Sarah MacDonald
One hundred years after a unique All-Ireland football final was played among the men interned in the wake of the 1916 Rising in Frongoch in north Wales, an RTÉ documentary revisits the scene and reveals the story behind the match between Kerry and Louth.
In the wake of the 1916 Easter Rising, over 1,800 Irishmen were rounded up and detained without trial at the prisoner of war camp near the Welsh village of Bala from June 1916 onwards.
Over the next six months, the internees in what was dubbed the ‘University of Revolution’, who included leading lights of the struggle for independence like Michael Collins, Richard Mulcahy, Terence McSwiney and Sam Maguire, formed deep bonds of friendship while sharing their knowledge and skills.
The lessons of the Rising had been learnt and republican networks were strengthened within Frongoch’s North and South camps, located at a former Welsh whisky distillery.
The All-Ireland Behind Barbed Wire will air on RTÉ Radio 1 on Holy Saturday, March 26. In it, the granddaughter of Tom Burke, the man who captained the Louth side and refereed the first All-Ireland played for the Sam Maguire Cup in 1928, is accompanied by Fr Tom Looney of the Diocese of Kerry and Kevin Stanley to see ‘Croke Park’ – the field in Wales where the 1916 match was played.
Fr Tom Looney is a grandnephew of the great footballer Dick Fitzgerald who captained the Kerry team in Frongoch. It was Fitzgerald who penned How to Play Gaelic Football, the first handbook of its kind in the GAA, and after whom Fitzgerald Stadium in Killarney is named.
Kevin Stanley is the grandson of Joe Stanley, who acted as Pearse’s and Connolly’s press officer, printing the Irish War News from the GPO during the Rising. During his internment in Frongoch, he kept notes of this unique football match and a report was published on it in July 1916 in his newspaper The Gaelic Athlete as well as other Irish papers.
He also kept notes of other football games and events in the camp including Michael Collins’ successes in the athletics field.
The Louth vs Kerry game was held as part of the Wolfe Tone challenge in Frongoch and Louth was defeated by just a point.
Between June and December 1916, batches of internees were permitted to return to Ireland. Only those considered most dangerous were detained right up until Christmas week. Among the last batch to be released were Joe Stanley and Tom Burke.
The last Irishman in Frongoch on December 23, 1916 was Dublin priest Fr Laurence Joseph Stafford.
The letters of Fr Stafford in the Dublin Diocesan Archives include one dated December 23, which was written to Archbishop William Walsh of Dublin. In it Fr Stafford writes, “Five months ago when they were releasing the men interned here in hundreds, I said I should be the last Irishman left in Frongoch; and today I am.”
Outlining to the archbishop how he lobbied the British authorities for the prisoners’ release he had argued “that Christmas was Christmas”.
“Today the gates of the compound are thrown open and tonight there will not be a single Irishman (save myself) left in Frongoch.”
According to Noelle Dowling, archivist at the Dublin Diocesan Archives, when World War I broke out in August 1914, Fr Stafford asked to become a military chaplain and the following March he signed up.
Uniform
“This proved a difficulty when he was appointed to Frongoch because he wore the military chaplain’s uniform. The men looked at him as being a sort of ‘Khaki chaplain’. Even though he knew some of them, they didn’t take to him initially.
“But through his good work and his perseverance they finally did accept him.”
Another letter written by Fr Stafford from Frongoch is dated July 19, 1916, shortly after he arrived in the camp.
He relates how he celebrated Mass for the men in both camps in Frongoch, as well as Confession and the Rosary.
“I need hardly say, the men appreciate the presence of a priest among them and I am up shortly after five every morning to begin my work,” he wrote.
Documentary On One – The All-Ireland Behind Barbed Wire, RTÉ Radio 1, Saturday March 26th @ 2pm. Listen back online: http://www.rte.ie/radio1/doconone/