Curated by Caoimhe Coburn Gray

JUNE 2021

 

Handball Alleys are magical places.  Honest, natural and unadorned, they pepper the length and breadth of Ireland, their location and condition embracing the geographical diversity of the nation.  Firmly embedded in the Irish psyche, they are fascinating structures with stories that go beyond sport – spaces for everything from matchmaking to card playing – where people have gathered to dance, to chat, to meet, to play…

For this reason they were chosen as the presentation spaces for IN THE MAGIC HOUR by David Bolger and Christopher Ash and IN YOUR WORDS is a collection of inspiring moments and living histories gathered as we researched the project. We have been humbled by the generosity of those who maintain and use these spaces in sharing their passion and stories with us – thank you!

 

DESCRIBE THE HANDBALL ALLEY IN (approximately) 1 WORD…

PUBLIC SPACE

– Áine Ryan

COMMUNITY or HERITAGE

– Eugene Kennedy

PLAY

– Enda Timoney

ESCAPE

– Junior Griffin

LIFELINE

– Charlie Nolan

A FOCUS

– Ned Griffin

OPEN or FREE

– Robbie Brown

A BIG PART OF MY LIFE

– Michael Enright

 

THANK YOU!

Thank you to all of the generous individuals who shared stories with us and connected us with their communities during IN YOUR WORDS… We are extremely fortunate to have met and spoken with so many fantastic contributors and local figures and to have had a unique insight into the Irish handball alley and what it has meant, throughout the decades, to so many families and communities alike.

As the IN THE MAGIC HOUR run has come to an end, so too does our research and our active gathering of handball alley tales. If you have found your way to this website and would like to read more in the vein of local oral history, find below some links and resources that we came across during the project and that proved hugely helpful in shaping IN YOUR WORDS…

IRISHHANDBALLALLEY.IE
LISTOWEL CONNECTION
VANISHING IRELAND
THE GAA | ORAL HISTORY PROJECT

IrishHandballAlley.ie in particular has hugely informed both IN THE MAGIC HOUR and IN YOUR WORDS… If you have photographs or information on a handball alley near you, you can email irishhandballalley@gmail.com

See a testimony below from creator of IrishHandballAlley.ie Áine Ryan on how she came to be fascinated by these uniquely Irish structures…

ÁINE RYAN | JUNE 2020

I wondered about the handball alley building type long before I began to document it. We would drive past a particular alley on family journeys to visit relatives in Wexford and Dublin. Located on a section of the N8 near the turn-off for Thurles now bypassed by the M8 motorway,  passing this alley signalled that we had left the territory of my usual childhood world and that two long hours of back-seat squabbling with my siblings lay ahead. As a teenager, I wondered why it was located there seemingly in the middle of nowhere on the side of a national road, why a simple-sounding game like handball required a dedicated space that must have taken effort to build,  and whether it was used at all anymore?

As an architecture student, I passed this handball alley travelling by bus from Dublin to visit my family. I now knew that it was the bare aesthetic and geometric form of the alley set between the landscape rising behind and road passing in front that made the alley so striking to me as a child. However, I could not answer the questions that still niggled at me. Almost every mention of the handball alley led to someone making reference to architectural historian Maurice Craig who wrote that the handball alley was one of three building types indigenous to Ireland, but that seemed to be the full extent of professional knowledge about them. The name of the place – Turn Pike – suggested it might have been a place where traffic and people once stopped to pay tolls and rest, and perhaps then fall into playing handball. 

Some years later, as a practicing architect eventually travelling this route in my own car, I sometimes stopped to look at the architecture of the alley and to experience the space inside the alley; a large and entirely empty space open to the sky, contained by high and long walls without any openings except for the entrance. Another alley in Johnstown village further along this route towards Dublin appeared to be steading falling into disrepair although it was on the main street and possibly used even more that the Turn Pike, I thought. Then it was gone without a trace. I regretted having never made the time to seek out the answers to all the questions I had about this building type. 

After establishing that there was almost no scholarship and only a small number of popular studies, I made an application for a research grant to the Heritage Council of Ireland, proposing to list all the remaining alleys I could find in Ireland and collect as much information from as many local communities as I could reach. My aim was to make information about their architectural and cultural value readily accessible to those faced with the decision as to whether to keep or demolish them, as well as to the professional community of interested architects and academics. That was 2007. The documentation project is still running. It became and remains a collective endeavour defined by a sharing of many forms of information about the past sporting, political and social dimensions of this once central place in Irish life.

 

LISTOWEL, KERRY

JUNIOR GRIFFIN

 

 

For those down there it really got us out of harms way and it kept us out of harms way you know? But I’ll tell you now I can remember when I was young, I think I might have told you that, but when I was young on a Sunday morning it was absolutely packed. Packed…An old penny, where would we get an old penny – we got it somewhere. And we’d go to Woodford and Mrs Dowling and we’d buy the apples and come in and sell the apples in the alley and our aim was 4 pence. If we got 4 of the old pence, that’s what we wanted – 2 pence for the matinee and 2 pence for the…Cleeve’s slab toffee I think it was d’you know, and our week was made.

Players down there well if they wanted a game when we were finished our game they’d go in and some of us would go in but we might have to wait 4 or 5 games before we’d actually get to, you know, but he’d say who was next and there’d be a few chancers who’d say “oh it’s my turn…”

A lot of the lads would hate to see Johnny come down to play handball, and more than likely on a Sunday morning, because he played with the fist and (there’s) no control with the fist and Johnny’d over the wall and into the river.

The boys in the different houses along, most of them played handball.

I suppose the word ‘escape’ might come into it. It was our kind of escape. It was our escape from home, jobs and all that kind of stuff.

A verse I had now: “No more do young men sally, to toss the ball against the wall, of my beloved alley.”

