The Netwatch Dr Cullen Park stadium tour is meant to be excellent. They have a really cool Carlow GAA museum on site & it’s all interactive too.
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50% off the Kathryn Thomas museum and guided tour included with that l.
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Yea I said anywhere didn’t I
That’s where the catering van was so there was no parking there. You wouldn’t fit 30 bicycles on the pier not to mind 30 cars.
You can’t be giving a rural restaurant like that planning for a big extension out the back and a catering van out the front when there’s no room for customers to park.
How yer man runs his lobster business from the pier I just don’t know.
It’s well worth doing. In the same way that if you do a stadium tour of the Nou Camp you can imagine Lionel Messi, Diego Maradona, Ronaldinho and Johan Cruyff bestriding the corridors you are now in, at Netwatch Cullen Park, you’re keenly aware
that you’re treading the same footsteps taken by Mouse Kavanagh, Garvan Ware, Johnny Nevin, @ChairmanDan, Monaghan’s Fintan Kelly, the six Carlow and Westmeath players sent off in the 1999 Leinster football championship first round, and various other luminaries who played in Leinster under-21 hurling finals at the venue.
The monologue by the exceptionally knowledgeable local tour guide on the life and times of Dr. Cullen himself is fascinating and so well delivered.
It doesn’t sit easily with me however that his doctorate has been erased from the name of the stadium.
Credit to Roscommon for retaining Dr. Hyde’s doctor status as an essential part of that shithole ground’s name.
And also to Ulster GAA for their fastidious adherence to the “Dr.” part of the name of the world’s finest pre-season GAA competition.
I think there’s a very poorly selling book to be written on the doctors of the GAA, one which gets a short review in the Irish Times which calls it “readable”.
Chapter ideas:
Dr. Cullen
Dr. Hyde
Dr. McKenna
Dr. Croke
Podrick Carney - The Flying Doctor
Dr. David Hickey
Dr. Gerry McEntee
Dr. Stephen Lucey
Dr. John Lee
Dr. Donal Keenan
Dr. Mick Loftus
Dr. Jack McCaffrey
Dr. Noel McCaffrey
Dr. Pat O’Neill
Dr. Con Murphy
Dr. Socrates (UCD Sigerson Cup player of the 1970s)
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St Mullins is lovely. Altamont Gardens are supposed to be nice. Browns hill Dolmen, the largest Dolmen in Ireland. The Arboretum is a grand spot for lunch and a great garden centre and a great spot for observing native Carlovians. A drive up the Blackstairs is nice and you could climb Mt Leinster.
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And there’s only one man to write that book. Ex dublin boss Humphrey Kelleher.
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Humphrey discussing such a book on an edition of “The Championship” with Brian Carthy at 10pm on a Friday night on RTE Radio 1 would be BOX OFFICE.
GAA Family Silver
April 23rd, 2013
by Weeshie Fogarty
A new book which has just come to hand “GAA Family Silver”, details the stories and people behind one hundred and one cups and trophies competed for each year at home and abroad. Former Waterford hurler and Dublin hurling manager Humphrey Kelleher is the author of this superb production and it is simply packed with golden nuggets of information from cover to cover in what is a eye-catching glossy two hundred page production The GAA is lucky to have untiring enthusiasts like Humphrey whose interests extend to producing books unrelated to mainstream GAA topics. It helps greatly to enhance an ever-broader history of the Association in its many forms. Humphrey who was my guest recently on Radio Kerrys Terrace Talk has focused on the GAA’s main cups and trophies, one hundred and one of them. In exploring the background of these cups and individuals he brings the reader on a journey through the rich, complex, history of Irelands great sport body, the GAA. But above all he has commemorated and honored the memory of those who have done so much to shape the Irish sporting landscape since the foundation of the association.
Kerry interest in this fascinating production will be huge of course because Kerry has been winning cups on the football fields since the initiation of many of these trophies. The Munster Senior Football Cup for instance first competed for in 1928 has been won by Kerry on seventy four occasions and its unbelieveable really that this cup together with the Munster Senior Hurling Cup and the Munster Junior Cup are nameless. The author made no secret of his displeasure of the Council not to name the Provinces senior trophies after deceased Gaels. He said to me, “it doesn’t have to be a great hurler of footballer as such, there have been some great people who have kept the game going, fantastic administrators and personalities and surely these people are worthy of having their names on these trophies”. Another sore point by Kelleher in the book concerns the winners of the All Ireland minor hurling championship. “Its named The Irish press Cup after a newspaper which no longer exists, that paper has received a lot of kudos and yet it left people high and dry in the terms of pensions and you wouldn’t be talking too fondly of them. It’s a cup that should be renamed”.
