8 July 2009

St. Mary's School, Galway City








St. Mary's School, Galway City

Photographed by E. Timoney, July 09

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

There is so much to say about this space, much of it irrelevant to handball, but we lived here.From 75 to 77 I rarely even went home for lunch.P.J. Molloy played in there, very strong. In the fourty's the Whites, Corley's, Barrett's, would all, I have been told, cycle on a Sunday all the way to Tipperary to play the boys down there, then cycle back in the evening. In 76 the queue to get in after mass was, forget it, unless you were Jack Ward. Then you could play anytime, especially if you were drunk but still capable. Joe Howley, old man (60?), arthritis so he could not run, he could hardly get in the door. You could only serve one side to him, down the left to give me a chance, if you weren't killing the ball, then you had to play it back to him. One day Joe, a huge man compared to me, crashed into me and landed right on top of me. I was twelve, he could not get up and I was stuck under him, it took ages for me to get out, then I had to pick him up and away we went again. As we both got older I got better than him, he was probably my first scalp, cleanest of swings, he had. Joe's dead now, so is Jack and all the above mentioned Tipperary tourists. If you print this, then I'll rack my brains some more.That's Mae's house on the left, between herself and the dogs we were terrified to send a ball in there, same story all over the country, I'd say. I met her ten years ago and was amazed she was still alive. We used to play killer, kicking with a football , about twenty or so, if you were hit three times you went against the wall and each fella got three kicks at you, painful, joint enterprise madness was a great source of fun. I asked Jody Mulkerrins one day when I was getting ready to try it out, handball that is, I said," Jody, how do you know where the ball is going to go", he said,"you kinda get to know after a while", it was great relief as I hadn't a clue what was going on and maybe there was a chance after all. I did get the hang of it and I still have the medals today, the only thing I have as a memento, other than the best memories you could ever want or need.Later.DW

15 January, 2010 01:19
MG said...

Hi DW. I am working on gathering information on handball in Galway and the people who played it. This is will be published on May 28th on a website and on DVD. I would like to meet with you in order to get what you have to tell. My email is geoghegan.michael@gmail.com

17 April, 2010 22:32

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