CHARLIE NOLAN

 

 

To play handball you had to have gloves and we couldn’t afford the gloves, in the 80’s, and what happened then was your hand would swell up and I had the ring on my finger, the wedding ring, and you couldn’t see that- you never thought of it like we were so interested in playing and competition and when I came home we had it in water for hours and hours and hours, it took ages!

But this place, it was vibrant at that time like. There was always somebody in here with a handball.

Everybody didn’t own a handball because they were too dear. And 9 times out of 10 if it went over that it’d go down into Toddy Buckley’s so you’d go up the wall and you’d climb down the far side but he used to have cross dogs and you’d have to make it very fast. Now if it went on the road it’d roll all the way down to the bridge road to the hollow so you’ve a chance of getting it. But if it went into the river and there was any drop of water it was gone, that was it like.

We used to be sitting on the bench watching Junior and the four senior guys as we’d call them, and we’d just be watching what they were doing.

No well sometimes we’d stone them from up above. But in all fairness to them like, see what the rule was and we didn’t understand it at the time, the rule was they were all working. And in the evening, that was their time, and Sundays. Sunday was their big day like I’d say because they were all off so and when they’d come in then we just had to get out like. It was proper like. We were young at the time we didn’t understand.

No it was different times like. It is a pity.

MICHAEL ENRIGHT

 

 

A brother of mine, Tom, Tom Enright – he played. Dermot Buckley, Junior – they’re all gone now…

…As I said, Caoimhe, the biggest problem we had was it was a three wall alley. All the modern alleys and the ones that qualify to have competitions have to have 4 walls or else you can’t play….I lost track of it for a number of years and I lived in Sutton, in Bayside, and a friend of mine played it and he lived near me and he said “Ah sure come in!” So I did on one day, I went into Croke Park and I was hooked. I must say I love the game and I still miss it…

…I remember the gatherings on a Sunday morning after mass, you know, we all went down there. And all the seniors had the alley, us – we’d no choice of a game there you know. So yeah it was a big event, yeah…We had to adapt the actual side of it – I don’t know if you heard this or not – but we had to adapt a grassy area on the side of it and played there against the side wall…

There’s the problem too, you mentioned, of the river. Of the ball going in there…In those days a handball was expensive, it cost quite a bit of money to us then. So if you lost the ball you had to climb a wall, cross the road, climb down the other road and run around the bank of the River Feale and you hoped to find a bit of dead water and the ball was there. Such great times!…I just loved it, and I didn’t know how much I missed it until I had to leave it – so I stopped playing at about 55 I suppose, you know, and I really missed it…

…Well you’d just go down there as a kid and start playing – you just learned the hard way I suppose…Did Junior mention that it’s also a sort of social gathering of people who didn’t play handball, you know – like card-sharks. Cards, pitch and toss and stuff like that. There was a whole lot of people that didn’t play handball that was down there as well, on Sunday morning…

…It was a meeting place for people.

NOEL ROCHE

I have to say the Ball Alley was a huge part of my childhood. It was not uncommon to see twenty or more kids waiting to play. We also use to play a game called Rocky which was an elimination game so up to twenty could start the game and went on until there was only one player left. Monday afternoon was when the big boys came to play (most places closed for half day Monday and we got to watch players like Junior Griffin (Bridge Rd), John Keane (The Avenue) and Tom Enright (Bridge Rd) play. They were some of the top players I remember. Among my age group the top players were Joe Moriarty, Denny Connor and Eddie Brouder, all from O’Connells ave. Countless hours were spent in the Ball Alley for me as a kid and it will always hold precious memories.

CLIONA COGAN

The wedding was 20th May 2017.
The photographer was Shane Turner.
 
The reason we wanted to go to the ball alley was twofold, one was due to the beautiful colour of the paintings. The almost distressed look was a nice contrast to us inour fine clothing. Secondly and more importantly for me was because the ball alley was a place I really consider to be quintessentially Listowel and part of my childhood.
 
 

*BOTTOM ROW OF PHOTOGRAPHS COURTESY OF ÉAMON AND BREANDÁN Ó MURCHÚ:
Bottom left: Junior Griffin being presented with Shield – shown are John Keane, Breandán Ó Murchú, Junior Griffin, Mr Fitzgibbon, Johnny Halloran and Seamus Browne.
Middle left: Framed Photograph of Breandán receiving Shield, having won Town League on 17 November 1961 – with congratulatory note from Bryan MacMahon.
Middle right: Photograph of Breandán being presented with Lee Strand Cup. John Fitzgerald on left and John Joe Kenny on right.
Bottom right: Press Cutting from “The Kerryman”, Friday, May 14, 1976, about Breandán Ó Murchú and Michael Enright. Other handball players from Listowel mentioned – Joe James, Junior Griffin, Tom Enright, Johnny Halloran, John Keane, John Joe Kenny, Kevin Sheehy and Fr. Keran O’Shea.

 

BROADFORD, LIMERICK

TOM O’BRIEN

Handball was first played here in the late 1800’s in the old court, it was a 2 wall court. First played by the RIC – there was a barracks and there’d be barracks in most villages down through the years. It was a 2 wall court and it would have probably been an earthen floor as well – I mean there was no concrete in those days. And it started from there…

…In those days of course there was probably a social outlet for people as well, they had no place to go, very few people had cars in the 50’s and 60’s and I remember in the alley on Saturdays and especially on Sundays the gallery would be packed…People would wait their turn to go in. A lot of us, I remember…we used to play pitch and toss – it’s a very old game. You put a stone down on the ground and you stand back maybe 6 or 7 feet and you used to toss pennies and the nearest penny to the stone…we used to play all those games down through the years.

