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Handball Stars from Cashel Won Several Awards
Presentation Booklet for the Annerville Awards at Clonmel on January 25, 2025
The number of handballers from Cashel who were honoured by the Tipperary United Sports Panel in the Cidona/Annerville awards down the years reflects the strong tradition of the game in the town. According to Albert Carrie, the game was played in Cashel as far back as 1850 when the members of the RIC had an alley in Hogan Square and they forbade the locals from playing in it. Those who did were issued with summonses. When the GAA was founded, it tried to foster the game by establishing an alley in every parish, but it was 1935 before an alley was built in Cashel on what is now Dean Ryan Terrace. It captured the interest of many players and great games took place, as it developed into the most popular outdoor recreation place in town. When the alley was knocked down in a hurricane in 1960, it put an end to handball in Cashel for a time.
New Alley
It took until 1975 for a new alley to be built. The amount raised by a fundraising committee wasn't sufficient, so it was decided to build it by direct labour, under the direction of Albert Carrie. The work began on Holy Thursday and was completed in less than six months and the alley was officially opened by Brother Malone on October 26, 1975. It was named after Monto Carrie, a well-loved supporter of all local endeavours, who died in a car accident in August 1973. The alley became a great centre for the promotion of handball in the town and in a short time success came to the club. In 1979 John O'Donoghue and John O'Neill won the All-Ireland Under 15 title, and Jimmy O'Neill and John J Murphy won the Under 18 title. In 1980 John Scannell and Richard Fahy won the All-Ireland Doubles Under 17, and on the same day John Scannell teamed up with Jimmy O'Neill to win the All-Ireland Under 18 Doubles. There were other successes in the Vocational Schools competition.
Spectacular Success
The number of successes is too many to mention in this short article, so I will concentrate on John O'Donoghue's achievements, which were spectacular. In 1980 he was beaten in the All-Ireland Singles final by P. McCann of Sligo, but came back in 1981 to beat his opponent of the previous year. In the same year, along with John Fitzell, he lost the All-Ireland Doubles final. In 1982 John O'Donoghue lost the All-Ireland Singles final to Ducksy Walsh, but there was consolation when he and Fitzell defeated Walsh and his partner in the All-Ireland Doubles final. In 1982 John won the All-Ireland Minor singles hardball final, and repeated the success in 1983. In the latter year he also won the All-Ireland Doubles with Eddie Corbett. In 1984 John won the All-Ireland Under 21 Doubles with K. Mullins. In 1985 he won the All-Ireland Under 21 Singles and the Doubles in partnership with Eddie Corbett. There were further successes in 1986, when there were two Under 21 Doubles All-Irelands, a Junior Singles and a Junior Doubles. Junior Doubles followed in 1989 and 1990 and Senior Doubles in 1991.
Back Injury
At this stage John's back was injured and he had to retire from handball. He returned in 2016 to win a Golden Masters Doubles, and repeated the achievement in 2017. A Silver Masters Doubles 60 x 40 was won in 2018, as well as a Golden Masters 40 x 20. There was much more that this outstanding handballer won, and he was the first Cashel person to win a Cidona Award when he won the Handball award with Kevin Mullins in 1984. He followed up with a second award, alone, in 1985, a third with Eddie Corbett in 1991, and a fourth when the two succeeded again in 1992. The nearest he came after that was when his son, Paraic, won with Daniel Hayes in 2016.
John O'Donoghue set the standard for others, women as well as men, in the Cashel club. David Moloney won the award in 1992, Carol Moloney in 1995, Jackie Keating and Carol Moloney in 1997, Daniel Hayes and Coilin Ryan in 2012 and Daniel Hayes and Paraic O'Donoghue in 2016
Thomas Glendon is the Designer of the Knocknagow Award
Presentation Booklet for the Annerville Awards at Clonmel on January 25, 2025
Thomas Glendon has been designing the Knocknagow Award for 45 years. He recalls being contacted by Maurice Durney from Showerings, Clonmel in 1979. The contact stemmed from a recommendation by Apple Advertising, who were looking for an artist to explore and produce ideas for a series of sports awards.
Johnny O'Loughlin is the longest-serving member of the United Sports Panel. He joined the panel in 1976 and recalls that there was no specifically-designed Knocknagow Award before 1979. The panel usually contacted a provider to supply trophies for the recipients, with a bigger one provided for the Knocknagow Award. There was a lack of consistency in the design and quality
Johnny O'Loughlin is the longest-serving member of the United Sports Panel. He joined the panel in 1976 and recalls that there was no specifically-designed Knocknagow Award before 1979. The panel usually contacted a provider to supply trophies for the recipients, with a bigger one provided for the Knocknagow Award. There was a lack of consistency in the design and quality of the trophies.
