 you're listening to around the northwest now in every province and every county in Ireland GAA grounds are a cornerstone of our culture and community and they're steeped in history and now Humphrey Kelleher who himself is steeped in the GAA history and culture has created a record of 101 GAA county grounds in every corner of the country and Humphrey is GAA to the core he is a particular passion for hurling because he managed to double in senior hurling team back in the the Naughties also represented as native waterfowl in both hurling and football at various levels and he joins us now on both Zoom and also online if I can just get to let me see now if I could just get to speak to a Humphrey without any any background interference that is which which hopefully we can get sorted because it's it's a great book and one of the one of the reasons that that it is so good is that there's an aerial shot of I think nearly all the grounds and has you know Humphrey obviously on board with using a drone because there's and it's not every ground that we're familiar with or you know people who go there regularly be familiar with what it looks like from an aerial perspective but all the grounds as far as I understand it all the grounds featured in the book have had a shot taken from above and hopefully we can join Humphrey now to tell us a bit more Humphrey can't you hear me I can indeed John looking forward to her having our little chat yeah just chatting there about the drone footage and these these grounds I mean you know that they're great to go you go to a you know a championship game during the summer and it's great and all the rest of it and great scene filled up with spectators but to see these grounds empty and from above some of them look really spectacular and there's some beautiful settings they're absolutely they make the book John as far as I can concern because now the photograph you see in the book at the moment that was about the third or fourth time I had to go and take those photographs I would have visited Donegal I probably know Donegal more than I would in my own county in the last couple of months and years but it was a great journey to go around to all of these grounds John and just take an unusual photograph that incorporated the surrounding areas if it was a river or a church or you know a landmark that people wouldn't be aware that's close to the ground so I think the book saw that well and the three grounds that you feature here in Donegal there's two of them beside rivers and one of them beside the sea Father Tierney Park in Bali Shannon and off the the three grounds I think the the setting for Father Tierney Park is the most spectacular because you can see the the the sea and the mountains in the background yeah that was four times John four times to go the Bali it was worth it it was worth it well I think so but ironically the best photograph I got of that was when they were developing the pitch but there are no goalposts on the pitch now we had to miss that but I don't think people notice that at the at the outset but I think it's the environment in which it is in in the rock area there in Bali Shannon and looking out to the sea but it is a beautiful setting and Bali Shannon as you know is Tierney Park after a great man who had a a sad ending but and the development of ground is going on at the moment and I think it might come back to its former glory yeah you listed as one of the most the most scenic grounds in the country and you mentioned there Father Tierney he was from Monaghan but was a curate in in Bali Shannon and then left to go to a mission in China but as you say and it came to a sad end he did he as you say right let's say he was born in Clonus and he was in the Colombian fathers and he went on the missions to China in the 1920s the mid 1920s and sadly John he was kidnapped by a crowd of I suppose communist renegades as such and he was um the the ransom was paid for his release and on his way back to the mission he was kidnapped by another group of renegades in China and sadly he was tortured and came to a very sad end and he died in China but he's somebody that people you know they go to Tierney Park Tierney Park Tierney Park but nobody knows who the man is and I think he's this is a lovely opportunity to you know to remind people of who he actually was and I think there is a photograph of him in the book as well yeah there is indeed and you you outline the stories behind the naming of the the parks in each case and I mean you know the the details they're they're not too long but you have a a few paragraphs about and a lot of them named after you know it could be clergymen it might be politicians it might it might be you know local landowners but there's a little bit of info about whoever the the parks are named after yeah I would have customized that John if there was somebody who are rather famous like Pauli Pierce or Countess Markovitch I didn't write an awful lot about them simply because there are books written of those people so I try to focus on the people like Sean McCool or Father Tierney as we say or Cardinal or Donald up in letter Kenny so as people would know who those people were they were great people but to me they're the people whose names are they're on the grounds but I would go back further John to as I call them the real heroes of the GA the people who actually bought that piece of land on which the ground is now a beautiful stadium today but and the names of the people fine but a lot of them had very little to do with the purchase and development of the ground itself yeah absolutely but you do outline the the people who had the foresight to to see that a park was needed the ground was needed and to to make that purchase and you outline how how the how the the field was bought and then you know the some of the developments along the way to what it is today yeah I mean that took an awful lot of I