…A big crack appeared in one of the walls so the Council deemed it a dangerous building…and then a few of us got together and decided we’d build…We had 5 acres here so we decided to build a big court first – that was 1980. And it was voluntary labour, you wouldn’t do it now with health and safety but we actually built the court ourselves over about 2 or 3 years..we spent our Saturdays here and we were – how should I say it – as bricklayers we were nearly qualified by the time it was finished! …The fun we had there, building it.

 

KILLEIGH, OFFALY

 

John: In Joe’s time handball was a big game, a big sport here – like and Joe growing up, you know. But then I came along in the 50’s and by the time I was
         10 like, you know what I mean you were always in the alley in the morning – playing after mass, we’d get to go to the alley so we would and in
         the afternoon, the boys play.

 

Joe: I was playing here in the 50’s up through the 80’s and on a Sunday all the good guys…you could wait 2 hours to get a game, you know.

       …Even bets of 6 pence, pretty heavy – Paddy Power wouldn’t be interested. Or a shilling again, it got very serious – a lot of arguments. 

John: It was and another thing is this much, as young fellas we were younger we’d be outside maybe playing at the pump – there was a pump out there,
        and the ball’d come over – throw it back. In. Because it used to go through the little wire up there on the top. But the one good thing about it
        was – when the lads were finished, you might get a 6 pence or a thrupence to go to the shop for an ice-cream. Oh by God they did, yes, I’ll
        have to say that, yes. And we used to look forward to that too, and probably if on the Sunday we didn’t get it we mightn’t peg it in on the next
        Sunday you know!

Joe: Now you’d want a 50 euro voucher for Tesco!

John: …That was a little treat for us for throwing back in the ball.

Joe: Whoever won the match won money and would have a few-

John: A few bob you know what I mean

 

Joe: There was also another dual purpose for the alley when I was young, it wasn’t heavy stuff now at that time ‘courting couples’ – if you saw a girl
       and “I’ll see you in the ball alley at half 9” – that was like winning the lotto! It wasn’t x-rated or anything now, it was nice.

John: …Yeah because you had the carnival here. See we had a carnival at that time here at the back – up there. And all the top bands played here.

        …That’s what life was then.

Joe: It was. And a peck on the cheek was the heavy stuff!

 

John: When we’d come from mass we knew that we’d get – well what did you get – there was no toasters at that time, you just held a fork in front
         of the fire in the winter time and it browned up and that was it, bit of butter and a mug of tea, into the ball alley. But then the older lads played
         in the evening time, in the afternoon. And we enjoyed watching them and then when they were gone we’d go back into the alley again. There was
         never rows about who should be in it. It was just recognised that, you just turned up and played.

        …I mean if you were good enough to get in to play in front of Joe’s house, you were good enough to go anywhere, so you were, or that’s the way I
       looked at it you know. You could take tea with anyone. 

        …I will say this much, one of the best men I ever played in front of or that played behind me was this man here.

Joe: Have you a plastic bucket there ‘til I get sick! 

 

BALLISODARE, SLIGO

THOMAS HEALY

Former Mayor of Sligo, Thomas Healy, kindly shared with me his memory of President Michael D. Higgins visiting Ballisodare and being hosted in the handball alley…

As you probably know yourself, the handball alley, there’s a lot of history with it. W.B. Yeats was meant to have written one or two of his poems from there…Where I came in on it was there was a volunteer called Martin Savage who originated from Streamstown and as you know, Martin Savage was involved in the 1916 Rising in Dublin…I ran a campaign to see about getting the bridge there in Ballisodare called after volunteer Martin Savage for the reason that his last trip was across that bridge, when he got on the train to go to Dublin. 

So how it came about was in 2016 I had the honour of being the Mayor of Sligo and Michael D. was down at the time, around the launch of the Fleadh…So we got talking about that, then he was telling me about himself and his father and the IRA and I said: 
“Well I’ll tell ya what we’re trying to do now at the moment – ‘Martin Savage’”. 
Well I just said ‘Martin Savage’ but he went into the history of Martin Savage and the whole lot. And I explained, well look we’re seeing if we can get the bridge named in the town and he said, 
“Keep me informed on that” and he said “It’ll go through all the different groups but let me know.” 

AND THEY DID LET HIM KNOW. AFTER GATHERING A PETITION OF OVER 500 SIGNATURES, GAINING SUPPORT OF LOCAL COUNCILLORS, APPLYING TO THE PLACE NAMES COMMITTEE – FINALLY, VIA SLIGO COUNTY COUNCIL…

…We invited him down. As I said we were blessed with the day we had, he came down and he met every different group in the village of Ballisodare. He was given a fish by the fishery board, the local soccer club made a presentation to him and I work with the office of public works so I got two stonemasons to cut a stone for him. The stone is cut as if it’s himself standing at the handball alley looking into the river and looking at the bridge. 

And that’s where it was…The reason why we wanted to keep the site as the ball alley was that it’d be right next to the bridge and we had to think of security for the President. When you look back at it I mean there was only a handful of people that were behind it, but to turn it all about and to have had the reception that we had – I had the Child of Grace left out for a few days before so we’d get a good day!…It was in the handball alley – he was big into W.B. Yeats so we were able to tell him the whole reason of it. And from there then we walked across the bridge and we chatted. He was delighted with the success that it was and the amount of people and young people that were excited to meet him. And that was the president’s first time in Ballisodare…

…Back in the early I think it was 40’s or 50’s every town and village had a handball alley and it was a meeting spot for a lot of people and handball was a big thing at that time. And as I said, it was a center point and we didn’t want to go into a pub and we didn’t want to go into a hotel – we got a marquee…My wife is a baker and she made a cake for him on the day because his birthday was, I think it was 2 days before his birthday or 2 days after his birthday. So we had a big sing song for the president as well ‘Happy Birthday Mr Rresident!’

…It was in there in the handball alley…I was delighted with the way it turned out, it was young and old everyone came together. We were all there for the right reasons.

