Jimmy: a true servant of Gaelic games in Wicklow
DAVID MEDCALF SPOKE TO GAA STALWART JIMMY DUNNE ABOUT OPENING UP CROKE PARK TO RUGBY AND SOCCER, ABOUT THE CHANGING FACE OF BUSINESS AND SPORT, AND ABOUT PLAYING HURLING FOR LEITRIM
GAELIC games in Wicklow have a true servant in Jimmy Dunne, ser ving the GAA locally and nationally for more than half a century. The Arklow man is the ultimate backroom operator, quietly pulling the strings to make things happen, without drawing too much attention to himself. He has sat on some of the most influential bodies in the association and continues to assist in the running of his home club.
He plays down suggestions that he once aspired to be All-Ireland president of the organisation which he loves. Nevertheless, it is clear that the GAA could have done a great deal worse than choose this thoughtful administrator as leader. Along the way, he has also been a successful business man, best remembered in his native town for the Chocolate House confectionery-cum-newsagents.
These days he enjoys retirement in the bungalow which he and wife Bridie built on the outskirts of Arklow in Ballyduff. Retirement in their case should not be taken as meaning idleness as Jimmy continues to keep various sporting and business irons in the fire. Still, he now has time to look back a little at a career which has made a difference.
‘I was born in Main Street 78 years ago,’ states a man who could easily pass for ten years younger he claims to be. He is one of three. His brother Liam is a priest, serving as president of Wicklow GAA, while sister Lilian McConnon lives on the Wexford border at Scarnagh.
He ponders that the Arklow he grew up in iss very different from the 2016 version. It was a small town and a fishing port, with the addedd economic boost provided by the pottery factoryy which provided plenty of employment. Jimmy’s’s dad was a painter/decorator doing his best too bring up a family in the lean times of the 1940s.s. Grandfather Jim Curran was the blacksmithh in Kilcarragh and the sight of him at his forgee remains vivid in the grandson’s mind to thisy.day.
The social and sporting landscapee of that time in Arklow was much smaller and more provincial in tone than the town of 2016. There were precious few houses on the Coolgreanyen road on the south side, for instance, while the redbrickk sprawl of Liam Mellows Avenue – now thought ht of as old stock – was only under construction. n. And for those youngsters residing in the town n who wanted to run around the Ark low Geraldin es ran street leagues. in hurling and football. These competitions were big news in the forties and into the fifties, hugely successful and keenlyy contested.
‘I was a very poor sportsman,’ confesses thee septuagenarian looking back on the boy in short trousers that was himself growing up. What he lacked in natural skill he attempted to make up for with enthusiasm, supported by his mother whose family (the Currans) were keen GAA stock.
The sense of a wider perspective of games beyond the ones on the doorstep was awakened in Jimmy by the Wexford hurlers. The likes of Nickey Rackard and Padge Kehoe were sporting idols, lending a touch of glamour to a dowdy decade. Another memory lingers – a vision of Wexford’s Nick O’Donnell on his way home from Croke Park after playing his part in winning the All-Ireland of 1956 with the Liam McCarthy Cup.
There was none of the open-topped bus and razzmatazz of the modern era: ‘O’Donnell had the cup held out of the window of an ordinary car. He was one of the all-time greats – I can still see that cup.’
The same year, Jimmy was elected to the responsibility of being South District juvenile
secretary for the GAA in County Wexford, while still a teenager. His career as a sports administrator had begun. He had come through the ranks as a member of the Arklow Geraldines, who were operating out of Pearse’s Park on the Wexford Road at the time.
The ground was sold a few years later in favour of the former dog track on the Vale Road in the 1960s. Such developments required plenty of fund-raising and Jimmy was forever selling raffle tickets or helping to run the annual carnival on the Wexford Road.
The club also contributed to the social life of the area by running a marquee dance with a céilí band in Hanlon’s Field. Geraldines contested the county football final of 1963 and the hurling decider a couple of seasons later – losing both matches. Jimmy Dunne was nowhere near the action on either occasion, having retired from playing before reaching the age of 20.
‘I always enjoyed administration,’ he says simply, a man who took satisfaction from being a in the background. ‘I would get a lot of enjoyment out of it.’ He graduated from being juvenile district secretary to being secretary of the adult equivalent, which proved to be his springboard to becoming secretary of the county juvenile board.
It was 1986 before he took over as secretary of the county board, a role he filled for five years before stepping into the broader limelight as county chairman in 1991. He was drawn inevitably to the committee rooms of Croke Park, a steady pair of hands who helped to make GAA headquarters a stadium which is the envy of all Europe as chairman of the national finance committee for the six years to 2006.
He then headed the central competitions committee, keeping his cool in the face of competing demands from supporters of rival counties. The wonder is that being one of the most powerful and respected people in the GAA – he is a national trustee since 1997 – allowed him time to build up a business with Bridie.
‘ The GAA was my whole life,’ he muses,’ no question about that. I made great sacrifices along that journey but I made great friends as well.’
Away from sport, his training was as a baker, the profession which brought him the distinction of an appearance in National Hurling League. He first went to sea to work on the liners of the Blue Star Line as a pastry chef, returning to dry land and a spell of exile at a bakery in Leitrim.
While working in Manor Hamilton he used to puck a ball around in the evenings and found himself rounded up as a 28 year old recruit when the county was short of manpower. He was hauled on to the bus with the panel for a game against Mayo and, though they were trounced, Jimmy can claim to this day to be an inter-county hurler.
Back in Arklow, he decided that the sevendays-a-week demand of baking was not for him, so he diversified into insurance, setting up as an agent for Royal Liver at the home place in Upper Main Street. He missed the All-Ireland hurling final of 1971 as he clebratged marriage to Bridie, a native of Kerry who came to town to work for CIE.
The couple opened the legendary Chocolate Shop selling sweets and newspapers, making a nice living out of retailing. They had the foresight to figure out in good time that shopping was changing with the cards stacked in favour of the big supermarkets and petrol stations.
The Dunnes left the scene, allowing Bridie to continue working as a qualified accountant, while Jimmy remains involved in local commerce as chairman of the Arklow Business Enterprise Centre. He also keeps his hand in as a sports administrator as secretary of what is now called AGB – Arklow Geraldines Ballymoney.
He says he welcomes change – proud for instance to have led the way to opening up Croke Park to rugby and to soccer. He was never one who felt comfortable with the ‘foreign games’ mentality or with the GAA’s ban of RUC and British armed forces personnel from membership.
He is happy that small town Arklow has become cosmopolitan Arklow where many nationalities and cultures are represented. Jimmy Dunne is the very opposite of the die-hard GAA supporter so often caricatured: ‘Lads play every sport. It’s lovely.’
Though soccer attracts huge numbers and there are many other codes on offer, his own AGB has 400 members, surely more than it ever had. He is content that sport, which offered such a limited choice when he was growing up, now has a much broader spectrum, with games for the girls as well as the boys.
‘ The GAA was 100 per cent a boys’ club when I started,’ he recalls a time when the watchword was ‘ ladies don’t play’. He embraces gender equality.
‘If you don’t adopt, then you have got a problem,’ is his philosophy of life, an attitude which he has applied as much to commerce as to Gaelic games.
‘ The next generation will have to change again – things are evolving all the time.’
THE GAA WAS MY WHOLE LIFE, NO QUESTION ABOUT THAT. I MADE GREAT SACRIFICES ALONG THAT JOURNEY BUT I MADE GREAT FRIENDS AS WELL