FOREWORD
by Micheál Ó Muircheartaigh
They say one should never judge a book by its cover, but I am willing to admit that I was won over to this wonderful book by its striking cover. The location depicted seemed on the verge of a vast, uncharted territory, but the partial gap in the background trees invited curiosity beyond the unmarked, snow-covered football field. I became curious there and then about the content that would soon emerge from those pages which, strangely, may have started life as a sapling tree right there, in the heart of Sweden. Didn’t we all learn about that trade while in primary school!
‘Is ait an mac an saol,’ I mused to myself, as I contemplated the improbability of a book extending well beyond two hundred pages that details the history of an infant GAA club ‘far from home’. The team featured on the cover looked a seasoned one to me, and, at first sight, those stout-hearted Stockholm Gaels appeared to be in good humour. It was as if the playing season were just over, during which they had won many a hard-fought match. I noticed one in particular sporting a badge of honour on his ciotóg knee — the famous bandage proclaiming that the owner suffered from the dreaded affliction of a ‘Croke Park’ knee.
At any rate, I quickly ventured beyond the tree-line, and became fascinated with one of the latest of Michael Cusack’s family members. Tá sé ráite riamh go mbíonn gach tosnú lag; Cusack’s start in 1884 was indeed weak, and it took a while for the number of clubs in the new association of the GAA to multiply. There are now close to three thousand clubs, and the phenomenon is that over four hundred of those clubs are ‘overseas’. They are spread around the world and they owe their origins to people like Philip O’Connor and his friends in Sweden. You see, Irish people of all generations loved their native pastimes and took them with them on their wanderings. The practice existed even before the founding of the GAA, and I discovered this fact while on a trip to Australia’s Adelaide a few years ago. While there I was shown an advertisement in the Adelaide Advertiser of 1843, inserted at the request of Westmeath footballers, inviting a challenge from any other Irish county, or a combination of counties, to a game of Irish football on St Patrick’s Day.
And now to Sweden’s ‘Parish Far From Home’.
I learn that they were once in a state of semi-panic when wondering how to make a team out of ‘six or seven’ players. But, with patience and the application of the Swedes’ inherent love of orderly progress, one day or night the Stockholm Gaels club became a reality, and henceforth the Swedish-Irish and some of their friends from elsewhere had found a base.
It is easy for anyone ever associated with a new venture to visualise the problems that can materialise soon after the joys of the birth wear away. Where do we train while the snow is still on the ground? How about outdoor facilities when the days lengthen? How do we go about getting more players? How about opposition for a match, etc?
Those problems, too, were met head on; progress continued, and the great day arrived when a team from Gothenburg came to play a challenge game of football. The show was then truly on the road. Of course, it was a day never to be forgotten, as were the many other matches and events covered in this story which keeps unfolding.
It is all told in a convincing manner, with a clear message that the ‘Parish’ is much more than a vehicle for teams who wish to play. Parish members are now in fact woven into a community, and in this easy, ‘read-along’ narrative, one feels the presence of many wonderful people and characters who have become even better as a result of the existence of the Stockholm Gaels. It may indeed be a bit far away, but it has a communal link with some three thousand kindred clubs, radiating in all directions from Hayes’s Hotel in Thurles, County Tipperary.
Comhgháirdeachas leis an údar, Philip O’Connor, agus gach naon a chabhraigh leis chun an leabhar suimiúil seo a chur in ár measc. Maybe someday we might see the ‘Gaels’ play in Croke Park.
June 2011
PREFACE
No one loves sport like the Irish. They say they do, but they don’t. Having worked as a sports journalist and travelled a good bit and met people from all over the place, I can safely say that no other nation relishes or is obsessed with sport as the Irish are. Possibly the Australians at a stretch, but even then many of them have Irish connections to begin with.
It’s not just single sports either. Irish people attracted to sport are interested in a breathtaking range of activities — everything from Gaelic football and rugby to tennis and Formula One. When the Winter Olympics come around, the pubs are full of pundits who have suddenly become experts in curling and bobsledding. Horse-racing is not only one of the most popular sports in Ireland, it is one of the largest industries in the country.
So it should come as no surprise that the Irish abroad have taken their love of sport with them. When forced into emigration by famine or unemployment, the Gael hit the trail with his boots in his bag. The Irish in America instantly took to games like basketball and ice hockey, and Australian Rules football bears such a resemblance to Gaelic football that both can be played side by side in the International Rules series.