…As I said to the people at the time, it’s not every town or village that gets the President coming. And not every town or village that has the president come to honour one of their own…From here on in, down the line people will remember that the President of Ireland came to Ballisodare and that’ll live in the memory for a long time. 

John McLoughlin

Around about 1997 we were asked to host a competition here based on an American outdoor handball standard, okay? So it’s called ‘One Wall’ or ‘Wall Ball’ you can take your pick from these two…Now that game originated in America probably in the 20’s or 30’s I would say. Almost certainly was something that the Irish immigrants came up with because a lot of handballers back then, a lot of Irish, emigrated in the 20’s, 30’s and 40’s including my own family. And if they emigrated to cities, particularly New York and that, they found that they had these huge big warehouse buildings with these huge big high walls – which were usually cement everywhere of course! And they decided okay, well we’ve a lot of youngsters around here with nothing to do, let’s try handball. So that’s where it originated….So we were chosen for the first, or well technically the 3rd event. The original event, the very first one, was in Roscommon in 1997 and then the next one was in Kells in 1998 and the call was made then by Croke Park – was anybody at all interested in taking it, and the Sligo Handball Board said look it yes we have a lovely handball alley here already…So basically the first year in 1999…we had reasonable numbers – 2,000 or more and we took it for five or six years and it grew and grew and grew…

…If you go around the country in areas where you have a reasonably good alley like that, you will find that some of them will be marked out specifically with this red paint – apparently the colour must be red. It’s post-office red, that’s what we were told we had to get so that’s what it is! And it’s grown and grown and grown ever since and it’s hugely popular in the summer…Some of these alleys, some of them, got a bit of a lease of life, a new lease of life because of an American handball game that was imported here having been previously exported by the Irish…

…As I was saying before, if someone said ‘Ballisodare alley’ anybody involved in handball in Ireland over the age of 20 I’d say, if you said ‘Ballisodare alley’, they’d say “Oh yeah Ballisodare – that’s where the One Wall is!” because it became synonymous with One Wall handball…

…We would always like to think that we in Ballisodare were the ones who stepped up and said yeah, we are going to try this and the good news is that it has grown and become very popular since, as a summer time sport. 

*Photo of stone-carving presented to President Michael D. Higgins courtesy of Thomas Healy

 

 

QUERRIN, CLARE

ROBERT BROWN

 

 

Yes I tried to play handball, but I – my part in the handball alley in Querrin was the fact that right beside it was my grandparents’ farm so I used to come from Limerick – Easter holidays, Summer holidays. And it was in the summer mainly that handball was played. So as a youngster I tried to play but we used to use rackets, my brothers and sisters, and that was great fun as well but whenever a group came to play handball we respectfully moved off because it was their space and we knew that. But we’d often watch games, doubles and singles, and it was quite intense. I mean these guys were gruntin’ and shovin’ and with the pier, whoever would lose would generally strip off and dive into the sea in frustration. So on a Sunday afternoon it was really the place to be in the area, definitely…

…In 1945 the handball alley at that point was on the boundary of the land sticking out on to the pier so they gave some land so it could be brought back – so the pier could be used more by the fishermen without the handball interfering…Well the handball alley as far as I’m concerned was used for lots of other things – we used to have a net and you’d drag the net in and around and you’d get shelter while you cleaned it. If you wanted to paint the boat you’d bring it in there. Nowadays the people use it on stormy nights if they come in a camper van – they back in there. So it’s got lots of uses. There’s been a few little musical sessions in there. And of course, some nights it ends up – the following morning you find a lot of Carlsberg bottles and tins as a kind of a party place. So it’s got many uses but it is a well-loved part of the local life…

…As the years went by coming down to when I left school in ‘72 – by that stage it was almost dying out because unfortunately all the people who were the good players, as they got better and better, they had to emigrate. Most of them went to America or England. That’s just the reality of those times. So nowadays you don’t see anyone playing handball, it’s all rackets. Hopefully it may come back at some stage…Yes, one or two of the locals would show you. Because unless you had the handball – which was a different ball to the one we’d use for the rackets – so they would try to get you involved. Especially if they, as you said, if they came on their own they’d give you an odd lesson or two. It’s not that we didn’t try, but we were just small – we were just too small. By the time we got big enough, the people weren’t there anymore. 

NED GRIFFIN

 

 

It was the place we all went to, you know. And on Sunday there’d be a crowd of adults – there’d be maybe, there could be 30 or 40 there waiting, queuing up for a game. So we’d go down on a Sunday especially, we’d go down around 12 o’clock to get a game ourselves and then the big fellas’d come shortly after and they’d take the alley for the day and we’d go in and pick up the ball…

…They hired a local man, Tommy Power, he was a stonemason, to supervise it. The rest then I’d say was voluntary labour. So of course the raw materials were within, as you know, they took the gravel off the beach – you couldn’t do it nowadays. That’s how it was done. And also the sand from outside the pier there. And Robert’s uncle, Bill – and he’s still with us happily, he lives in England now – he was a young fella at that time and Robert says he was the water-boy. He took the water up from the sea so it was mixed with sea-water. All the ingredients, he said, except for the cement came from 50 yards away. And the concrete – I know myself, I’ve been here all my life but there lately we put wire on the top of it and there was a low spot on the floor so I thought I’d drill a hole out through the side of it just to let the water drain and I – next to impossible it was so hard. So it’s not gonna fall down, that’s for sure…

…I haven’t seen anybody play handball there in a long time no, but they play squash – don’t mind as long as it’s being used…Well the biggest problem was the ball going into the wood. But then, sometimes you’d – as soon as t’would go over the top, somebody would run out to the side to see if they could see where it went…More times you’d have trouble finding it. All the lads then would go out like the Guards doing a forensic search, all lined up together and you’d walk along slowly and gasp if you’d find it…

…The amount of enjoyment it has brought to the area over the years – it’s immense. Just from a simple thing. And the crowd that decided to do it, you know that was a big effort in 1945 to do that – it was just after the war and money was scarce too. To put the effort in and do it and then a lot of things are done and they become derelict and that’s still used today. Eighty years later almost, so it was a good investment. 

