PART FOUR
BY JOHN FITZGERALD
The sports days at Ballyclovin, near Callan were legendary. Peter Roughan, who penned the weekly Callan Man Looks Back column, recalled how in one memorable outing, local teacher Tom Frisby took a set of china after beating all rivals in a race. Jack Commons came second, and had to be content with a cruets stand. But later in the day, Jack finished in front of Tom, and won a squeezebox, leaving the Mohober man with a set of carving knives.
A tailor in Callan had to take Tom Myles’s measurements when he won a “suit length” of his choice for winning the tough and arduous half-mile open race. Dan Larkin was thrilled with the mirror he won for coming second. He promised he would admire himself for the rest of his days in the state-of-the-art looking glass.
Spectators gasped and cheered as Paddy Meehan cleared 7ft 10 inches in the pole jump. This earned him a medal. But Ned Holmes of Great Oak had to settle for a scarf pin for his jump of 7ft 4inches. Elated by his own achievement, Paddy compared himself to Jesus. “Didn’t he clear the Temple in Jerusalem?” he shouted.
Ned and Paddy easily beat off competition from veteran Tipperary pole jumpers who had underestimated the local talent.
George Minogue won three of the four cycling events. The Ballymack man proved unbeatable at many a Ballyclovin sports day. He excelled in the riding of penny-farthing bikes. He was an acknowledged expert on the machine, and could be seen at all hours of the day and night practising on roads and laneways, honing his legendary riding abilities. Blindfolded, he could take the machine apart and put it back together again with pinpoint accuracy.
Peter Roughan described George’s remarkable performance at the 1903 sports day event:
“George collared nearly all the first prizes. He won a set of carvers in the mile; he beat Paddy Brett and left him with an inkstand. In the three-mile he won a lamp, and left Ned Holmes to go home with a set of cutthroat razors.
“George got something to carry his winnings in when he won a portmanteau in the five miles, again leaving Ned Holmes on edge with a set of cutlery. Paddy Murphy of Redhouse got a writing desk for beating Jimmie Stapleton in the two-mile race. Jimmie had to be content with…a handbag!”
Blushing, but pleased with his performance, Jimmy explained that he had “a lady in mind” to whom he would, in due course, present the unmanly item.
Some of the local prime boys in Ballymack tried hard to topple George Minogue from his saddle. Their motive was partly fun, but the odd fellow might also be a little jealous of the man who could turn his bike on a plate.
While most riders had cranky old contraptions to convey them along the highways and byways, George was Cock of the Walk and Monarch of all he surveyed as he cycled past his envious contemporaries, a proud look on his face, and a haughty greeting for anyone he passed.
Lying in ditches on dark nights, the boyos waited to ambush the “penny-farthing man”. For each attempt, they would stretch a rope across the road ahead of the un-coming bike.
Concealed from view on either side of the road, the lads pulled tight on the rope when George was just yards away…but he never succumbed to their mischievous antics. His eyesight was top-notch and he could reputedly see in the dark in much the same way as Special Forces troops nowadays who wear infrared goggles.
Once he spotted the rope, his mind reacted with the speed of fork lightning. With just seconds to spare, he managed to halt his penny-farthing and avoid embarrassment or even possible serious injury with his superb demonstrations of riding skill that impressed the prime boys in the ditches.
His narrow escapes were the talk of Callan and Ballymack, and the topic of many a fireside storytelling session in the long winter evenings.
Political correctness was unheard of those days, so nobody objected when the over-60s Walking contest at Ballyclovin was referred to as the Auld Lad’s race. Paddy Lyons of Ballyline won a two-months supply of tobacco after he struggled past the finishing line, pipe in mouth, sweat pouring out of him, and a well-deserved smile of triumph on his face.
Paddy Bergin of West Street won the donkey race, beating the nearest of his fifteen rivals by a nose to scoop the much sought-after prize of a new suit. The ass was taken out for a meal in the adjoining field. Jack Minogue, whose donkey had been hotly tipped to take the honours, came second. He had to settle for a football and the ass got nothing.
The day ended with a recitation by Jimmie Stapleton of John Locke’s patriotic poem Dawn on the Irish Coast, which received loud applause from the crowd.
To be continued…
(More stories of those bygone times can be read in my book Callan in Words and Pictures, which is available from Amazon)
