Over The Bar

A teenage sensation announces himself on the biggest stage, while a Mayo club celebrates a breakthrough that would live long in local memory.

This week on Over The Bar, Michael Foley and Ciarán O’Hara revisit the remarkable impact of a young Christy Ring on his senior debut for Cork, and travel west to Garrymore to discover how a community celebrated its first Mayo Senior Football Championship title.

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Few figures in Kerry football history commanded as much respect, loyalty and controversy as Páidí Ó Sé. Two All-Ireland titles as manager had cemented his legendary status, but by 2003, his relationship with the Kerry public and county board was coming under increasing strain. From his infamous remarks about Kerry supporters to a turbulent championship campaign and a bitter parting of ways, we examine how one of Gaelic football&rsq...

One of Cork hurling’s great rivalries and an All-Ireland Final from the early days of the GAA feature in this week's journey through the archives. We revisit the fierce city rivalry between Glen Rovers and St Finbarr’s, a pairing that has produced some of the most memorable occasions in Cork Senior Hurling Championship history. Then we travel back to 1914, when Clare and Laois met in an All-Ireland Hurling Final with a ...

Sixteen years of frustration, near misses and fading glory. By 1986, Tipperary's Munster hurling famine seemed endless. But change was coming. A new generation, fresh belief and two extraordinary summers would finally bring Tipp back to the summit of Munster hurling. How did Tipperary turn sixteen years of failure into one of the county's most celebrated triumphs?

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Three decades, three memorable encounters, and three very different chapters in GAA history. This week, Michael Foley and Ciarán O’Hara revisit a dramatic October when All-Ireland glory was still up for grabs, a new chapter in Ireland's sporting rivalry with Australia was unfolding, and another football championship required a second day to settle the destination of Sam Maguire.

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In 1971, Tipperary were Munster and All Ireland Champions. Few could have imagined that it would be sixteen years before they would rule the province again. In Part One of this two-part mini-series, Michael Foley and Ciarán O’Hara trace Tipperary’s extraordinary decline from the heights of 1971 through to 1985. As Cork reasserted their dominance and a new force emerged in Limerick, Tipp endured a succession of disappoin...

This week on Week That Was, we revisit three All-Ireland Finals separated by almost a century — but each with a story that has lived long beyond the final whistle. There’s the September afternoon that helped launch one of Gaelic football’s defining rivalries, a replay that produced one of the most remarkable individual performances ever seen on All-Ireland Final day, and a journey back to 1928, when two counties m...

By the end of the 1990s, the demands being placed on inter-county players had changed dramatically. Training commitments were increasing, the GAA was becoming more commercial, and yet the players themselves had no independent organisation to represent their interests. In 1999, that changed with the formation of the Gaelic Players Association. In this episode of Over The Bar Michael Foley and Ciarán O’Hara look back at the ori...

This week on The Week That Was, Michael Foley and Ciarán O’Hara travel back through the GAA history made between September 21st and 27th.

We revisit 1986, when Kerry’s latest All-Ireland triumph saw some of the Kingdom’s greatest names rewrite the record books; go back 30 years to 1956, when a polio outbreak disrupted the championship and forced the postponement of the All-Ireland finals; and remember 1971, when Of...

The 1953 All-Ireland Hurling Final brought Cork and Galway together in Croke Park, with Christy Ring chasing yet another chapter in an extraordinary career. But this was no ordinary final. A fiercely contested game produced incidents that would be debated for decades, with Ring at the centre of a controversy that didn't end when the final whistle sounded. Michael Foley and Ciarán O’Hara go back to the contemporary accounts to...

In this edition of Week That Was, we head back through the GAA history books to three very different moments associated with the middle of September. We return to the extraordinary 1982 All-Ireland Football Final between Kerry and Offaly and look at the unlikely part played in the drama by the Lowry family — a story that goes beyond one of the most famous finishes in Championship history. Then we travel much further back to m...

Few county jerseys are as instantly recognisable — or as closely tied to a place — as Mayo’s. Where did the colours come from, and how did the jersey evolve into the one generations of Mayo supporters know today? Michael Foley and Ciarán O’Hara dig into the archives to trace the story of the Mayo jersey, separating tradition from fact and uncovering how the green above the red became one of Gaelic football&r...

In this edition of Week That Was, we turn the clock back to three remarkable chapters from GAA history. We revisit the 1947 All-Ireland Hurling Final, when Kilkenny and Cork renewed one of hurling’s great rivalries. Then it’s back to 1926 and the Munster Hurling Final — a championship encounter with a story that didn’t end when the final whistle sounded. And finally, we head to 1955, when the All-Ireland Foo...

How did a Championship match end with a Garda Sergeant standing in the dock on a charge of murder? In 1929, what should have been another summer afternoon of Gaelic football instead set in motion an extraordinary chain of events involving players, supporters, the Gardaí and, ultimately, the courts. In this episode of Over The Bar, Michael Foley and Ciarán O’Hara go back almost a century to reconstruct a remarkable story from ...

This week on The Week That Was, we head back through the GAA history books to revisit three memorable moments from the opening days of September. We look at the first All-Ireland final ever played on the first Sunday of September – a date that would eventually become synonymous with the biggest day in the Hurling calendar.We also revisit the unusual year when the footballers took over that slot. And we tell the story of the a...

On 19 July 1972, the most famous sportsman on the planet stepped into a boxing ring in the middle of Croke Park. Muhammad Ali’s fight against Al ‘Blue’ Lewis has become one of the most remarkable nights in the history of the stadium — a world heavyweight superstar fighting at the headquarters of the GAA in a bout that almost seems impossible in hindsight.

But how did Muhammad Ali end up fighting in Croke ...

In the latest edition of Week That Was we're casting our eyes back to an All Ireland Semi Final on Leeside, an All Munster Semi Final in the the last four of the football championship and establishing why only one Provincial final was played in 1921.

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Radio was still in its infancy in Ireland when, in August 1926, the GAA took its first tentative step into the world of live broadcasting. In this episode we tell the story of the first live broadcast from a GAA match. Done with a primitive microphone, a makeshift commentary position and equipment powered by ship's batteries, it was a world away from the sports broadcasting operation we know today. We look at how the historic exper...

Episode 2 of Week That Was takes us back to some remarkable moments from this week in GAA history. We look at two major championship games that didn’t make it to regulation length, and the very different circumstances that brought them to an early conclusion. There’s also the story of how Kerry tamed an Ulster uprising, as the Kingdom faced a new challenge from the rapidly emerging northern counties. And we revisit Ferm...