TOMMY MCINERNEY

 

 

It wasn’t organised as such, but it was the main – you really had nothing else to do…You actually picked it up from watching the older ones play…Especially a Sunday. If you didn’t have your name up there by 1 o’clock of a Sunday you probably wouldn’t get a game before 6 o’clock in the evening…

HOW WOULD YOU GET A GAME?

Well there was a little slate thing on the wall and you’d put your initials on it…

…Older locals or we used to occasionally get visitors with tennis rackets and that but the older locals would nearly throw them over the pier rather than see them in there with that. Oh that was – rackets were banned in there

OH REALLY? I MEAN, ROBBIE WAS SAYING HE PLAYED WITH RACKETS

Yeah he did but…

BUT MAYBE WAS THAT A BIT AFTER?

That would have been many years after, originally it was handball only and if you wanted anything else you could go some place else.

…We didn’t really have anything else to do around here…Oh yeah, every free moment – you could probably be down there 7 evenings of the week…depended on whether (your parents) they wanted something doing and having to find you…” 

 

CASTLEKNOCK, DUBLIN

(WITH REFERENCES TO HANDBALL ALLEYS SPANNING THE COUNTRY!)

I had the pleasure of meeting with Enda Timoney – educator, coach, handballer and contributor to IrishHandballAlley.ie, and Eugene Kennedy – Over 70’s World Champion in 40×20 and One Wall Handball, to discuss the history of handball alleys in Ireland and to record some of their own personal recollections…

ENDA TIMONEY

 

 

Áine Ryan she started this project, she got a heritage council grant in 2008 to record all these old alleys in Ireland. Now, being a P.E. teacher, my handball background, everything else like that I mean I was blown away by the numbers of handball alleys everywhere. So, for years now – anywhere I go I’m always looking for where are all the old handball alleys and photographing them, because she’s working in Germany now…

…I went to St Macartan’s in Monaghan which is a secondary school and typical of a lot of schools around Ireland, it had handball alleys. And everybody played at breaktime, lunchtime, you’d run out even a 10 minute break just to play a game of winner stays on and we called it shorts…

…I remember actually when those courts were then roofed they had an All Ireland finals in the courts and there was one particular final – Under 16 – now, my friends, we were 16. And this man, this boy, from Tipperary came in to play the final of the Under 16 and it was Tony Ryan. And we called him Cú Chulainn. Because he was this 16 year old boy – he was built. He was a complete athlete and such a handballer and of course he won the All Ireland. And we were saying, “That’s Cu Chulainn!” I mean that’s what he reminded me of! And he went on to win Senior All Irelands…

In terms of the project to record all of the old alleys. Handball went indoors so the old 60×30’s got roofed and then there was a door put on them which means that you couldn’t necessarily just go in and play if you were coming home from school or whatever. And then this modern phenomenon of insurance as well, where you can’t do that because you’re not insured or whatever – whereas all the old alleys years ago used to be just open, and there was no such thing as insurance when we were children.

EUGENE: When you talk about your school experience – why I ask were they outdoor or indoor because when they’re outdoor, you know you play a great shot as a kid, everybody sees it. And you’re the man. Or the woman as the case may be. But in other words, it’s visible. You play a great shot indoors and unless there’s an audience up on the gallery, nobody’s there to see it. So there isn’t the same reinforcements. So when Enda was young playing in outdoor alleys everybody knew who the good kids were and they got a certain elitist position. That was visible!

…But I look at all these old alleys and I think – they’re a part of our heritage. Communities built them. And there’s some great examples of the community coming together, restoring the alley, doing it up and rejuvenating it again. And then there’s other examples of them being torn down and demolished and you know, anti-social behaviour or whatever. There’s some examples of really really good alleys, in excellent condition, being knocked down and for the life of me I can’t understand why! And you know, maybe it’s because years ago, as you said, in Boyle everybody played handball and it was the same everywhere. Everywhere – all over the country there were hundreds of them. If a sports facility was going to be built, it was going to be a handball alley. If you think of all the Garda stations, the army barracks, the fire stations, secondary schools – they all had handball alleys before they ever had sports halls or anything else like that so there was this great tradition

What I would love to see though is I would love to see the old courts restored, because these are community…I remember having a school trip down to Glendalough and we were passing the round tower and I just hear a guide, now this is a long time ago this is like the 1980’s, I heard this guide talking to the tourists about the round tower and he says:
“Now we’ve two buildings in Ireland that are vernacular to Ireland you will not find them anywhere else – the round tower and the handball alley!”

EUGENE KENNEDY

 

 

This was a photograph that was given to me actually, by a family in Boyle, about 8 or 9 years ago. Her sons played handball, they’d be much younger than me, but I would have worked in that shop when I was a young fella and Moya Mullaney had this photograph and she framed it and all for me. But ‘Boyle Handball Alley in 1943’ – you can see the alley with the angled down wall and then flat wall and it was one of the first, some claim it was the first, outdoor alley to have a glass back wall so that people could see. The original alleys were 3 walls, like that – three. So that the crowd could be at the back. I remember my father telling stories about when the local guy would be playing somebody from away, that the crowd would move in as the opposition would be taking his shot and move back to let the other man…