But this story is not about sport alone. This is a story about what Irish emigrants abroad have achieved despite a lack of resources, despite still living in the shadow of our neighbour across the water, and despite being weighed down by the stupidity of some of the decisions made by our politicians. A small Irish community in Stockholm has come together, not just to form the Stockholm Gaels, but to use the network and goodwill that exists within it to help each other and other Irish businesses in these difficult times. And through businesses like that run by Lisa Bruton here in Stockholm, Irish manufacturers find new markets abroad.
In the globalised times we live in, emigration is no longer a death sentence. The combination of technology and cheaper international travel has made the life of the emigrant a lot easier than it was when the coffin ships left Ireland for America in the 1840s. Even today none of us takes the decision lightly to leave our family and friends and go and try our hand in another country. But if we do, there is no need to lose touch with them completely, and thanks to those who have gone before us, there is often a community ready and waiting to help us out on our arrival. Gaelic games are an essential part of that.
I invite you to read this story and take from it what you can: hopefully that will be something positive. Personally I hardly recognise the Ireland that has been portrayed in either the Irish or international media over the last year or so. I do not see the country or the people on its knees, completely without hope and its future mortgaged for generations. The Ireland I see is a young, vibrant and immensely talented country forced by circumstance to be better than the rest.
The future for Irish people at home and abroad is to rebuild the sense of community and caring for each other that made us great to begin with. In a recent conversation with Ireland’s Ambassador to Sweden, Donal Hamill, we spoke about the ancient concept of ‘meitheal’ — if you help me with my harvest, I’ll help you with yours. We both agreed that this is one of the key elements to both economic recovery at home and settling in a new country abroad. It is also the polar opposite of what got Ireland into this mess in the first place.
A final word to those now facing the emigrant trail, especially the generation which until now was spared the choice between the check-in desk and the dole queue. The Gaelic Athletic Association (GAA) does not just exist in your home parish, where your mother and father, your brothers and sisters and your extended family are. There are GAA clubs all over the world ready, willing and able to help you and support you, should you feel the need to move there. Find out where they are and get involved on your arrival. Do not be worried about becoming enveloped in some sort of Irish cocoon abroad, because most of them will insist that you find your own way, learn the local language and customs so that you can truly feel part of where you are.
This way, you will find new friends and team mates who will do everything they can to support you. It won’t exactly be the same as your home parish — nothing ever could be. But what you can do is band together with these people to build something new and vibrant that you can all be proud of — a parish far from home.
Be part of it.
Philip O’Connor
Stockholm
June 2011
PROLOGUE
March 2008. The parade participants scramble up the ramp towards the door, a green-clad flurry of hats and scarves and buggies and children, all rushing to get off the frozen Stockholm street into the warmth of the pub. Inside the door pools of water have formed as hundreds of feet are stamped to shake off the snow, making the tiles as slippery as the street outside.
The mothers with babies take the seats around the walls as heavy down jackets are stacked up on window sills and stools, and a scrum of men in soccer and rugby shirts starts to form at the bar. St Patrick’s Day is being celebrated by the Swedish-Irish community. Despite the number of Irish bars in the city, we are the guests of a Scottish landlord, who marvels at the mass of bodies from his vantage point behind the bar, safely shielded from the scrum. In spite of the biting cold outside, endless pints of stout, ale and lager are lined up along the bar. None lies idle for long.
Miriam is collecting the money for the Irish stew, and 50 kronor (about €5) gets you a spoon wrapped in a serviette which serves as your meal ticket. The younger lads are respectful but their only thoughts are for beer and craic. Most of them have only crawled out of bed in the past hour, so they either recently had breakfast or they weren’t all that interested in eating after a feed of beer the night before.
With them stand some of the older hands, those who have lived in Sweden ten years or more. The children mill around, their cheeks still rosy from the cold under their painted-on tricolours. They add to the noise, dropping their spoons on the floor with a clatter and laughing as they chase one another in the tight spaces around the stools.
The stew finally appears, hot steaming bowls passed over the heads of the kids still running wild. It is wolfed down and the singing starts. With no instruments in sight, ballad after ballad gets an airing as songs and singers from all over Ireland have their moment in the spotlight. Poems are recited before Seán arrives. He sings ‘The Fields of Athenry’. No one cares that it has been sung twice before. Some of the songs are the bawdy, raucous sing-a-long favourites; others are solos, the crowd joining in at the chorus. All receive rapturous applause.
