“Hurling 1810”
by Conor Power
BE AMONGST THE FIRST IN LINE to get your hands on this historic book!
Excerpt:
{Down at the field, it was a blustery day. The soft promise of summer had gone for now and was replaced instead by a wilder souvenir of colder days. The weather in Carlow was always there to remind one of the fact that there are no guaranteed courses in life: there was only one’s own course, ploughed through whatever folds and furrows that the greater larger movements of life produce by happenstance. A very large crowd was already assembled at the playing field.
In the small copse of horse chestnut trees in the low ground just to the south of the field, Seán stood with his team-mates. Despite the shelter of the trees, the cool wind managed to find its way between the leaves and whipped around them, causing a rash of goose bumps to ripple through them. They were all there – all 32 of them gathered in a semi-circle – some seated and some standing – with their eyes fixed on Kavanagh, who stood square and strong on this day, his chin held high and his arms animated like a revolutionary orator. He wore his best tricorn hat. His long coat was the pale blue one that he preferred but which he only wore on very special occasions. His navy blue breeches had been pressed that morning at the house directly before he put them on and the brass buckles on his shoes glistened through the bright grey light; just as did his blue eyes.
“My men,” he said, “this is the one-quarter-final. We have laboured well to have reached this point – to be here on this day. I know not what the outcome of today’s travails shall be but I do know that you will all play a large part in writing a page in history. No hurling team from Ballingrotty has ever competed in the Eastern final. Today, we shall see if that account still holds true. Before us, stand the men of Tullyhog. They are fine fellows, all…”
At this, a murmur passed around the players. There were snorts of derision, irritated thumps of hurleys on the ground and some spat words in English and Irish.
“…no, no! It is important that we fight them, but fight them fairly. Fine fellows all, I say. There is no honour in defeating your enemy if you do not do so honourably and it’s a foolhardy warrior that goes out against a foe that he underestimates. Thus far, we have fought the best of fights. You have all conducted yourselves with honour on the field of play and have brought pride to your townland, to your master, to your families and supporters and, of course, to yourselves.”
Kavanagh paused to let the words sink in. He wondered at whether or not they all understood. Some of them had very few words of English. Séamus Doran looked doubtful. He was a quiet youth with bursts of viciousness on the field and in life in general. He sat now next to Seán, who was leaning slightly away from him on his camán and with a questioning raised eyebrow, as if waiting for some proof to back up what Kavanagh had just said. Down in front of him, Brendan Blake was leaning forward, kneeling. He stared at Kavanagh open-mouthedly. He looked as if he didn’t fully understand the words but he was a loyal dog of a warrior in this team: a workhorse that kept going no matter what was thrown at him – injury, insults, age…. He was 38 or 39 – Brendan wasn’t sure himself. He certainly looked every bit of it, with his crooked warrior’s nose and his balding scarred head. He was always the one to repeat the punchline words to the other players, egging them on in his own unique wise-head way. Others looked down at the grass. Some were looking around them.
Kavanagh caught Seán’s eye. Seán was staring intently. He seemed fired up and eager to hear more from his master.
“And so,” Kavanagh resumed. “We are all today brothers in arms – fighters all.” At this, all of the bowed heads looked up. “Yes… we fight a good fight; a fight whose result will have far-reaching consequences for each and every one of you. There are many battles that a man may fight during the course of his life. There are causes – more and more of them every single day. You will be asked to fight some causes that are worth fighting for; some causes that are worth dying for, perhaps. You will hear tales of glory, of a new future and of a new Ireland.”
He surveyed the eyes now. He had their full attention.
“I have news that I can enlighten you with… The good fight starts today. From this point on, there will be a new future and a new Ireland. Why will it be so? It will be so because you decide upon it; you decide each and every one of you that you are all going to write a new history for yourselves – a new story with a brave beginning and a happy ending. Those men from Tullyhog think that this will be easy… they’ve been here before and have gone on to win. Do you think that they will win the crown?”
A few of them shouted “No!” Most of them abstained, being unsure of their place to speak at this point. Kavanagh put his hands behind his back and paced slowly towards the men as he continued his speech, speaking in a strong voice but looking towards the ground and not at anyone in particular:
“There is a strong wager on this match, you know.” All the players watched the master of the house in his finery stroll over and back, close to them. He stopped and raised his head to look at them.