…There’s an article in the Roscommon Herald that’s down in a pub in Boyle, of an exhibition game played in the early 40’s in that alley. And there was something like 2,000 – I think it was – it was the equivalent of 20,000 taken in at the gate, you know, whatever many hundreds or maybe 2,000 people paid to go in to watch this game. And it was between – it was playing with the famous Paddy Perry. Paddy Perry was from Boyle, it involved Jim Clarke, my father and one other I think. But Paddy Perry was the main draw. Paddy Perry won the Senior Singles All Ireland eight years in a row. From 1930 to 1937…

…So he won football, hurling and handball Senior County Championships in the one day – Paddy Perry, he was a force of- a terrific terrific player. I’ll tell you one other coincidence because an awful lot of interest in sport is to do with people. The personal connections. That cup that Paddy Perry won, you’ll see it – Paddy Perry’s name. My own son went on – much later – from about 2003 I think it was, so he’s won that ten times in a row but it’s the same cup. No, I tell the story wrong – I think Paddy Perry must have been given the original, the cup, because he won it eight years in a row – because the latest cup starts from ‘39 up…

…I know that the Depot now, the Garda Depot, there were a couple of senior All Irelands – I think Eoin won one or two down in the Depot and that was in the same alley as my father would have won. You know I had one nice photograph showing – the only reason I brought it was this multigenerational thing you’ll find running through sport. There’s- this is Sean McEntee – he was the president thereof the Handball Association at the time. He had a very good idea. None of us would have thought of it – there were no cameras or no phones at that time, this was back. This was Eoin, my son, when he won the Under 14 and my father was there that day you know, which was great. And that’s me and that’s Sean. But only for Sean to have thought about it you know, so there’s a couple of things – he’s won the same cup as Paddy Perry from Boyle and himself and himself, they won All Irelands in the Depot…

…When I was playing myself, in matches, I would when Eoin was 6, 7, 8, 9, 10 – you know he’d come around with me and as he said, the only time he played then was during the intervals…So he started playing then probably around the age of 9 or 10 but he was exposed to it from me playing and you find in a lot of sports – you’ll see great hurlers following because there’s a family tradition…

…My own father, my father was the teacher – he went on to become the principal in the school, a three teacher school. But he used to, every year, because everybody played he’d organise a little tournament, a doubles tournament, every year before the end of school. But we were all playing, there was no structure. There was just being the best of your peer group and holding the alley, as I said. Now, the job of us young guys when we were young watching the adults playing, we’d be sitting up along the side walls, sitting up on top there because of course one of the problems with an open alley was the ball would go out and into the gardens or out over into the premises opposite…

…Every young fella in Boyle played handball and that court that I showed you was an open court you know so when you were coming home from school you just ran into the court. You ran and tried to get first position and then the winner stays on…There’s a side alley there, a little gate where coming down from school you’d come in here and you’d come in through a side wall here but that court was completely used by the whole town and when there would be events on, that was the big open space before they had the halls…

…The Americans used to love coming over here because of course the complete different scene. Playing in a local community, you know, one court with the local crowd cheering them on…

 

GREEN STREET HANDBALL ALLEY, DUBLIN

(THE OLD SPECIAL CRIMINAL COURTHOUSE)

 

MICHAEL HINEY

 

 

The alley has just been there since day one…As I said to you, there was a policeman up there at the top of that street, there was one just here – at the top of the street and bottom of the street. Same over here, that’s Halston Street over there – there was one there and there was one at the very top. So there were four policemen here all the time and you wouldn’t have had that much interest in playing handball because you were on duty but like it was 24hours – 24/7 so you’d be here at 4 o’clock in the morning and if you could see, you might play a game of handball because things were very quiet but that’s just the way things used to be and we’d play away here…

…A fella called John McCarthy, John was a Guard stationed at Mountjoy Station up there, right? John won All Ireland football medals with Dublin – he played under Kevin Heffernan, Heffo’s Army he was in. And he was really- he loved playing handball there because it kept him fit for his football. And there’d be often times you might pass and he’d say “Are you having a game, Mick?” “No I’m not having a game.” And he’d be playing away with some of the locals there and he’d be stripped down to his waist and his uniform thrown to one side – playing away there, belting away at the wall…

…There was a pub just across there, you can see – see Greencourt View, they’re all new buildings, but there was a pub just there as well. So when we’d get flat out playing over there, we’d have to go over there afterwards…

…It was a very kind of, busy place. It was one of the most protected buildings in the whole country and so was that handball alley because of that…

…I remember there was one old lad and he came down here every day and I just can’t remember his name. An old lad with a hat, he never trogged out or anything, he just had his hat on and he used to wear a suit jacket – he’d play away there with people. He’d play with some of the lads as well you know. And he played- for an old fella I just thought he was just, you know he was great, the way he could play. You know, he was beating young lads in there. Like if I said he was an old fella then – in the 80’s, he was about 60 I suppose…

 

NEWPORT, MAYO | CROKE PARK, DUBLIN

WILLIE MCGEE

…There was one at Pearse Street too – and we never used it. Even when I was playing competitive handball, I would never play or train in the handball alley in Pearse Street Garda Station because it was too small – it was smaller than a 60×40. I think it was put up there just to help the members play handball, you know? But I think there was one in most other stations…

…I’m from Newport in County Mayo and there’s an old handball alley there – it’s in ruins now really, it’s all covered in ivy, not in use at all and there were a lot of national finals played there, All Ireland finals and league finals and everything. And actually my father was one of the fellas who built it and I had a brother who won a lot of All Irelands as well – all because of training in that handball alley in Newport…

