The Gaelic Athletic Association (GAA) was founded in the billiards room of Lizzie Hayes’ Commercial Hotel in Thurles on this day in 1884.
The meeting happened because of an exchange of letters between Michael Cusack, a teacher and newspaper columnist from Clare, and Maurice Davin, a farmer and hugely successful athlete from Carrick on Suir, in the summer of 1884. In their correspondence, they had a general plan to hold a meeting in Thurles in November 1884 in order to establish an association to take control of athletics in Ireland.
By the early 1880s, the Irish athletics world had descended into something of a shambles, apparently stained by gambling and general disorganisation. Irish athletics clubs, which held formal sports days on Sundays since the 1850s had failed to establish a governing body and the rules governing sport in Ireland had largely been adopted from England where the Amateur Athletics Association was founded in 1880.
On 11 October 1884, Michael Cusack published an article entitled ‘A Word about Irish Athletics’ in the weekly newspaper United Ireland. In the article he said neglecting the pastimes of Irish people was a sure sign of national decay. He railed against ‘the Englishness of everything which was now associated with sport in Ireland’ and added ‘we tell the Irish people to take the management of their games into their own hands.” In the following week’s United Irishman, Davin wrote an article in support of Cusack. He called for the establishment of a proper athletics association to draw up rules for athletics in Ireland, and also for hurling and ‘Irish football’.
Cusack and Davin issued a circular to say a meeting was being called in Hayes’ Hotel in Thurles on 1 November, 1884 at 2pm. According to the circular, the goal of the meeting was ‘to take steps for the formation of a Gaelic association for the preservation and cultivation of our national pastimes and for providing rational amusements for the Irish people during their leisure hours.’
The meeting started at 3pm on 1 November 1884- an hour late. Cusack welcomed those in attendance and handed over to Davin who chaired the meeting. Davin said that he and Cusack were determined to ‘provide amusement and recreation for the ordinary people of Ireland who now seem born into no other inheritance other than an everlasting round of labour.’
Davin was chosen as the first President of the new association which was to be named the ‘Gaelic Association for the Preservation and Cultivation of National Pastimes’. Cusack, along with John McKay, a Belfast journalist, and John Wyse Power, editor of the Leinster Leader, were elected as secretaries. Understanding the political and social mood of the 1880s, it was decided at the meeting to approach Archbishop of Cashel and Emly, Thomas Croke, as well as Charles Stewart Parnell and Michael Davitt to be patrons of the new association. All three later accepted the invitation. The meeting was concluded with a promise to hold a second meeting in Cork in the near future.
The names of those in attendance is the only source of debate about the meeting. Cusack and McKay both made it clear that at least seven were present at the meeting - those mentioned above along with JK Bracken, IRB-man and stonemason from Templemore, Thomas St. George McCarthy, policeman and friend of Cusack, and Joseph Ryan, a solicitor from Callan, Co. Kilkenny. Over the years, many others claimed to have been at the meeting but it is not possible to verify these accounts. Whoever was or was not present, the organisation that became known by its shortened name of the GAA was set on a path that would turn Irish sport on its head.
Sources:
Paul Rouse, Professor of History at UCD, speaking on the History Hub podcast. Retrieved at https://historyhub.ie/what-actually-happened-at-the...
https://hayeshotel.ie/hayes-hotel-the-gaa/
On this day in 1867, David Power Conyngham from Ballingarry was given the honorary commission of Major by the State of New York for 'gallant and meritorious services’ during the American Civil War.
David Power Conyngham (c.1825–1883) was born in Crohane, Ballingarry,into a well-off farming family. On his mother’s side, he was related to Charles Kickham, the noted Irish nationalist and writer. Educated locally and briefly at Queen’s College Cork, Conyngham left without a degree and soon immersed himself in the political fervor of the 1840s.
A committed member of the Young Ireland movement, Conyngham played a leading role in the 1848 rebellion, attending the pivotal meeting in Ballingarry and helping organize local resistance. Though indicted, he escaped arrest and fled Ireland, likely to the United States. By the early 1850s, he had returned and began contributing to the Tipperary Free Press, launching a literary career that would span decades.
In 1859, he published his first novel, The Old House at Home, under a pseudonym. It was later reissued as The O' Donnells of Glen Cottage, a nationalist tale reflecting the suffering of famine-era Ireland. In 1861, Conyngham returned to America as a war correspondent during the Civil War. He joined the Irish Brigade after the Battle of Fredericksburg and served as a staff officer to General Thomas Francis Meagher. He was later commissioned into the Union army, wounded at Resaca, and honored with the title of Major by the State of New York in 1867.
Conyngham’s wartime experiences inspired several books,including The Irish Brigade and Its Campaigns (1866) and Sherman's March Through the South (1865). After the war, he settled in New York and worked with several newspapers, including the New York Herald, Irish People, and Sunday Democrat. He also co-founded the Staten Island Leader and later became managing editor and part-owner of the New York Tablet.
His post-war novels—Sarsfield (1871), O'Mahony (1879), andRose Parnell (1883)—continued his patriotic themes. His religious works, Lives of the Irish Saints and Lives of the Irish Martyrs, earned him an honorary doctorate from Notre Dame and praise from the Pope.
Conyngham made several visits to Ireland, and on his final trip, he erected a tombstone for his family in Lismolin. He died of pneumonia in New York on 1 April 1883 and was buried in Calvary Cemetery. Though his name faded from public memory, his writings remain a testament to his enduring commitment to Ireland and its people.
Sources:
Michael Fitzgerald, ‘From Ballingarry to Fredericksburg: The Life of David Power Conyngham’, published in Tipperary Historical Journal 1988,pp 192-200.
https://www.dib.ie/biography/conyngham-david-power-a1992