“Shall I tell you what the rate is?” Silent nodding from some players, some shrugging and looking at one another. “It’s two to one in favour of Tullyhog… Two to one!” He resumed pacing, looking down and shaking his head. He stopped, turned and looked at them again.
“Do you know what that means? It means that those pompous fools who think that they know about hurling at goals have decided that Tullyhog are twice as good as our team: in other words, my warriors, they believe – and you may laugh when you hear this – they believe that each Tullyhog man is twice as good as each one of you Ballingrotty men.” Kavanagh held out his hand and proceeded to count out the points he was making with his fingers. “Why, that means that they are twice as big, twice as fast, twice as accurate, twice as good. You might say, in fact, that it looks as if each of those Tullyhog chaps are twice the men you are!”
Kavanagh rushed over to the front row of players. The toughest ones always pushed towards the front. He went down on one knee, all the better to look a full-forward named Welsh directly in the eyes.
“Are you just half of the man that that boor Clarkin is?” The reply was so swift and so violent in its directness that Kavanagh wondered for a brief moment if he hadn’t made a terrible mistake:
“No!” shouted Welsh, standing up suddenly, brandishing his hurly menacingly.
“What about you, Blake?” Kavanagh turned his attention to the veteran, who was now standing square on his thick legs, balding head forward and slightly, piercing eyes and haunches up like a bull about to charge. “Do you think that Jim Butler is twice the man that you are – twice as fast, twice as strong, twice as good?”
“No Sir!”
“That’s right, men!”
By the time he asked the third man, Kavanagh’s speech had had its required effect. All the men were boiled up and ready to run out onto the field, burning with fervour and passion.
“That’s right! That’s right! That’s right!” Blake was shouting, spitting, walking around crab-like amongst the team, raising the spirits of the ones who were already fiery; embarrassing the quieter ones into animation.
“Blake!” Kavanagh shouted. “You’re captain on the field – Let’s give them hell! Set them straight on your true merit, your true spirit!”
“Fuckin’ spirit!” Blake roared, bursting forward with his legendary pace, up the rise, his team following after him like wild horses heading for a gap. They got the top and the crowd parted to let them pass through. They were so fearsome in their demeanour that a dragoon of trained yeomen might have done the same thing, Kavanagh thought as he scrambled up the embankment to see his team enter the field.
“Let them through.” Jim Devine spoke the order loud and clear without shouting from atop his horse. His men duly obeyed, opening a gap in the corner of the field to allow the Ballingrotty team through. They were virtually chomping at the bit. He dearly hoped that they’d win today. He had 20 guineas on the result. The players tramped through determinedly. A lot depended on the new O’Meara boy. Everybody had been talking about him since his first game. The team would go far as long as he stayed healthy.
As he jogged through onto the field, Seán looked up at Devine on his horse. He wondered briefly at what kind of life Devine possibly had. How did he live with his daily betrayal of his own people? Did he have anything to do with them? With his family? Or did he only live and associate now with the people of the big house? What price does a man pay who changes a team for life?
Devine was as prominent an example as any of the new breed of man that was becoming rich off the sweat of the poor in this burgeoning Ireland. Not only was he paid to do Kavanagh’s dirtiest deeds, he also had a lease on two hundred acres of Kavanagh’s land – maybe even more. While Kavanagh contented himself that everything was right with his own world, Devine was quietly profiting in his own little kingdom; increasing the rents being paid by labourers and cottiers as regularly as their own produce was selling. Devine kept his finger on the pulse when it came to the rhythms and flow of fortune. He often gained the government contracts to feed the swelling army of Sir General David Dundas. The money was in the grain these days – something Devine was fully focused upon while so many others were still going around the houses, growing grass to feed the animals that would eventually be sent to Britain; animals that also required grain in the winter. Devine was ruthlessly well organised. He was a prominent member of the Shanavests and visited Clonmel and Kilkenny regularly to put together their plans to keep farm labourers in the rival Caravats at bay. Most recently, they had won over the military establishment and, if things would proceed as planned, the Caravats would be wiped clean from their festering hotbeds in the slums of Kilkenny City. Meanwhile, Devine would help them to clear away from the countryside Caravat, along with Whiteboys or any other French-inspired revolutionary anywhere he could find them.