Thomas Glendon's brief was to design a major award, Knocknagow, for a Tipperary sports star of the past; and a secondary award, named the Cidona Awards, for established and emerging athletes. There was no restriction on the field of sport and over the years a broad range of activities, including Gaelic football, hurling, soccer, rugby, boxing, athletics and showjumping were to receive recognition.
Considering the brand and products produced by Showerings, a motif based on an apple appeared the most appropriate design for the Knocknagow award. At an early meeting at the design stage an apple in marble was suggested, but when a request emerged for it to be sprayed silver, the idea was dropped. Thomas Glendon explains his intention: “In my modelling of the award I felt an apple in the round would be too much in volume. This led to the process of paring and decoring to arrive at a satisfactory shape. To an untrained artistic eye it had to immediately convey its source of firm, distinctly apple and not easily mistaken for another fruit. The success was in the outline, it conveyed an apple without all the weightiness.
“The award is made of bronze, cast in a sand mould, polished and patinaed. In the raw the metal is cased and filed to define the outline, then the edges are patinaed and the face given a high polish. Elevated on a bronze dowel, it is set on a polished base made of Kilkenny limestone”.
The original Cidona Awards, now ceased, were medallions of sterling silver, echoing the Knockagow in outline.
Thomas Glendon hails from a line of long established monumental masons in the Dun Laoghaire district, who originally came from the Inistioge area of Kilkenny in the 1880s.
His introduction to craftsmanship in stone was in his father Laurence's workshop at Deansgrange, County Dublin. Under his guidance he learned the primary techniques in stonework, geometry, lettering and toolmaking. Sometime later he was introduced to the well-known letter-cutter and sculptor, Michael Biggs.
The 1916 Proclamation carved on Ardbraccan Limestone at Arbour Hill is his masterpiece in lettering. He also had a very successful and influential body of work in Sanctuary Furniture design; St. Michael's Church, Dun Laoghaire and St. McCartan's Cathedral in Monaghan are well-known examples of his approach to sacred elements.
Thomas was Michael Biggs' assistant for six years, from 1968-1974, when he received an excellent grounding in the fundamentals of letter design and model-making.
They parted on good terms and Thomas set up his own studio in Shannon, County Clare, learning the rudiments of the self-employed.
In fact, while in Shannon the request to design the Knocknagow award came about.
He has fond memories of travelling through the Glen of Aherlow to meetings in Clonmel.
Bulmers' Connection with Tipperary United Sports Panel Goes Back 60 Years
Presentation Booklet for the Annerville Awards at Clonmel on January 25, 2025
This year we celebrate the 60th anniversary of the sponsorship of the Tipperary United Sports Panel Awards by Bulmers.
In connection with the presentation of the 1964 awards in the Ormonde Hotel, Clonmel on January 31, 1965, a large advertisement appeared in The Nationalist newspaper announcing the sponsorship: 'The Irish Cider & Perry Company Ltd salute the Tipperary Sports Stars of 1964 and are pleased to sponsor the Cidona Trophies'.
This was a major coup for the original members of a group of men, who assembled in the Slievenamon Hotel on December 12, 1959 with the object of promoting sport throughout Tipperary by the annual presentation of awards to selected stars. The group, which included Sean Cleary, Sean Lyons, Sean Barlow, Bill Hyland, Christy Mulcahy, Eddie O'Neill Bill O'Brien, Paddy Cummins, Ken Hogan, Tom Halpin and Ted Dillon, adopted the name, United Sports Panel, and presented their first awards in St. Patrick's Hall in Clonmel on January 17, 1960.
The sports honoured were camogie, soccer, table tennis, sports executive, athletics, cycling, hurling, basketball and Gaelic football. Each winner was presented with a cup and, in the course of his speech introducing the stars at the presentation, Sean Lyons thanked those who had donated trophies.
The need to have regular presentation trophies for the stars was a problem for the panel. It became more urgent in 1962, when the panel made an important addition to the awards with the decision to honour an outstanding sportsperson from the past to the list of recipients. They gave the name Knocknagow to this award and by its very nature something special was required.
The advent of the Bulmers sponsorship was timely, as it afforded the panel the opportunity to provide suitable trophies of regular design. However, the range of trophies presented could differ from year to year and the need for something more permanent was required, especially for the Knocknagow Award. Cidona Awards
Bulmers took the initiative in 1979 when Maurice Durney from the company contacted Thomas Glendon about designing a suitable trophy for the Knocknagow Award and a secondary award for the Cidona Awards for established and emerging athletes. Considering the brand and products produced by Bulmers, a motif based on an apple appeared the most appropriate.
And so, permanent trophies became the norm in the presentation of the awards. The awards for the stars continued to be presented until a number of years ago, when the panel had a new award designed by John Quirke of Cahir.