…The most famous one would be Croke Park, as I said, that’s where Muhammad Ali trained for his fight with Al “Blue” Lewis in 1972…I was in the handball alley in Croke Park watching him training myself – he fought in Croke Park after but that’s where he trained, in the big alley…Al “Blue” Lewis was the fella who fought Muhammad Ali in Croke Park – he was from New York, outside New York. He actually trained for boxing- he started learning his boxing trade in prison, because he spent most of his life in prison. And I was a Guard in uniform along Ormond Quay and I pulled up in the squad car and I jumped out – I was mad about boxing! I pulled up in the squad car and I got out and he put up his two hands – I said “It’s okay all I want is your autograph!”  and he says “Jesus any time I was ever stopped by the cops before they’d put handcuffs on me and lock me up”. I said “All I want is your autograph” so he signed my official notebook for me and I was happy with that…

…I was on uniformed duty at the time in Dublin Castle and we just drove across to Croke Park because I was mad about boxing myself since I was very young and that’s how – I wouldn’t have let Muhammad Ali be training in Dublin and miss him. Let it go by without seeing him…

 

BALLYMORE EUSTACE, KILDARE

 

LOUGHREA, GALWAY

MATT PURCELL

My father was from Tipperary and he played it down there – so I’d say that was an influence on all of us…But he, my father, it happened that the original, the previous handball alley, was on my father’s property. Now just to be sure to show there’s no bias involved – my brother helped build the 40×20 alley in Carne, I think, in Wexford. He helped there. And I helped build the 40×20 in Ballymore Eustace. So we had quite a bit of involvement over the years…We came to live in Ballymore in 1950 and I would have been playing handball from then onwards. Prior to that I played a certain amount in lanes against the back end or gable end of a wall. My late father was a very keen handball player himself and he played quite a bit down in Tipp…

…The king of handball in my early days was a man by the name of John Ryan from Wexford and John was a beautiful beautiful player and in fact he and his contemporaries were regarded as the top handballers of the day…One of the most successful players in my time was a lad called Ducksy (Michael) Walsh. Ducksy was a very dedicated player…He was a great player…I would have seen all the top players in my time which would have been – well the lads I mentioned already like John Ryan, the Delaney brothers, Joey Maher…

…One Wall didn’t even exist in those days, you know, that’s a new fangled thing…I played in the old Croke Park, in fact I won the Provincial Title there – oh I was a great player even if I do say so myself. I won at least one in old Croke Park…A bit of history, and now I hope I’m not telling you a lie, I reached 4 provincial finals and I won 3 of the 4. I lost the 4th but by coincidence it was the same guy who was opposing me in them all!…

…I was playing handball from ‘58 to ‘88 – in ‘58 I won the controversial All Ireland minor hard doubles and in ‘88 I won a senior hard doubles and John Browne was my partner – we were beaten then I think in the All Ireland semi-final by one of the Kirby’s…

…I lived beside the ball alley in Ballymore and as a result I played handball until it came out through my eyes! It does make a difference…One of my big problems was I was very much in favour of hardball and it was the original form of handball and then softball came in late in about ‘24 and it became the game but nowadays would you believe it’s gone a step further and 40×20 and One Wall handball have largely become the thing – that’s life I suppose things never stay the same…I travelled quite a bit in my time and I played quite a bit of handball in America, quite a bit of one wall handball in America, and that would have been outdoor and now there was none of that here then, but there is now…

…I got an award in 2017 would you believe, a handball award, you know these special things. And of course as usual I was as awkward. A Presidential Award…I played handball quite a bit and I was reasonable, but me being me I think I gave a show – but most people looked at it in a different way. I played quite a bit and then for years I wrote in our local newsletter on the subject of handball and you know funny enough that’s probably it more than anything else that won me the award…

PAT KILBOY

When I think of handball in my youth I think of the Travellers. It was a very popular game with them and they produced some fine handballers. Perhaps one of the best in Loughrea, Galway and Connacht was Son Ward. Son was a gifted handballer and blessed with great strength. He went for the Kill Shot from anywhere in the Alley (this is a shot so low off the front wall that it is impossible to return). This was also his weakness as he became predictable. His uncle Bernie Ward wasn’t as good but often got the better of him with cuteness. They always played for money, usually 2 shillings a game but I never saw money actually changing hands because it was always “Doubles or Quits” until Quits won.The banter and good humour between them was priceless. And harmless. I never saw bad temper or rancour between anyone in a game of handball. No need for red cards, yellow cards or any kind of sanctions.

Handball was also popular with the Guards. The alley was only a couple of houses away from the Barracks, on Barrack St. They were often big, strong men who kicked the ball as often as they used  their hands (kicking was legitimate that time until it was abolished). The Alley was also beside the Temperance Hall in the days of the Showband scene. Brendan Bowyer, Dickie Rock inter alia arrived, set up their equipment and came in for a game of handball before going off for food. Thus we rubbed shoulders with the stars while we were still too young to go to dances. Of course as young fellas we had to wait until the big fellas cleared off before we could play. This was usually in very dim twilight and often we had to rely on our other senses to locate the ball.

Since the alley was roofless the ball was frequently hit out and lost. Everyone went out to look for it and the game was abandoned for a while or longer! It was a source of income for us kids on a Sunday when there would be competitions. Teams from Galway, Roscommon, Newport and Ballymote might be in Loughrea and some one would give us 6 pence to keep a watch on the sky for errant balls.

In 1980 I married a girl from Swinford in Mayo and quickly learned of the huge handball tradition in the area. Every crossroads between Swinford and Charleston has an old alley. It was no surprise that Paddy Bollingbroke from Swinford was a name known  in handball circles all over the West. Joe Mellett’s pub in Swinford still has his medals on display behind the bar. Likewise Mickey Walsh from Charlestown was talked about everywhere. He continued to be a competitive classy handballer well into his 60’s. 

My own moment of glory in Handball. My self and my partner Mike Kennedy, played in the Under 16 Finals of of the Tailteann Games in 1968. We played Munster in the Semi Finals and were beaten. We then played Ulster in the Third Place Playoff. We beat 2 lads from Tyrone and got very impressive Bronze medals. My brother Mike and his partner Pat Scully, got Silver in the Under 14 and Gerard Callanan from Loughrea got Silver in Under 14 single. Our coach Derek Lusted treated us to chips in Moate on the way back home. A well deserved treat. My family is still well involved  with handball in Loughrea and organise a memorial competition for my brother Brendan and dad Michael every year. 