suppose courage by people who didn't have a penny John they just did not have any money but they raised money in lots of different ways and they were they were very innovative in the ways that they went and got the money because the GA who ultimately became the beneficiaries of these grounds they weren't really supportive in the very early days so people had to go and they had to have dances and bingo sessions and you know there are various activities uh down around the country they would have caught wood for selling during the winter time saw Christmas trees one of them actually had a film show I think it's an endless skill in to to raise money so there was a huge amount of development uh money raised simply because people went out and made it happen and I try to recall those people you're interestingly you said early John it's not really a comprehensive it's a concise history of grounds rather than the comprehensive one and you know if you're writing a comprehensive history in those I think the book would be fun yeah instead of 264 would be 2000 however we try to get as much as we could in about the development the purchase and then the development of the ground as it is today yeah but each of them has served as a county ground at some stage indeed and that was the criteria for getting into the book it would have to have a county ground status as as you know Bally Bofay is the main county ground in Donegal at the moment and prior to that there would have been O'Donnell Park would have been a county ground and I think there was a secondary county ground at the moment and of course Bally Shannon would have had its head but I think Bally Shannon is coming back and they're going to do marvelous developments in that particular area there and Tom Daley is doing tremendous work in that page yeah well a fabulous setting but as well as the the grounds here in Ireland you also include grounds in London and New York yeah I think well obviously they those the diaspora couldn't be forgotten about and there's a marvelous man from Akavass in Lytrim John Tony McGovern who has put quite a lot of money into the ground in Royslip in London and it's called McGovern Park now the ground in New York it's been developed the pitch is actually owned by Manhattan College so the GA don't own it but the the the buildings and the clubhouses are now being redeveloped at the moment so this great work being done literally all over the world but there's the two main ones in New York and in London well as I mentioned the three grounds here in Donegal that you include our father Tierney Park also O'Donnell Park and it was another O'Clairgy man who whose name it was given to O'Donnell Park yeah Cardinal I Cardinal I mean you go fairly high quality in Donegal Cardinal Joseph O'Donnell yeah he was actually born in the 20s and he was a real Donegal man and he went to school in letter Kenny and believe it or not John he became a bishop at the age of 31 he was obviously a very very bright man and he was extraordinarily involved in the GA and advocated an awful lot of support for the GA at the time but it is I suppose testament to the quality of the ground with the quality of the man after whom it was named there you go and and finally McGovern Park named after John James McGovern who became involved in the Republican movement after after he saw the Bloody Sunday Massacre in Crow Park he did and most of the people John as you can imagine they say to me McCool Park or Fiond McCool and I think there's an education there in some in some part of people's history lesson that it was Sean or John McCool and again he was he was a very very bright man he went into training as a teacher but I'm not sure whether he went through with it or not but he came involved as you rightly say in the the the the Republican movement and he he he he involved I suppose in the chief of staff of the the IRA and he became obviously he became indoctrinated in that philosophy and he was he he he did serve time in Dublin or in the Johnny Goll county board as secretary and he died at a very very young age of 48 but he went through a tough time with many hunger strikes that he went and done for his beliefs and another picture that stands out for me is the one at Celtic Park because you you have you know it's again you've the the river in the background in this case the foil and it's this absolutely spectacular yeah that was one of my favorites John I have to admit um there's uh and I was lovely I think about that photograph you can see the brandy well just below it and then you can see the Greyhound track below that again and then and and the beauty about that photograph is uh it's looking over towards Donnie Goll John so it can't be bad when you know even if it's in the background you see the top of the photo over there hills of Donnie Goll are in the distance but it certainly shows the foil river coming around me and being in around the ground well you've obviously put in a lot of work because to get there the background not just of the the the people that a lot of these grounds were named after but also getting all the the information about how the you know fundraising was done and the the bit of history of the ground how it came to be what it is today and uh all all included in the book and and and great to see as well so it's out now it's called a place to play available in in all good bookshops and a few bad ones and would make a would make a great gift for a GA lover in the house for sure well I'm pleased with it it took me 10 years to do it and I have to acknowledge the contribution of a very good Ulster man there Donal Macanallan who is very very supportive and very knowledgeable and helped me quite a good bit with the Ulster ground so uh shout out for Donal good well listen to Humphrey thanks for having a wee chat with us and the the best look with the book well done thank you very much indeed John I appreciate