“Don’t let us down today, young O’Meara,” Devine said calmly, his voice gravelled by pipe smoking and – Seán thought – lying awake at night, scheming. “We’ll be watching you.” His smile was a forced one.
The team dispersed into their pre-arranged positions.
“Hold your positions, lads!” Blake bellowed – one of his favourite calls at the beginning of each game.
Seán took one last look around at the crowd. After this, he decided that he would put them all out of his mind and not lift his head to look at them anymore. Even though it was a much cooler day with fast whipping wind, the crowd was a big one. They also seemed more anxious, he thought. He wondered at how much money was being wagered altogether on this match. He thought about his own pile of money in the turf shed. How could you wager such money? It didn’t make sense. There were so many people who just played with it. He could never play with money.
A sudden cheer interrupted his thoughts. The Tullyhog team were out on the field. They were darting about furiously like hounds looking for a rabbit everywhere.
Seán’s marker slowed down from a sprint to a canter as he approached him. He was a little shorter than Seán – maybe by as much as an inch. He was very sallow of skin – almost foreign – with a heavy untidy clump of black hair on his head that covered his ears and came down close to his eyebrows. He moved his head from side to side smoothly but purposefully when he walked, like a pike swimming upriver. His eyes were small and black. He stared at Seán with a madman’s crooked stare.
“What the fuck are you looking at, boy?” The Tullyhog man’s face contorted into a furious grimace as he spoke. “Hah? D’you hear me? Boy!” His face was right up against Seán’s now. He could smell the dank smell of his breath. It was a foul mixture of something containing onions, poitín and a sickness. He remembered advice from Brendan about a position like this one: Imagine a calm lake before you and stare past him at it. He raised his hurly up to his chest in defence at the same time. His opponent laughed a forced high-pitched laugh and pulled away, choosing instead to walk around Seán, growling insults at him.
“You’re nothin’ but a girl in disguise, boy… Ha! You’ll be sore tonight, boy!”
Seán just ignored him. Just as he had done with ignoring the crowd, he shifted his attention from his marker and towards his team-mates. They were all in position and ready for the off. He was too, in his own calm way. That was how he worked best – by staying calm and looking at the situation as if looking down from above. There was never any point in being like his opposite number here – moving around in circles and focused on only one thing, one aspect of the match when it was a huge and intricate maze that you had to find your way through without getting hurt and then scoring a goal at the end.
The referee called everyone to order and they assembled their lines. Seán was in the second row today. It wasn’t a position he was happy with because he knew that once the game started, anything can happen in the first seconds. That was when there was the big clash and scrum in the middle of the field and if the ball fell on his side, it was usually followed by fast-moving mob of heavy players intent on hurting. This was when players were caught unawares and often suffered an injury.
The ball was thrown in. It skittered along the surface of the grass like a hare. Seán took one glance up at his opponent while out of the corner of his eye, the ball had come through the gauntlet of the other players and was arriving in front of him. He ducked his head sideways and, as his opponent’s camán swung the fresh air beside Seán’s ear, he smacked down his stick at an angle of 45 degrees on the ball so that it caused it to hop up and into his left hand. He wheeled away to his left and darted behind the front line of players. Even by the time he got the end of the front line, the Tullyhog forwards hadn’t reacted quickly enough and he was soon past them, sprinting on towards the goal with the ball on the end of his stick. One of the half-backs shot out of line to confront him. Seán flipped the ball upwards and roared like a crazed bull as he hit the ball with menace towards the Tullyhog player. The player turned away to protect himself, shielding his eyes with his hand and holding his hurley up to block the shot that was surely headed towards his head.
But Seán’s target was the green space of grass between the player’s legs. The ball bounced off the surface of the field and rebounded behind the Tullyhog half-back. Seán continued his run around the temporarily blinded opponent and collected the ball to continue his solo run. He looked up and saw the goals ahead of him. He was out on the wing but knew that his shot would find its mark in the far top corner with the right top-spin on the ball. As he let fly, he was aware of players approaching at speed from the corner of his eye. He feigned a move to the left, running to the right instead and his opponent stumbled to the ground as the ball looped over the goalkeeper’s head and into the back of the net. The frustrated Tullyhog player got back on his feet and threw his hurley with all his might towards Seán’s feet. It caught him unawares and he came down awkwardly and heavily on his left shoulder. Seán felt the crack immediately when another Tullyhog player fell on top of him. The pain was excruciating.
