This article is from page 49 of the 2008-10-21 edition of The Clare People. OCR mistakes are to be expected so download the original SWF or the rendered page 49 JPG
BLACK and amber as well as blue and gold colours have been affixed to the Canon Hamilton Cup this week.
All in readiness for the big day out When the senior championship cup will sit on its perch in Cusack Park’s Ard Comhairle, waiting to be taken home by either Newmarket-on-Fer- gus or Clonlara.
The colours will have an extra sig- nificance this year — all because of Canon Michael Hamilton, the col- ourful cleric who in a long, distin- guished and sometimes controversial
GAA career ruled the Clare County Board with an iron fist, commentated on an All-Ireland football final for Radio Eireann and famously brought the 1947 All-Ireland football final to New York.
It’s 39 years since Canon Hamilton fell 11] during a county final between Clarecastle and Newmarket-on-Fer- gus in Cusack Park and later died in Ennis General Hospital, but he’d loved to have lived to see the day when Newmarket-on-Fergus and Clonlara clashed in a county final.
You see, Hamilton was a man of both Clonlara and Newmarket-on-
Fergus. Born and reared in Clonlara; parish priest in Newmarket-on-Fer- gus for many years. He was in Trea- cys Field in O’Callaghan’s Mills when Clonlara beat Scariff in the °19 final; he was there for most of New- market’s triumphs from the ‘20s to the ‘60s; he would have seen the East Clare final between the two in Fr Murphy Park in ’36, but the day he would have yearned for most of all would be Clonlara v Newmarket-on- Fergus for his cup in Cusack Park. On leaving Clare to take up a new clerical post in Nenagh in 1956, Hamilton showed that modesty
wasn’t part of his make-up, by buy- ing acup, naming it after himself and presenting it to the county board for the senior hurling championship.
It was as important to him as the the Polo Grounds All-Ireland — but a contest between Clonlara and Newmarket for his cup would have definitely put Polo Grounds men like John Joe O’Reilly, Joe Keohane, Mick Higgins and Paddy Kennedy in the shade.
Clonlara have never been Canon Hamilton contenders, apart from the contribution from Colm Honan and co to the St Senan’s team beaten by
Newmarket in the 1972 final; the Blues meanwhile filled their former parish priest’s cup 13 times from 1963 to 81.
Sixty minutes on Sunday will see where the Canon Hamilton gets its first fill of drink. Clonlara? Newmar- ket-on-Fergus?
Wherever it is, it’s true to say that the Canon Hamilton will be going home.