Politics and sport ‘shouldn’t mix’ in GAA... and women ‘are getting uglier’!

IT is a concern that politics should feature in the proceedings of a sports body such as the Cork County Board, the Echo opined 100 years ago today, on Saturday, November 3, 1923.

The rule is there. It states it must not be done, for the simple reason that sports and politics can never stable together.

But one section of the Board is beating the political drum and advocating deferring fixtures for political reasons, while another is shouting itself hoarse in wild indignation at the progress “foreign” games are making owing to this opportunity gifted to them.

“Foreign” games succeed because politics do not enter into their management. This is not the case with the GAA.

We had a paradoxical example of this at the last County Board meeting, where it was proposed that all matches be deferred during the Republican hunger strikes. No Irishman worthy of the name does not wish to see those prisoners released immediately. But will the suspension of our national games tend in that direction?

The only redeeming feature in the recent 18-13 vote is that there were 13 members in opposition to suspending the matches.

In other business, the County Board has decided to strictly enforce the rule prohibiting betting at matches.

Women ‘getting uglier’

A leading beauty specialist has announced through her column in the press that women, on account of their great indulgence in athletics, dancing, land work, etc, are tending alarmingly towards ugliness. That they have, in fact, lost much of the beauty of their sisters of past generations, and the actualities of the present and prospects of the future are alarmingly hideous.

“Women have become uglier,” writes this authority. Adoringly and innocently I murmured “impossible” when a lady read it out to me. It was only afterwards I discovered my comment could have either of two meanings and, of course, she picked the wrong one.

Drunk man fined

At the District Sessions before Justice Sullivan, John Kelly of Evergreen Street was fined five shillings plus costs for having been drunk and disorderly in the South Main Street last night.

Thomas Darcy, of Sallybrook, was charged with the larceny of his brother’s bicycle, value £7, from the brother’s house at Riverstown. Sergeant Ferguson said he was on duty at the Lower Road station when, on foot of a complaint, he proceeded to Sallybrook and found the bicycle in the accused’s kitchen.

He arrested him and brought him to Civic Guard HQ at Moore’s Hotel. Accused was remanded to Riverstown Sessions and admitted to £10 bail.

Men of the South

It is astonishing that so little notice has been taken of John Keating at the Munster Art Club Exhibition. Keating’s chief work, The Men of the South, has special interest. Here is historical painting in true and vital fashion.

Yes, there are people, and it is easy to understand it, to whom this picture or any reminder of the times we are passing through, bring no thoughts but those of repulsion and disgust. But in art we must take the long view.

This is not the final generation of Irishmen. We may be certain that 10, 20, 50 years hence, when disappointed passions, angry thoughts and thwarted ambitions have been softened and dissolved by the healing passage of time, it will be seen in its true perspective.

This picture will show to Irishmen, again united by love of Ireland, the real and unquestionable ideal of manly freedom which quickened the stagnant waters of national life in our days. It will show it in the most vital and impressive fashion.

It is a powerfully earnest work with an unbending sense of finality in judgement and an unassailable superiority in conception and execution. Men of the South can be secured for our city for the modest sum of £230. Hundreds and hundreds are wasted every year on agendas and reports which nobody reads and nobody wishes to read. For once, let somebody in Cork display spirit and civic wisdom and not let the opportunity to secure it slip, as so many others have.

Mallow Workhouse

At a meeting of the board of Mallow Union. it was announced that the numbers receiving relief for the week ended September 22 were: Fever Hospital 26, General Hospital 76, total in the house 244. Cases of outdoor relief 229 (421 persons and 79 children at nurse).

The Clerk said that at present the County Council owed them £5,723 and the Kilmallock and Kanturk bodies £874. There was little prospect of this money coming soon.

Rate collectors were not asking for the rates, and if they did so they would not get them.

Mr Looney said this was bad treatment for the Board. The Clerk said he would continue his written communications.