Hockey is re-establishing itself in Tipperary
By Pat Bracken
Another major world sporting event which has to be postponed until 2021 is the Tokyo Olympic Games. The games would have been a fantastic opportunity for the Ireland ladies hockey team, who now have to reconcile themselves to preparations for another year, as do athletes already qualified for other Olympic disciplines.
From over a century ago, two men with connections to Nenagh and Borrisokane respectively, Percy Allman-Smith and Sidney Dagg, represented Ireland at the 1908 Olympic Games in London, though the latter was a reserve and did not get to play.
The Irish Hockey Union (now Hockey Ireland) was founded on 6 February 1893, with the Ladies Hockey Union founded in the following year. It wasn’t long until the game started to appear on the sporting landscape of Tipperary. In December 1897 the Commercial Hockey Club was founded in Nenagh with Joseph Gleeson selected as captain. A short while later a team organised by J. de V. Bowles travelled from Dublin to Nenagh where they played matches on three consecutive days while staying in the town. The matches were played in a field adjoining the lawn tennis and croquet grounds, kindly provided by Captain Hill Poe. A feature of the play at this early stage was that it was common for mixed teams to participate in matches. The team names were also somewhat fluid with the Nenagh club also referred to as Nenagh Rovers and then subsequently the Ormond Rovers H.C., with the Roscrea club referred to as Mr. Smith’s eleven. Be that as it may the game started to expand and ladies teams were a regular feature in the schedule of play. In 1898 the ladies hockey clubs of Nenagh and Kilbarron met at Kilbarron, while in the following year the Nenagh ladies played a couple of matches against their counterparts from the Limerick club.
An interesting match took place at Ballyhaden House, Borrisokane in April 1899, when another mixed contest between the Magpies and Ormond Rovers took place. The Magpies won by the odd goal in five, with the press report noting that the ‘Magpies shook their plumage a bit over their victory’. In one of the last sporting events of the nineteenth century in Nenagh the acclaimed Donnybrook club travelled to the town to play the local team on St. Stephen’s Day 1899. The match ended all square and it was observed that it was testimony to the standard of play of the local players that they were able to hold their own in such esteemed company.
In the south of the county the Munster Senior League was key to the development of Clonmel H.C., but so too was the interaction with the local garrison. It was indeed a feature of much sport in Ireland, especially those perceived as being of English origin that the military were a conduit for their support and promotion, just as outlined with rugby in Nenagh in these pages a fortnight ago. With this interaction and support it wasn’t long before some players were recognised at international level. Miss Prittie from Kilboy appeared on the Ireland team in their defeat of Scotland in 1901, while Rev. C.E. Davis, a former captain of the Clonmel team, was selected for the men’s team in 1902.
In October 1901 the members of the Thurles GS&WR cricket club met to form a hockey club in the town, and they agreed to affiliate with the Munster Senior League. How they got on is as of yet unknown, as in the following year at their AGM, in Ryan’s Hotel, they unanimously agreed not to affiliate, even though they scheduled practice three evenings per week. Other hockey clubs to emerge in the county were Nenagh Bankers; Templemore; Worcester Regiment, Templemore; Tipperary; Carrick-on-Suir; Clonmel Grammar School; Tipperary Grammar School; Fethard; Chesterfield School, Birr; Shinrone; Clonmel RIC and Atlanta H.C., Clonmel. There was also a very good hockey team which played out on the Clonmel Asylum grounds.
Yet, as so often happened with several sports, once the initial impetus and support waned, the whole sporting occasion often fell apart. This appears to have happened in Nenagh, as in September 1908 a meeting was held in O’Meara’s Hotel for the purposes of forming a new hockey club in the town, and so it was that the Nenagh Ormond Hockey Club was established. With their grounds at Cudville they played in the North Munster Hockey League. The president of the club was Robert Allman-Smith, County Inspector R.I.C, Solsborough House. The foundation of the club coincided with the selection of his son Percy Allman-Smith on the Irish international team, for which he won a total of four caps. At this time he was studying medicine at Trinity College Dublin. He played in the forwards in Ireland’s two matches at the 1908 London Olympics and received a silver medal. Another man with Borrisokane connections and a historian of the game, Sidney Dagg, was a non-playing reserve in those same games.
Matches continued to be played in the Munster League and new teams emerged in north Tipperary and on its borders with Offaly and Laois, with Ballymackey H.C.; the Diocesan School, Nenagh; Cloughjordan; Birr ‘Woodland Rovers’; Templeharry; Moneygall and Rathdowney all appearing on the fields.
Once more, Nenagh was to the fore in the promotion of hockey in Tipperary, as it had been with rugby and indeed cricket also. All sports ebb and flow in tandem with what is fashionable. Indeed it was remarked in the Nenagh Guardian in 1919 that there was not one decent hurling and football team in the town, but that there were two hockey teams. With the establishment of a junior hockey team in the town in late 2019, along with one in Thurles, one hundred years later the roles are well and truly reversed as the game of hockey takes positive steps to re-establish itself once more in the sporting psyche of Nenagh.