Darkness falls. The mothers and children have long since gone home as Karl Stein calls for a taxi, and the driver is instructed to take us to O’Connell’s pub in Stockholm’s Old Town. We spill out of the car and pour into the pub where Karl is manager, and he starts pouring generous measures of whiskey for Irish and non-Irish guests alike. He turns up the music and we roar along to the Pogues and the Dubliners and U2 as the Swedes look on bemused. For them it’s a regular Sunday night and they have work on Monday. For us there is no tomorrow; this is the high point of the year and one of the few occasions when the Irish community gets together to celebrate who we are. On this day we are inseparable as we laugh and sing and tell each other that we really should get together and do this more than just once or twice a year. For now there is a sense of belonging in the air, and for a few hours we hold on to it as tightly as we can.
A short distance away the body of a young man from Wicklow lies in the cold, black waters off Stockholm’s south island. Another ten days will pass before it is recovered and he is flown home to Ireland to be buried.
Chapter1
GAME ON
It’s amazing how easy it is to pick out Irish people abroad, especially on a sports field. Wherever we go, our jerseys are that bit more shiny and more colorful, our shorts that bit shorter and tighter than is decent, our legs that bit paler — a boy from Belturbet is seldom accused of being from Bondi Beach. Socks rolled down over our ankles, our football boots are only ever shiny when they are new out of the box; otherwise they bear traces of the muddy fields from whence we came. I’m hoping that the lads I’m about to meet follow this pattern as I head off out to our first training session at Gärdet in Stockholm, because for one thing it’ll make them easier to spot. They don’t disappoint.
I’m on time. Punctuality was never my strong suit before I left Ireland to move here in 1999, but all that had to change when I arrived in Sweden. When I was preparing to move, I was given one piece of advice from my good friend Earl McCarthy, who at one point held a multitude of Irish swimming records and was coached by a Swede, Glen Christiansen, when he went to the Atlanta Olympics in 1996. ‘Glen told me to tell you something,’ he said to me gravely in a Dublin pub before I left. ‘He says that in Sweden they have a system, and you should always try to go with it. Because if you try to go against it, they will kill you like a dog in the street.’
It was not the kind of advice I was expecting when moving to a country famed for ABBA, blondes and Volvos. With the sharp warning ringing in my ears, my timekeeping has improved drastically since I moved to Sweden. But it obviously hadn’t reached the ears of those I was about to meet. Naturally, they arrived 20 minutes late.
I’m sitting on a grassy verge when they come into view, all loosened ties and bags over their shoulders, hand passing a ball between them like overgrown schoolboys. They don’t really converse like normal people; instead, all are talking at once, sentences running into each other, but occasionally all taking the same tangent at the same time.
‘Is this it? This looks like it. Jesus, this ground is bumpy. You’d break your leg here. I broke my leg once, was out for months, never right again really. Look closely and you can see a lump. Can you see the lump? Have you got tape? I had some tape in my bag. Have you seen it? Not the lump, you eejit, the tape . . .’ All the while I’m looking for the Kerry man, but as yet they seem to be oblivious to me.
Their sports bags hit the ground and they start fumbling in them as the only one standing approaches me. ‘Phil? Nice to meet you. I’m Colin,’ says the Kerry man at last. He strides forward and thrusts out his hand for me to shake, a glint in his eye and a smile on his face, as if this is what we’ve all been waiting for. And he was right. We had both been making efforts to get players together and maybe even form a team. And now here we were. It wasn’t much, but as Joey the Lips said in The Commitments, ‘It’s a start, and I believe in starts, Brother Rabbitte.’
From the opposite direction a young, fit-looking lad arrives on his bike, all short haired and suntanned. It’s no coincidence that he looks like an extra from Home and Away; he’s an Aussie called Liam and he heard through someone at the local Aussie Rules club that a Gaelic football team was starting. He decided he’d give it a go and get in touch with the sporting end of his Irish–Australian heritage.
He picks up the round ball, looks at it quizzically as if wondering where the pointy bits have gone, and then smashes it straight up in the air before catching it again. He nods contentedly to himself as if he has unlocked the key to translating his Aussie Rules skills to the round-ball game.
Two more lads appear from the car park and I immediately take a shine to one of them as he is wearing a Dublin jersey; until this point I was in danger of drowning in a sea of culchies and Aussies, but here was a knight in shining armour, someone who would know what a two-lane road and traffic lights looked like. That he would later prove to be one of the best players I’ve ever played with didn’t hurt either. John Carroll is his name and I’m delighted to see him, even though he has brought a Cork man to keep him company — which cancels out the benefit a little.