Two great Kerrymen feature prominently in the publication. The Munster Minor Football Championship Cup is named after the late Tadgh Crowley, a man I befriended in my years as a player with Kerry and later a refere; he was a man who gave massive service to the association. Born in Howth, County Dublin, his mother was a Meath women and his father a Kerryman, returned to The Kingdom when Tadgh was four years old and settled in Ardfert. A member of the Austin Stacks club and a teacher by profession he was secretary of the Kerry county board from 1955 until 1970, treasurer of the Munster Council and later a member of the GAA games Administration Committee from 1981 to 1984. Tadge died on December 23rd, 1989 and is buried in Ardfert. A little bit of history which I was unaware of until I delved into Family Silver informs readers that the Munster minor championship first began in 1929. It was not until 1951 that the Munster Council decided to provide cups for the minor competitions and a Waterford man Dr Michael Casey from Dungarvan presented a cup for minor football in the providence. A dynamic individual. Casey was a doctor and also the chairman and managing director of Dickens Leather Factory one of the leading tanneries in Europe at the time and the biggest employer in Dungarvan. The cup Dr Casey donated was played for thirty nine years and is now “in retirement” in the Munster Council offices in Limerick. The Tadgh Crowley Cup was first played for in 1990 and Kerry were the winners defeating Cork in the final, 1-10 to 0-3.
Another renowned Kerryman Michael o Connor has the Munster Club Senior Football Championship cup named in his honour and features prominently in the publication. Michael a Killarney man who I played with and against back in the fifties/sixties played for Kerry at minor, junior and senior level. He went on to become a superb administer with both with his Club Dr Crokes and Munster Council and served in many capacities. However there is another amazing story revealed in Kelleher’s book in relation to the Munster Club trophy. I had played in the very first Munster Club final in 1970 with East Kerry; we defeated Muskerry (Cork) in Fitzgerald Stadium on St Patrick’s Day. There was no cup for the winners. This was rectified in 1972; UCC defeated Clonmel Commercials in the final 2-9 to 1-8. And the cup presented to the winning captain that day in Clonmel was the Shanahan McNamara Memorial Cup. Willie Shanahan, 24, and Michael McNamara, 28, were Doonbeg footballers and IRA volunteers were executed by the British forces on December 22nd 1920. The pitch in Doonbeg is named after them. The Doonbeg Social Club in New York donated the cup to Doonbeg who in turn presented it to the Munster Council in 1972. So it was truly fitting in 1991 when the Michael o Connor Cup was played for the very first time and won by his own club Dr Crokes. The terrace in the Fitzgerald Stadium is also called after this now celebrated Killarney Gael.
I have just barely touched the very surface of this fascinating book, it is crammed with wonderful stories, and superb black and white photographs many previously unseen. Sports statisticians everywhere owe Humphrey Kelleher a huge debt of gratitude; quiz masters everywhere will scan it avidly to find those questions. And let the last word go to renowned Kerryman Micheal o Muircheartaigh who sums up this beautiful production as follows. “Its timely then to have this intriguing book where the stories of the fascinating personalities connected with the cups are woven with the very fabric of the GAA itself .”
A quick nose on streetview and I’d be in agreement with you. Sure there’s 200 yards of road either side of the bar to abandon ship on if you are good enough to get it tight agin a shtone wall
Some of us in Waterford cast a cold gaze on Humphrey and his continual reference to himself as a former Waterford hurler. People I knew who were selectors for the county in the 70s struggled to remember him and thought he might have been a sub goalie once or twice.
Nicely ninja’d. Was about to message you.
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Waterford played Offaly in Dr. Cullen Park in the AISHC in 2005. The ground was named after the Bishop of Kildare and Leighlin.
He has another one on the go about many of the different stadia around the country. One of my favourites is the one in bagenalstown.
A top bloke is humphrey Kelleher. Best thing to come to fingal from waterford ever.
Was Humphrey also a student at the London School of Economics?
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@maurice_brown Tullow is only a short spin down the road and Rathwood is there which women seem to love wandering aimlessly around. Its probably mobbed with kids this time of year though as they start Teddy Bears picnics and the likes. Aside from that, Tullow is a bit of a shithole.
I’ll give a plug to Sha-Roe in Clonegal as well as one of the finest restaurants in the area. You’d be wanting a taxi or something to enjoy it properly and its a good 30 mins drive from Carlow town. Surprised @Fagan_ODowd hasn’t mentioned it already cos he never shuts up posting about it on here.
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Anything good for the children down around that direction? Heading to Nore Valley Park for a few nights camping.
Castlecomer Discovery Park is around half an hour away from you and you’d easily put a day down there if you wanted. Loads of activities but you’ve to book them all in advance I think.
You’re only a stones throw from Mt Juliet where you could pass a few hours going around the grounds. They have a playground in there. They run kids clubs during the summer I think so you could always contact them to see if they take kids in for a day.
You’re close enough to Kilkenny Town too that you could easily spend a good day in there. The Newpark Hotel on the way out of the town has a kids petting farm and stuff out the back of it. If you had a bit of lunch there I’m sure they wouldn’t mind you using it. Its kinda like the Woodlands in Adare in its setup.
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They’ve a new dinosaur park there apparently.
The Amber Springs in Gorey had that last year. Wonder if its the same crowd doing it. Kids enjoyed it anyway. Parents thought it was a rip off for what it was. But sure that’s nearly what you expect now.