 

GLASTHULE, DUBLIN | TEMPLEMORE, TIPPERARY 

PRESENTATION COLLEGE | GARDA TRAINING CENTRE

 

NORTH CIRCULAR RD, DUBLIN

MOUNTJOY GARDA STATION

VINCENT TOTTERDELL

I played in Glasthule, Presentation college, it’s closed down now. They had 2 handball alleys there and I played there when I was in school in the mid to late 70’s – we were Dublin champions myself and another fella for 4 or 5 years…

…I stopped playing then after I left school and I ended up in Templemore and there’s a handball alley there – a lovely handball alley in the old college, so I started playing down there. For a while, just for the six months. But funny enough one of my partners from the junior ages up in Dublin was there in Templemore at the same time so the two of us started playing again, against each other…He was about 3 or 4 months ahead of me so the last few months then we played…

…A few of us used to play in them, use them at school but it wasn’t taught, no, we just took it up ourselves. There was about four of us together and we entered the league in Dublin – the four of us against, well most of the schools were from North Dublin, like Na Fianna, but we ended up for a number of years winning everything…You’d see other lads playing and just start playing yourself – there was no coaching or anything, you just took it up…In those times we’d play an hour before school and an hour after. Ah, we played non-stop. To stay good you had to keep playing all the time. Like when I started in Templemore, when I started playing I would have been half as good as I was leaving school – wasn’t as natural, takes a while to get back into it…

…There weren’t that many playing in Templemore at the time – myself and, his name was Dennis Finney, he played for Na Fianna and we would have been rivals when we were young, but we started playing together in Templemore…

…During my time in Templemore, you’d only get home once a month in those days. We used to have the Garda Sports Week which Templemore was big into – Templemore, they wanted to win everything. Like if they put out a hurling team it’d be 15 County hurlers. They’d want to be the top team. So I entered it, the handball championships – I wanted to get home. I was from Dublin so I wanted to get home for a few days and the handball championships were in the Garda Headquarters, they’ve an alley there. So I entered so I’d get home for a few days – the problem was, I was living in Dalkey at the time so I had to get 2 busses in and out to the Garda Depot so it was taking me all day. So I got through the first few rounds and then went back down to Templemore because it was awful getting in and out!

PADDY DALY

You see my father, he was a champion too, he lived to be a hundred. He played a lot of handball because handball alleys at that time were in most of the Garda stations and the reason for that was – my father would have been one of the first policemen in 1924, he joined – and Michael Collins was the man in charge of all of that type of thing and it was him that instigated that they build handball alleys at the back of garda stations and that’s how it all started. That’s why the handball alleys are actually at the back of stations but most of them are gone…Years ago when my father would have joined the Guards in 1924, you either played hurling, or GAA or handball…

…There’s another one down in Cavan somewhere, but they don’t use them – the handball alleys. See squash really took over from handball because it was indoors and it was a more posh game as they say…

…There were championships, there were competitions like – it wasn’t just going out to play handball. See when I joined, Michael Collins was gone – I joined in 1963 and I came to Mountjoy and at that time the handball alley was being used because my father would have been a handball champion, and then I took it up. I won a couple of championships and we won them in Mountjoy yes, but we used to be playing in different places, you know? There was championship handball. Then the fellas just played each other if you were on time off or if you weren’t doing something. At that time there was only ballroom dancing – at the dances you know, and football and that kind of thing. There was no great outlet, not like the kids have today…

…You see to play handball at that time it was all about money – people weren’t well paid. You could play handball with a Dublin football jersey and a pair of nicks – you know what I mean, and runners, so it didn’t cost you any money. And you were a member of a handball club which you’d play very differently for and there were teams – they were mostly Garda teams…

…The ball alley was actually in the yard in Mountjoy and you couldn’t park there because there’d be a match being played. But it could be Fitzgibbon street against Clontarf or something, you know, there was a competition run between all the Guards. It was very big at that time. Handball was a huge game at that time. As I said, there was no outline of money, you weren’t buying (like the young fellas today) the Liverpool tracksuit one week and then another different one comes out next week and they want the upgrade. Some people were struggling, they hadn’t got any runners – sneakers they’d call them now – it was a poor man’s game because it cost nothing, and it kept you fit. If you played handball at that time, say for an hour, you’d be hardly able to stand after because you’re running, you’re going side to side all the time…

 

PHOENIX PARK, DUBLIN

GARDA SÍOCHÁNA DEPOT

 

NOEL HYNES

Picture 1 | Front | Left to right
John Fleming, Dick Walsh, Mick Sullivan, Éamon Reidy (Noel himself visible between Sullivan and Reidy)

Picture 2| Front | Left to right
Ned Garvey (Garda Commissioner 1975 – 1978), Chief Superintendent Tim O’Brien, Paddy Carroll (Garda Commissioner 1967 – 1968), Mick Sullivan, Dick Walsh, John Fleming (Assistant Garda Commissioner)

 

 

 

 

CLOUGHJORDAN, TIPPERARY

PAUL HOGAN

Back in the day when there was little entertainment and no means of travel apart from horses and bicycles, alleys such as this – located in remote areas – were used as a gathering places  on summer evenings and perhaps  on Sundays for sport and the exchange of news etc.

There is a handball alley located at the rear of Kill O Grange Garda Station on Rochestown Ave, Dun Laoghaire  which is now closed but as far as I know the alley is still there. I was stationed there in the 1990’s and it was never used for handball but was probably used in earlier years when Gardaí used to live in the station.