Launch of Sam Maguire book

BY KIERAN McCARTHY

AUTHOR Kieran Connolly and Sam Maguire both have something in common – neither played for Dohenys GAA Club yet both, in their own way, have helped put their local GAA club on the map.

Connolly, a former DIT lecturer from Dunmanway, has written a book about Sam Maguire, the famous West Cork man who played a leading role in the GAA and with the Irish Republican Brotherhood (IRB) before and during the War of Independence.

Sam Maguire: The Man and The Cup will be launched this Friday night at the Model School in Dunmanway at 8pm.

‘The idea for a book about Sam Maguire came from my late brother-in-law, Des Cox, from Carrick on Shannon,’ Connolly explained. 

‘In the early 1970s he came to Dunmanway to court my sister Margaret. When he found out that Sam Maguire came from Dunmanway and was buried there he was amazed. He said words to the effect that if “Carrick had Sam Maguire the world would know about it!” 

‘It was the first time that the significance of his life and connection to Dunmanway became clear to me.

‘Charles Kickham in his novel Knockagow coined the phrase “for the credit of the little village” and it has since been used to explain why people play Gaelic Games. I was not able to play for the local club, the Dohenys, and I wrote the book ‘for the credit of Dunmanway” as a homage to my home town.’