Bogue Clock from 1938 was ahead of its time

IT is amazing what you find when you are looking for something else!

Trawling through some old GAA magazines I came across an article ‘We Must Have a Bogue Clock.’ It was in the GAA Digest, the annual edition no less, from 1951. The publication may be long gone, but this copy is still in remarkable good nick considering it is almost 69 years old.

With all the recent controversy surrounding time-keeping and added on time and so forth in the National Football and Hurling League, some things in the GAA haven’t changed all that much despite the passing decades.

The Association has, however, seen monumental changes down the years regarding playing rules and new technology, Hawk-Eye etc.

Funnily enough the GAA haven’t moved with the times (pun intended) to solve some of the more simple problems.

How often have you heard at a football match ‘he’ll (the referee) play for the draw,’ or ‘where is he getting all the injury time from’ or even a roar from the sideline as a team hold on to a slender lead ‘blow the f***** final whistle ref, time is long up’.

An irate Meath senior manager Andy McEntee fumed recently following his side’s defeat to Mayo that the referee hadn’t played enough added time.

Offaly county chairman and former player Michael Duignan questioned the added time in his county’s vital hurling clash with Antrim as the Glensmen snatched a draw to end the Faithful’s promotion bid. Then we had Donegal boss Declan Bonner questioning the referee’s time-keeping as his side lost by a single point to Dublin.

The central figure in the GAA Digest article is of course Maurice Bogue, who lived most of his life in St Mary’s Villas in Drogheda and who invented the famous Bogue Clock.

Mr Bogue was not only a fine Gael but also seemed to be an innovator and a man of great foresight. He spotted ‘a niche in the market’ with the Bogue Clock, which was in effect a giant stopwatch visible to the entire crowd at matches and designed to end decades of time-keeping disputes once and for all.

It was capable of being stopped when there was a break in play and restarted when play resumed. It was first used on May 8th 1938 when Louth played Mayo in a challenge match at the Gaelic Grounds, Drogheda, to mark the opening of the town’s Civic Week.

Such was the positive reaction that Maurice Bogue was invited to give demonstrations at various matches around the country.

It made an appearance in Letterkenny in September 1938 when Donegal played Louth in the Traders’ Cup and in hurling when All-Ireland champions Dublin clashed with Cork for the State Service Cup.

Speaking to a reporter afterwards, Mr Bogue said that his invention was simplicity itself and he hoped that it would soon be in general use all over Ireland because it made the referee’s task very easy.

Those hopes received a boost one week later as the All-Ireland Football Final between Galway and Kerry ended in controversy.

The referee blew for full-time as Kerry player JJ Landers’ shot was in mid-air and on its way over the Galway crossbar for what would have been the winning point.

The first time the clock was in operation for a competitive match was in an NFL tie between Louth and Meath in Navan in November 1938 which ended in a draw.

The Bogue Clock received some negative comments from the Irish Press reporter at the game, but this was challenged by Maurice Bogue himself who wrote a letter to the newspaper disputing what the reporter had written and pointing out that members of the Meath County Board had opined that ‘the clock was a decided success’.

In 1939 three counties - Louth, Meath and Clare - put forward motions to the GAA’s Annual Congress that a clock be used in all intercounty, provincial and All-Ireland finals. However, Congress voted against the introduction of the Bogue Clock.

Despite this the Bogue Clock was used for a number of Leinster Championship matches in 1939. In 1940 yet another Louth motion to Congress calling for the introduction of the ‘official clock’ was ruled out of order.

It was back on the Congress agenda again in 1950, and while it was again rejected delegates did decide to trial some form of time-keeping clock but not necessarily the Bogue Clock.

A different clock was used for the Railway Cup Finals on St Patrick’s Day in 1951, but the clash of Connacht and Munster in the football final ended in confusion as spectators encroached on the pitch, with Munster searching for an equalising point.

That same year Maurice Bogue received an invite from JD Moynihan, Honorary Secretary of the Fitzgerald Stadium Committee in Killarney, to demonstrate his ‘Timing Apparatus’ at a Munster venue for the first time on Whit Sunday. The letter stated that the committee would gladly pay all expenses, including first class hotel accommodation for the whole weekend.

Mr Bogue was delighted to take up the invitation, but in the meantime the 1951 Congress took place where the clock was again rejected.

Galway delegate John Dunne cited what had happened at the Railway Cup Final earlier in the year, while GAA General Secretary Mr P O’Keeffe said he had difficulty in suppressing a suspicion that the clamour for a change from the present system of time-keeping grew, in the first instance, from a mistrust in their referees.

After reading the report of Congress, Mr Bogue felt that he had been slighted by the Association and cancelled his trip to Kerry.

In informing Mr Moynihan that he would not be displaying his clock in Killarney on Whit Sunday, Mr Bogue stated in his letter that it was ‘difficult to understand the official hostility, most of the criticisms advanced to back up this antagonism were puerile and irrelevant.

‘The fact that these criticisms were swallowed by delegates, and not one voice raised in defence, leads me to the obvious conclusion that would-be supporters are effectively silenced.’

The Ladies Gaelic Football Association have for years used a ‘countdown clock’ at all major games, but the only branch of the GAA to use a Bogue-style clock was the New York GAA at the Gaelic Grounds in the Bronx.

With all the time-keeping controversy in crucial games, and following the recent election of a new GAA president from the Big Apple, maybe the Bogue Clock will be back on the agenda sooner than we think!