From his standing spot at the eastern end behind the goals, Liam Kelly stood amongst a tight knot of keen Ballingrotty spectators overlooking the goal. He had remained standing while those around him had erupted into jumping and cheering when his boyhood friend Seán had scored and had gone down in heap immediately afterwards. His eyes darted about to look for familiar faces and, in particular, for those of Devine. Word would surely have got around by now that the bold Liam Kelly had returned from France, bringing God-knows-what kinds of revolutionary ideas and dark intentions. Devine would be awaiting his chance for revenge – Kelly knew that much. There was much to do, he thought. With luck, there would be time to do it before Devine and anyone else got to him.
He had always had mixed feelings about the games of hurling-at-goals. He had loved to play when he was younger; when he and Seán used to play together. It was great sport; running around and trying to out-do one another, going along to see the men playing on the big field in front of a large crowd and feeling the atmosphere. Maybe it was because they were sweet childhood memories untarnished by the more complex preoccupations of adults, but the games that he had experienced as a child seemed like much more joyous occasions. From his memory, it was all about the delight and exuberance of the game. Now, there seemed to be an added twist – a serious and menacing undercurrent that ran just beneath. The money had got too much, many people said. Those that were able to wager large purses on the games and those that were able to pay the most for the best players were the only ones experiencing joy and exuberance now, it seemed. All the others were mere pawns in a big game of which they were completely unaware. They just ran around on the field like fools chasing the dream of somebody else while a bigger crowd of fools baited from the sideline, getting whipped up into a frenzy over a drama that had no premise and no consequence – only to make some rich men even richer.
Liam spat on the ground in disgust as this thought crossed his mind. With a frozen grimace, he considered the Master of Ballingrotty House, who sat on his horse towering over the scene, looking at the game through his Dutch spy glass. Maybe people were beginning to see through all of this, he wondered. It mattered little. In any case, this was surely the last place in Ireland where they were still playing Hurling-at-goals for the benefit of the Landed Gentry. Those leeches would be gone soon – of that, he felt fully certain. He had been impressed by what he had seen in France. Miles Byrne had been an inspiration – his teacher and interpreter, showing him how it all worked, now that the various counter-revolutions and insurgencies had died down. The people in France, he thought, were prospering now that the time for war in their country had passed. They were now bringing their glorious revolution to the rest of Europe. The fair winds were already blowing in this direction and he would be there to fan those flames.
Liam watched as Seán walked away from the field of play, wincing and clutching his shoulder and accompanied by two of his teammates. He hoped that they were paying him well for this; that he at least would extract the maximum amount of profit from this brutal theatre of the poor before he got too involved in it. Seán and his teammates paused before the landlord, exchanging some anxious words before the injured player was escorted away through the crowd. Kavanagh shook his head and gave an exasperated sigh before shouting an order at the captain Blake.
Liam studied all the players, picking out his own team. All were willing for the big action he had in mind, he thought, smiling to himself. Suddenly, through the noisy forest of heads and arms, the stern face of Devine appeared. As he progressed slowly around the boundaries of the playing field on his horse, Devine’s hawkish eyes had met those of Kelly, who took a sharp involuntary intake of breath. As his horse carried him across the width of the pitch, Devine’s eyes remained locked on those of Kelly. Simultaneously, a smile grew on the faces of both men; each one recognising the other and the significance of their meeting across the noisy crowded field, like two deadly lovers. Eventually, Devine turned his head forwards as his horse continued around the corner and Kelly found himself sweating and breathless, feeling his heart pounding in his chest.
“You Christ-bastard fucker!” Kelly muttered angrily. “Your day is coming!”
He repeated the line, raising his voice and punching the air with his fist.
“Your day is coming! Your day is coming! Up the Caravats!” Like a rapid wildfire, everyone around him was suddenly joining the chorus, chanting aloud and fists like weapons striking upwards in fury, barely understanding what they were chanting about, considering it to be part of the match – a revenge chant against the man who had injured their new premium player. Devine gave one more look over his shoulder, seeming to consider some disciplinary action, before thinking better of it and continuing to survey the rest of the crowd. Kelly watched from a hunkered position, before stealing away from the scene.
Even without Seán, Ballingrotty were so fired up with belief that it would have taken an army of Spartans to stop them winning and they prevailed, taking the match by a margin of six goals.}