GAA books

[Under Lights]

Anyone get Mugsy's yet?

[T Fearon]

I went to buy Mugsy's book, but the blond shop assistant from Tyrone sold me a dummy

[Feckitt]

I went to buy Mugsy's book, but the blond shop assistant from Tyrone sold me a dummy

Congrats Tony, first good joke ever.

[Croí na hÉireann]

Hi guys,

My new book on Gaelic Football tactics over the last 12 months, Victory Loves Preparation, is out now. It's €15 and you can get it one of three ways...

1. Order it online here: http://www.originalwriting.ie/collections/new-releases/products/victory-loves-preparation

2. Come to the launch in Kilmacud Crokes on Thursday the 28th of November.

3. Drop me a PM and meet me in Dublin.

Ebook version will be available soon, I'll update when it is.

Thanks,
Emmet

You forgot about no 4, meet you at a match.

[Under Lights]

DECLAN BOGUE – 20 NOVEMBER 2013
Owen Mulligan is sitting in the Greenvale Hotel on launch day of his autobiography; 'Mugsy', when he startles the questioner by asking; "I don't think I have slated Mickey Harte. What do you think?"

For the record, he doesn't.
In the prologue, describing his arrest for criminal damage in 2008 for example, he writes, 'If I had beenMickey Harte dealing with me, I'd have given me the road a few times.'
The first chapter begins as thus; 'I was working on the roof of a house the day I heard Mickey Harte was the new Tyrone senior football manager. I could have jumped as high as the house. If anybody is going to manage Tyrone to a senior All-Ireland title, it's him.'
Slate Mickey Harte? No way.
It still pains him though, how it ended. Even now, he hates the way it was all left hanging in the air, waiting for a phonecall to resume his county career that never came after he captained Cookstown to another All-Ireland Intermediate title.
With the county career over, it's time the Tyrone story got another run out. There are few better-placed to tell it than the colourful Mulligan, one of the most popular players ever in the game.
The book is a reflection of his personality in many cases, but he also reveals a depth than many have missed. He recounts a warm childhood dominated by an inter-family Gaelic football tournament, 'The Mulligan Cup' with his father Eugene recording it all on video with player interviews.
'Who's your favourite player? Are you confident of winning today?'
He had Eugene maddened another time when he mistook solid oak door frames for potential goalposts, drove nails into the crossbars, dug the holes and erected the most expensive goals in Ulster in the family garden.
He doesn't avoid the past 12 months. Tyrone ended and he is maddened by the lack of closure.
"I went to two trial matches and I didn't hear anything since," he recalls.
"It didn't hit me until the Dublin game in the National League final, and even then it didn't hit me during the game. See the next morning? That's when it hit. I just thought, 'what's going on here?'"
He continues, "I got a couple of text messages from the players, asking, 'well, when are you coming back?'
"If you were working at a job for 15 years you expect a handshake. I would have been happy with a handshake, 'thank you Mugsy, thank you lad.' That would have done for me. But I didn't get that."
It should be said that there is no-one Mulligan is harder on in his autobiography than himself. His honesty is compelling and he pulls himself up for acting beneath his years as he left his own and Raymond Mulgrew's mother in tears by embarking on a session of drink the week before the 2008 All-Ireland final in Armagh and leaving his phone turned off.
"I was in a bad place, as they say. My confidence was gone, I wasn't on the team ...
"Ray was always the young lad, the next big thing, there was talk he was the next Peter Canavan. But he would come in with a pint of stout and maybe the next week I might come in with a pint. I should have been the older man, advising him, like Canavan and Chris Lawn done to me."
"They were like my guardians, telling me, 'catch yourself on, pull your horns in.' Instead, I was dragging him away for a pint. I dragged him down that road.
"I still think Ray can make it. He's 27 and it has to happen, but it's on here (thumps chest) if he wants it. I have told him this. He knows deep down that he could make it."
He also knows that some papers will pick off lines in the book and they will be transformed into lurid, Technicolor headlines. The truth, he can live with, even episodes like a night in a prison cell.
"I said to myself if I was going to write an autobiography it had to be the truth. Now, I'm not saying I was right to do that thing in The Conway Inn (when he smashed the pub windows after a row). I was totally wrong.
"I jump into a police car; it's wrong, I'm not saying it was right. I am saying to people not to do it, it's like advice. I put it in the book to show the consequences of being rash. It's just my story."
For all the party boy antics, he only partied when he felt he deserved it. In 2005 after hitting one of the finest goals ever against Dublin, he jumped into a lift and got up the road before the team bus.
"I didn't want that. Even leading up to other games the boys were going out at night and I hated that. . I hated the night, hadn't done anything for Tyrone on the pitch. Why would you go out and celebrate that you were a sub?"
He feels the present generation of Tyrone players have lost that edge his contemporaries had.
"The last couple of years there were boys there just happy enough to put on their tracksuit top, happy enough to drive and get a number on their jersey that was like a phone number, going out that night, seeing the Tyrone groupies."
It drove him mad to be in Ballybofey last May and watch a Tyrone side getting bullied around the field, but when a Tyrone fan shouted over during the All-Ireland semi-final that it was a disgrace he wasn't on the pitch, it was too much.
"I had to go down the steps and away from everybody. A boy shouted down the steps at me in the press box but I had a big lump in my throat and couldn't say anything back to him."
There are few happy endings, but that's sport, that's life. We shouldn't sugar-coat everything and in telling his story, Owen Mulligan has left it as raw as possible with all the goals, celebrations, rows, affairs and arrests.
With all that out there, the last question to ask is what concerns him right now?
"You are always going to get haters," he says. "My take on it is if you haven't the b**** to put a book out, you are going to get it anyway.
"If you are in the public eye, people love you, they hate you. If they think the book is s***e, then good luck to them. I know it's from the heart."