We make small talk as we get changed, and Colin passes me the ball as we warm up — the classic O’Neills All-Ireland ball, no different from the one we used in my last competitive game in some Mickey Mouse schools competition in Ringsend some 20 years ago. We’re training on an American football pitch, so I saunter out the field a little and let the muscles dig deep into their memory.
With what feels like no conscious effort, I drop the ball and hit it sweetly. It flies over the bar in a beautiful arc, splitting the posts cleanly. I try to look like I meant it, but in fairness I’m astounded and the look on my face betrays me. Despite the lucky strike, I haven’t fooled anyone into thinking I’m the ghost of Kevin Moran. It still feels great, but I can’t help thinking it might be a while before I hit a ball as sweetly again.
Just how much of a task this will be soon becomes apparent. A few weeks before, I celebrated my 38th birthday, and despite not drinking or smoking and being in good physical shape, Colin and his lads are at least ten years younger. And with only eight of us taking part in this kick-about, there is nowhere to hide. The game of backs against forwards begins and I feel like my muscles are made of treacle as I try to chase them down. Time after time I think I have the younger lads in my grasp, only for them to vanish in a burst of acceleration and leave me grabbing at thin air.
We switch and it gets marginally better. I learned many years ago that in any ball sport the better the opposition the less time you have on the ball, so I resolve to pass it as quickly as I can and then move into space. But there’s a problem: whenever I go to move into space, Mark O’Kane is already there ahead of me. He may not be the biggest man ever to come out of County Derry, but there are few quicker, and he nips in and steals the ball with annoying regularity. It’s getting to the point where I would give him a sly dig if I could, but I can’t get close enough to him to do even that. I console myself with the fact that it’s unlikely I’ll ever have to face him in a competitive game, but here on the grass at Gärdet it’s cold comfort.
In the meantime Colin is flying around the pitch, a whirlwind of movement on and off the ball, dinking little passes with fist and boot, changing direction sharply, breaking to either side of the ball-carrier and screaming for it back. He reminds me of Michael Jordan, whose tongue used to stick out when he played. With Colin it’s his jaw that swings open as he concentrates and calculates, finishing quickly off either foot when a chance presents itself. How he was ever allowed to leave Kerry is beyond me, but then the roads of the Kingdom seem to be littered with class footballers like him.
Thankfully, John Carroll is on my side. John is one of those ball players who always seems to have plenty of time when he gets on the ball. He’s always in space, never apparently under pressure and always looking around for the right ball to play. It’s like watching the Matrix when he gets on the ball, and time stands still around him.
He talks throughout, telling his team mates when to pass and turn and where to run, calling for the return pass and then sticking it over the bar with a minimum of fuss. If it wasn’t for him I reckon we wouldn’t have seen the ball all night. Eventually Colin calls time on the exercise and I collapse in a sweating heap, thankful to have had John on our side and that I will never have to face Mark or Colin in a game.
Despite the lack of fitness, we’re all pretty pleased. Although it is apparent that we have some seriously talented footballers, the big problem is that we can’t make a team out of just six or seven of them. The 2009 season is well under way for the GAA in Europe, but even at this late stage there is still an outside chance we can take part in a competition in Copenhagen if we can get enough players together. But that’s a big ‘if ’.
We are in the chicken-and-egg situation that every new club finds itself sooner or later. To enter a tournament you need to have a sufficient number of players, but to get players to commit you need to have some competition to offer them. At the moment we have about half a dozen players and half a chance of a tournament, so we resolve to redouble our efforts, to put up more posters in the Irish pubs and contact every ex-patriot in our address books to make up the numbers. Even if the team we send to Copenhagen isn’t going to win any prizes, it would still be a great weekend in one of the best cities in the world to drink beer — a decent enough prize in itself.
Despite the enormity of the task ahead of us, there is a positive spirit emanating from the group. There is good news from Colin that we can always go to the tournament and join up with other strays there. There are often B teams cobbled together at the last minute from the reserves to ensure that as many as possible get a game, so there’s a pretty decent chance we’ll be able to participate. The lads chatter excitedly as we warm down and get changed, stuffing their kit into their bags and departing in the same direction from which they came, all suit jackets, shiny shorts and loafers.
____
Now that we’re travelling, I decide to get serious about training. I’m reasonably fit, but after that session I am convinced that playing Gaelic football demands an awful lot more than ‘reasonably’ when it comes to fitness. There’s a reason that Gaelic football games are 20 minutes shorter than soccer matches. The size of the pitch and the explosive, intense power and the use of the upper body required in Gaelic football make it much more physically demanding to play than most other sports. So I know I’m going to have to up the tempo if I’m not to make a show of myself in Copenhagen.
