{"id":438,"date":"2009-10-31T13:57:38","date_gmt":"2009-10-31T12:57:38","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/conorpower.ie\/?p=438"},"modified":"2009-10-31T13:57:38","modified_gmt":"2009-10-31T12:57:38","slug":"hurling-books-to-fill-santas-sack-in-2009","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/conorpower.ie\/?p=438","title":{"rendered":"Hurling Books to Fill Santa&#8217;s Sack in 2009"},"content":{"rendered":"<div id=\"attachment_440\" style=\"width: 310px\" class=\"wp-caption alignright\"><a rel=\"attachment wp-att-440\" href=\"http:\/\/conorpower.ie\/?attachment_id=440\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-440\" class=\"size-medium wp-image-440\" title=\"santa-claus-chimney\" src=\"http:\/\/conorpower.ie\/wp-content\/uploads\/2009\/10\/santa-claus-chimney-300x288.jpg\" alt=\"santa-claus-chimney\" width=\"300\" height=\"288\" srcset=\"http:\/\/conorpower.ie\/wp-content\/uploads\/2009\/10\/santa-claus-chimney-300x288.jpg 300w, http:\/\/conorpower.ie\/wp-content\/uploads\/2009\/10\/santa-claus-chimney.jpg 320w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 300px) 100vw, 300px\" \/><\/a><p id=\"caption-attachment-440\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">Santa with yet another GAA book in his hand<\/p><\/div>\n<p>In the business of <strong>hurling books<\/strong> coming up to <strong>Christmas<\/strong>, it&#8217;s always a feast  or a famine: either there are almost no hurling books or <strong>GAA books <\/strong>at all, or there are a lot of them.<\/p>\n<p>Last year, there were not many.\u00a0 The big sports book for Christmas was <strong>Ronan O&#8217;Gara&#8217;s autobiography<\/strong>, which was written with help from <strong>Denis Walsh <\/strong>of the Irish subsidiary of British newspaper Sunday Times.<\/p>\n<p>This year, there are many, many <strong>GAA books<\/strong>:\u00a0 <a href=\"http:\/\/www.anfearrua.com\/story.asp?id=2977\" target=\"_blank\"><strong>Unlimited Heartbreak<\/strong><\/a>, which tells the story of Limerick&#8217;s frustrating struggles to reach All-Ireland glory through numerous outspoken characters; <strong>The l.iam MacCarthy Cup<\/strong> is a colourful reference tome by veteran <strong>Sean Og O Ceallachain<\/strong> and <strong>Owen McCann<\/strong>; <strong>Come What May<\/strong> has generated more column inches than the rest put together, not least for the fact that it&#8217;s written by an openly gay GAA star; <strong>Cody<\/strong> is a straight-up account that gives some idea as to what makes this highly successful manager function &#8211; the <strong>achievements<\/strong> of the team are <strong>truly spectacular<\/strong> and historic, although I personally still have reservations about referees&#8217; propensity in the past for allowing Kilkenny get away with the tactic of surrounding the opposing player with the ball and lightly beating him up until he coughs up.<\/p>\n<p>Cream of the crop, however, in my humble opinion, would have to be &#8220;<a href=\"http:\/\/conorpower.ie\/?page_id=17\" target=\"_self\"><strong>My Father; a hurling revolutionary<\/strong><\/a>&#8220;.\u00a0 In the first place, there has been <strong>no biography<\/strong> written about a <strong>Waterford GAA star <\/strong>up to now.\u00a0 Secondly, the life of <strong>Ned Power <\/strong>was a very interesting one &#8211; a man who <strong>embodied all the best principles and characteristics of the GAA <\/strong>and of sportsmanship in general and whose unyielding efforts were carried out in a spirit of good humour and generosity.\u00a0 Thirdly, it&#8217;s written from the perspective of his son &#8211; something which gives it all a truthful and fascinating viewpoint that makes it, I think, a book that will be <strong>appreciated equally by hurling and non-hurling people<\/strong>.<\/p>\n<p><em><a href=\"..\/?page_id=17\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" title=\"Click here\" src=\"..\/wp-content\/uploads\/2009\/07\/Front-cover-150x150.jpg\" alt=\"Front cover\" width=\"32\" height=\"32\" \/><\/a>\u201c<strong>My Father: A Hurling Revolutionary, the life and times of Ned Power<\/strong>\u201d is out on paperback at the end of November 2009.\u00a0 <a href=\"..\/?page_id=17\">Click here<\/a> for further information, <a href=\"..\/?page_id=17\" target=\"_self\"><strong>pre-order<\/strong><\/a> and excerpt.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>In the business of hurling books coming up to Christmas, it&#8217;s always a feast or a famine: either there are almost no hurling books or GAA books at all, or there are a lot of them. Last year, there were &hellip; <a href=\"http:\/\/conorpower.ie\/?p=438\">Continue reading <span class=\"meta-nav\">&rarr;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-438","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p9kxa7-74","_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/conorpower.ie\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/438","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/conorpower.ie\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/conorpower.ie\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/conorpower.ie\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/conorpower.ie\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=438"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"http:\/\/conorpower.ie\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/438\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":444,"href":"http:\/\/conorpower.ie\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/438\/revisions\/444"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/conorpower.ie\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=438"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/conorpower.ie\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=438"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/conorpower.ie\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=438"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}