[T Fearon]

Hope he "slated" the roof he was working on, If not  Mickey Harte!

[thehermit]

Hi everyone,

I'm just bringing to everyone's attention my own book which was released last month and is a history of the early GAA between 1884 and 1934. My name is Richard McElligott and I am a sports historian working in the School of History in UCD and I'm also Chairman of the Sport History Ireland Society.

My book is the first examination of the establishment and development of the GAA on a county level. I look at my native Kerry to explore the GAA's profound impact on the political, social and culture history of Ireland during its first fifty years.   
It is entitled: Forging A Kingdom: The GAA in Kerry, 1884-1934 and is being published by the Collins Press and its retailing at €17.99 in all good bookshops.

For more information please visit:

http://www.collinspress.ie/forging-a-kingdom-by-richard-mcelligott.html

The book examines the reasons behind the formation of the GAA both nationally and locally in in county Kerry. It explores what sport in Ireland was like before the GAA arrived. It assesses the reasons for the GAA's initial popularity among Irish people both in terms of politics, culture and economics. It details the problems involved in the formation of the first clubs in Kerry, their adoption to the GAA's rules and the hard struggle in forming a County Board and trying to run and administer the GAA's organisation in such a large and physically challenging county. It looks at the problems surrounding early county championships and also national competitions. The book deals with clashes between the GAA and the Church and the attempts of Fenian and revolutionary movements to gain control and corrupt the GAA and its membership, both nationally, and in Kerry. It also looks in detail at the role of the GAA in the Gaelic Revival and the influence of Irish political nationalism on the Association at large. Likewise, links with cultural and revolutionary movements such as the Gaelic League, the IRB and Sinn Féin are all examined. The work also explores the emergence of Kerry's unique footballing tradition and examines why hurling fell by the wayside and never gained equal recognition. How the rise of Kerry as a footballing power was fundamental to the GAA itself becoming the most popular and widely supported sports body in Ireland is highlighted. Yet the book also looks at the increasingly desperate attempts to make hurling as much a part of the emerging Kerry tradition, a process which ultimately failed.

