Irish cottage industry. However, time will tell. Just to set up a workshop and kit it out here in Ireland would probably cost about half a million Euro, according to both Pat and Brian. Not a cheap business to get into! Little wonder the notion of foreign manufactured hurleys doesn’t seem that strange… Two great Craftsmen, continuing the wonderful tradition of hurley-making.
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