I’m looking forward to the chance to redeem myself on a Gaelic football pitch. Since being consumed by teenage laziness, the best years of my sporting life have more or less passed me by without my name ever being mentioned on the Sunday Game. But despite the fact that I’m approaching 40, I’m being presented with one last chance to prove to myself that I wasn’t that bad after all.
I go back to lifting weights in the gym, something that hasn’t ever proved too successful for me, but I’m going to give it another go nevertheless. A friend designed a punishing programme for me and my arms, shoulders, back and thighs all ache from the heavy sessions every second day. I seem to spend all my spare time eating and training, yet I don’t see any results. Sure, I’m lifting more and running for longer, but other than that there are no outward signs that the training is working. It’s not like I expected massive biceps and a six-pack, but I expected to see a little more of a difference. Still, as long as I can run and catch and kick, I don’t need to worry about the Baywatch audition.
My stamina is increasing. I continue playing soccer three and four nights a week to get my fitness up, and where possible I play in the centre of midfield to make sure that I do the most running. The bike gets dusted down, the chain oiled and the punctures repaired, and as soon as the kids have gone to bed I hit the trail around the local nature reserve, going hammer and tongs around the eight kilometres to get back home as quick as I can. Even if I come up against an outstanding player like Mark O’Kane in Copenhagen, I’m determined I don’t want to run out of steam. I don’t mind a guy being a better footballer than me, but I can at least try to be as fit as possible and annoy the hell out of him. The only way to do that is to put the work in.
I worked hard all summer and I was hitting top form. I had honestly never felt fitter in my life. The training had helped my soccer game too. Not only do you get stronger from the training, but the increase in aerobic fitness means you get more oxygen going to the brain, which in turn means you make better decisions during the game. Simply put, because you don’t get mentally and physically tired, you are less prone to making stupid choices as the game wears on.
But no amount of fitness and strength can protect you from everything, and it was during one of those soccer games that my 2009 season — and my chances of playing in Copenhagen — came to an end.
I turn out whenever I can for an English veteran pub team called the Tudor Arms, and on this particular Saturday afternoon I’m being shifted all over the park, playing at left back, centre back and left wing as we try to get a grip on our opponents, who are all from South America and handy on the ball. Eventually I get moved into central midfield and I start to enjoy myself. I don’t see any more of the ball, but I do get to put in a few crunching tackles, something which doesn’t go unnoticed by the opposition. And they would eventually exact their revenge.
Their goalkeeper punts a long ball down the middle, and being at least a head taller than any of their players I feel confident I’m going to win it. In my mind’s eye I look like Paul McGrath as I leap up to head the ball out to our winger who is free on the right. I put the ball right into his path and I’m delighted with myself. But as I descend I feel the tiny push in the back from my opponent. The ball is gone and no one sees it, and it’s only a little shove, but it’s enough to put me off balance and pitch me forward as I land. The ground rushes up to meet me and I can’t react quickly enough. My left arm gets caught underneath me as I fall to the ground, and as soon as I hear the ‘click’ I know it’s broken. Immediately I know I won’t be playing Gaelic football in Copenhagen or anywhere else any time soon.
A dull pain starts to pulse from just above the wrist, but I don’t care about that. I’m furious and depressed in equal measure, but I’m determined to see out the last 20 minutes of this damn game, which we’re going to lose anyway. Carrying my arm awkwardly I charge around the pitch, flying into tackles and sometimes even winning the ball. I run from box to box, desperately trying to get on the end of something and get a goal, knowing that if I do, it will be my last for quite some time. When our keeper roars at me to take a kick-out as he’s done his groin, I roar back that I’ve broken my arm and he can take his own fucking kick-outs. I’m seething as he hits it short and our opponents pick it up in the middle of our half. I charge into a sliding tackle and win the ball. The ref blows up and I bellow at him, thinking he’s given them a free. He hasn’t. Game over.
I walk to the sideline and collect my bag, stopping only to stick my head in the door of the dressing room to tell the rest that I’m off to the hospital. Leaving my shin pads on, I change my shoes and walk over to the hospital across the street, still in my Tudor Arms kit. Thank God for the speed of the Swedish health service: half an hour later the x-ray confirms the break and the doctor tells me I’m out for a minimum of six weeks. The anger and disappointment bubble to the surface again. I call Colin on the way home and tell him what has happened and to take me off the list for Copenhagen. If the lads are going to start playing Gaelic football for Stockholm, they’re going to be starting without me.