The book explores the GAA's relationship with other sports like rugby in Kerry and how the conflict between both sports there was actually the catalyst for Listowel man, Thomas F. O'Sullivan, to force through the infamous 'Foreign Games Ban' in 1905. The role of the  GAA members nationally and locally in events such as the 1916 Rising, the War of Independence, and Civil War, and the effects of political violence on the GAA are outlined. After the Civil War, the senior Kerry side emerged politically divided yet united, the symbol Irish society craved in its search for unity. The work explores this teams origins and its immense impact on the history of Gaelic football at the time. Yet their story is not as simple as it has previously been told and the book also details how Kerry and other counties remained a political hotbed for Republicanism and how this continually manifested itself among the hierarchy of the GAA in the years up until 1934 and beyond.

As such the work is not solely a local history of the Kerry GAA. Rather it is an examination of the entire history of the Association which takes Kerry as its case study. As such, I believe it has the potential to be one of the most important works ever produced on the history of our great Association and a template for all those who wish to write about the development of the GAA in their own counties.

I hope it will be of interest to you all.

[Plain of the Herbs]

Reads like it was written in a hurry.  Needs to have quotes and anecdotes from those who surrounded Heffernan but doesnt. There's hardly any insight from within the camp or from those close to the camp. There's hardly any. Basically anyone who is half familiar with Heffo's life and times won't learn anything.

And the attempt at David Peace type repitition grates.

Details of when some of the players of that era ended their careers seem incorrect. I doubt Kevin Moran played in 1980. Bobby Doyle absolutely did play that year (Liam Hayes claims he was left off the panel altogether) - didn't he score the goal in the Leinster Final when Furlong got split? Hayes claims Doyle was left off.

Lookin forward to Liam Hayes book about Heffo. Hearing great noises about it. Think what you want about Hayes as a journalist and his opinions....BUT if its as half as good as his own book it will be very good.

[Hardy]

Some day I'm going to write a bad book. Then I'll be able to say, "available in all bad bookshops".

[T Fearon]

Did a competition to try to win Mugsy's book yesterday. Want to be able to boast I read it before his ghostwriter read it to him!

[emmetryan]

Hi guys,

My new book on Gaelic Football tactics over the last 12 months, Victory Loves Preparation, is out now. It's €15 and you can get it one of three ways...

1. Order it online here: http://www.originalwriting.ie/collections/new-releases/products/victory-loves-preparation

2. Come to the launch in Kilmacud Crokes on Thursday the 28th of November.

3. Drop me a PM and meet me in Dublin.

Ebook version will be available soon, I'll update when it is.

Thanks,
Emmet

You forgot about no 4, meet you at a match.

Not as many games this year, promised herself I'd take it easy this autumn/winter as I was sick as a dog last Christmas.

[Ciarrai_thuaidh]

Hi everyone,

I'm just bringing to everyone's attention my own book which was released last month and is a history of the early GAA between 1884 and 1934. My name is Richard McElligott and I am a sports historian working in the School of History in UCD and I'm also Chairman of the Sport History Ireland Society.

My book is the first examination of the establishment and development of the GAA on a county level. I look at my native Kerry to explore the GAA's profound impact on the political, social and culture history of Ireland during its first fifty years.   
It is entitled: Forging A Kingdom: The GAA in Kerry, 1884-1934 and is being published by the Collins Press and its retailing at €17.99 in all good bookshops.