Annerville Award
The association of Bulmers with the awards was made permanent with the adoption of the Cidona name for the awards from the advent of the sponsorship. The name continued to be used in the awards until 2007, when the name was changed to the Annerville Awards. The Cidona brand was no longer held by Showerings Ltd, the parent company, so the name Cidona could not be retained as the name for the awards. A new name had to be found and the one chosen was Annerville, the name of the townland near Clonmel where the company is located.
So, after 42 years of the Cidona Awards, they were called the Annerville awards in 2007, and presented as such at the presentation dinner at Hotel Minella on February 2, 2008.
The two names, Cidona and Annerville, indelibly connect the United Sports Panel with Bulmers and the Showerings company and reflect the long connection between a bunch of sporting enthusiasts and a local company, both with a love for and a desire to promote Tipperary sport at heart.
The Many Places of Cashel and District - Ancient and Modern
Johnny Fogarty, December 2024
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John Kelly
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The New Line Road - Ballincor to Lorrha
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Jimmy O’Neill, Cashel Person of the Year 2024
It gives me great pleasure to introduce to you the Cashel Person of the Year for 2024. Jimmy O’Neill is the thirty-eighth person to be so honoured since Maura McHugh became the first in 1987.
At that time The Cashel Lions Club recognised the need to honour persons, who contributed significantly to the life of the town over the previous year. During the intervening years the club honoured men and women, who by their actions and lives made Cashel a better place to live for the people of the town and district
This evening Jimmy joins the ranks of these distinguished men and women because of his major contribution to the success of Larkspur Park over a lengthy period of time, that stretches back as far as the nineteen-seventies, and continues with undimmed interest and unflagging enthusiasm to this day.
When Jimmy joined Larkspur Park he was as an enthusiastic Pitch and Putt player, and he soon became an accomplished one. That enthusiasm for the game has never wavered and he continues to play off a 2 handicap today. At present, he is involved with the club in the Spring League, a competition between the five county Pitch and Putt clubs, a kind of Tipperary championship, which is played with great commitment and intensity. During his time in the club, he has won numerous competitions and he has also represented the club with distinction at the national level.
At an early stage of his involvement, Jimmy got involved in club administration and he continues to play a major part in club business, having held all the officer positions, particularly chairman. He is very skilled at organising competitions for club members and this ability was revealed at another level last year when he organised a new competition, a mixed scramble on Tuesday evenings. This has proved a major success and has introduced new people, young and old, men and women to the game of Pitch and Putt.
The success of this venture is due to the fun element, when teams of four, of all mixtures, play together in a friendly atmosphere. The scramble gives every member of the team an opportunity to contribute, while still retaining the element of competition. It is also a great social occasion, an opportunity to meet new people in a friendly environment. It has been and continues to be a great success.
One of the pleasures of playing the game of Pitch and Putt in Larkspur Park is the quality of the course, and this is another area in which Jimmy has excelled. He has involved himself for years, with others also, I don’t need to add, in maintaining the course to the highest standards. This has involved a lot of work and while many others may have honed up their tans on the beaches of Spain and other continental resorts during the summer, Jimmy has bronzed himself in the wind and sun of Larkspur Park, spending long stretches of his holidays there. This maintenance has involved cutting fairways and greens, hollow-tining, scarifying and seeding, so that Larkspur Park course is famous not only for its size and layout, but also for the superb condition of the fairways and greens. This has resulted in a number of All-Ireland competitions being played at the venue, with a further one scheduled for later this year.
Jimmy’s work in Larkspur Park hasn’t been confined to Pitch and Putt. He has been a member for many years of the overall governing body, the Larpspur Park Development Committee. Because I was chairman of this body for many years, I had great insight into his contribution to the overall development of the Park, and I can attest to the importance of that contribution.
On behalf of Cashel Lions Club, the Trustees of the Park for the benefit of the people of Cashel and District, I would like to thank Jimmy on this occasion for his long-time involvement and commitment to Larkspur, and ensure him of our appreciation of his work. In doing so I would like to involve his wife, Serena, in our appreciation of her contribution as an officer on the Pitch & Putt committee, and son, Sean, who is the gatekeeper of the park.
This is a night to celebrate the work of Jimmy O’Neill over a long period of time. It is also an occasion to admire the contribution of a man who has done so much to improve the recreational facilities of the people of Cashel. When it is realised that he has done all of this in a voluntary manner, without the expectation of any reward, it makes his contribution all the greater. Being honoured as Cashel Person of the Year for 2024 is possibly a small reward for so much done, but it is my pleasure to add his name to the distinguished list of men and women who have been honoured before him.
Recent GAA Publications 2023
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Paddy O’Meara - Lorrha Hurling Veteran
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Tom Milne (Lorrha & London) 1944-2023
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County Senior Hurling Championship 2023
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Forges in the Parish of Lorrha & Dorrha
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Arson in Lorrha Parish Chapel
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