Mystery attack on club GAA pitch

February 1980

Gardaí in Kilmore Quay are investigating a mystery attack on the playing pitch of St. Fintan’s GAA club in Mayglass which occurred last week.

Vandals went on an orgy of destruction and the South Wexford senior football league final between the local club and St. Anne’s/St. Martin’s/Glynn/Barntown had to be transferred to Piercestown.

When the officials of St. Fintan’s went to the ground at noon to mark out the pitch for the game that afternoon, they found the goalposts at both ends cut down, and the crossbars sawn in two.

Both team dressing rooms, as well as the referee dressing room, were damaged by fire. Nets were also burnt and the stanchions behind the goal were wrecked.

The first man on the scene was Mr. Des Wright, Chairman of the St. Fintan’s club. With another club official, Mr. Pat Murphy, he went to the ground to mark out the pitch and was stunned when he saw the damage.

‘I haven’t a clue why somebody would do this,’ he said. ‘ There was some trouble here before, but nothing like this. I wouldn’t say the two incidents are connected.’

Mr. Wright said they are still estimating the cost of the damage, but it could be considerable. Both sets of posts are cut about four feet from the ground and the crossbars are cut in half.

The dressing rooms were so badly burned that a new roof may be needed. The club will be making a malicious injury claim on Wexford Co. Council.

The vandalism has been strongly criticised too by the Chairman of the Co. Wexford GAA Board, Mr Jim Berry. ‘ This is sheer vandalism as there is no reason why someone would carry on like this. It is pitiful that people will do this type of thing. ‘

But he discounts the theory that there was anti- GAA feeling behind the damage. ‘It is just vandalism. It wasn’t done by anyone in the GAA and there is no reason why someone outside the Association would do it either.’

Another suggestion since the incident has been that it may have been a revenge attack by another club, but this seems highly unlikely.

Another club beat St. Fintan’s in a special tournament sponsored by Sealink and with an Easter trip to London as the main prize. But St. Fintan’s objected to one of the other team’s players, won the objection, and got the trip to London.

The about-turn caused an amount of ill-feeling but the Gardaí have discounted this as a motive for the attack and say they are not following this line of inquiry.