For more information please visit:

http://www.collinspress.ie/forging-a-kingdom-by-richard-mcelligott.html

The book examines the reasons behind the formation of the GAA both nationally and locally in in county Kerry. It explores what sport in Ireland was like before the GAA arrived. It assesses the reasons for the GAA's initial popularity among Irish people both in terms of politics, culture and economics. It details the problems involved in the formation of the first clubs in Kerry, their adoption to the GAA's rules and the hard struggle in forming a County Board and trying to run and administer the GAA's organisation in such a large and physically challenging county. It looks at the problems surrounding early county championships and also national competitions. The book deals with clashes between the GAA and the Church and the attempts of Fenian and revolutionary movements to gain control and corrupt the GAA and its membership, both nationally, and in Kerry. It also looks in detail at the role of the GAA in the Gaelic Revival and the influence of Irish political nationalism on the Association at large. Likewise, links with cultural and revolutionary movements such as the Gaelic League, the IRB and Sinn Féin are all examined. The work also explores the emergence of Kerry's unique footballing tradition and examines why hurling fell by the wayside and never gained equal recognition. How the rise of Kerry as a footballing power was fundamental to the GAA itself becoming the most popular and widely supported sports body in Ireland is highlighted. Yet the book also looks at the increasingly desperate attempts to make hurling as much a part of the emerging Kerry tradition, a process which ultimately failed.

The book explores the GAA's relationship with other sports like rugby in Kerry and how the conflict between both sports there was actually the catalyst for Listowel man, Thomas F. O'Sullivan, to force through the infamous 'Foreign Games Ban' in 1905. The role of the  GAA members nationally and locally in events such as the 1916 Rising, the War of Independence, and Civil War, and the effects of political violence on the GAA are outlined. After the Civil War, the senior Kerry side emerged politically divided yet united, the symbol Irish society craved in its search for unity. The work explores this teams origins and its immense impact on the history of Gaelic football at the time. Yet their story is not as simple as it has previously been told and the book also details how Kerry and other counties remained a political hotbed for Republicanism and how this continually manifested itself among the hierarchy of the GAA in the years up until 1934 and beyond.

As such the work is not solely a local history of the Kerry GAA. Rather it is an examination of the entire history of the Association which takes Kerry as its case study. As such, I believe it has the potential to be one of the most important works ever produced on the history of our great Association and a template for all those who wish to write about the development of the GAA in their own counties.

I hope it will be of interest to you all.

Good luck with this Richard. Will certainly be investing in a copy, sounds very interesting.

[Harold Disgracey]

First review of Mugsy's book.

http://www.amazon.com/gp/aw/review/0957395477/R15RAMFP8GKX34/ref=mw_dp_cr?cursor=1&qid=1385667073&sort=rd&sr=8-1

[supersarsfields]

Peter Quinn released his book last night.

Outsider

No one expected Peter Quinn to live.
At just six years old, the boy's doctor predicted an imminent death unless 'something dramatic' happened – three days later Peter awoke from a coma. It was the first challenge the farmer's son from Fermanagh faced, but it wouldn't be the last.
Peter Quinn went on to conquer the worlds of academia, business and sport, overcoming a variety of obstacles along the way, including ill health, religious prejudice and death threats.
In The Outsider, he recounts a remarkable life, in which the GAA is the constant thread, and charts his unlikely rise through the organisation, first as a player and then as an administrator, becoming GAA President in 1991.
He was there during the Association's darkest days in Northern Ireland when its members were intimidated and murdered, and when the GAA was almost split by the Hunger Strikes.
Yet, within two decades, he was arguing forcefully that a fledgling peace process dictated the GAA should end its ban on the British security forces playing Gaelic games and that the 'foreign games' of rugby and soccer should be accommodated in Croke Park, the GAA's hallowed home.
But it is for the redevelopment of Croke Park that he is known best. His Presidency embraced, promoted and executed the vision of a redeveloped stadium which would shine across the globe as a beacon for Gaelic games and culture.
For the first time, he offers an unparalleled account of how the country's greatest sporting organisation operates, and outlines his fears and hopes for his beloved GAA.

[T Fearon]

Will Peter Quinn's released book stay out of captivity longer than his son?