Paul Rouse: Nenagh's Maloney a pioneering figure in Tipp GAA

But it is also something that can be harnessed, not least when it comes to belief. The absolute belief that the Tipperary hurlers had in what they were doing was apparent.

On top of that, the desire to add to tradition was also important. You only have to consider Ronan Maher’s desire to be on the wall in Thurles Sarsfield’s clubhouse as an All-Ireland winning captain to understand that.

At key moments along the way in the history of any sport in any place, certain individuals have made contributions which extend beyond the ordinary.

This summer has seen the unveiling of plaques in Nenagh to commemorate one such man – Frank R. Maloney.

The impact of his life has played a significantly role in shaping the lives of generations of people in the town where he made his home – and also far beyond.

Frank Maloney was a pioneering figure in the first years of the GAA, but his life does not fit into the sort of neat box that is beloved of propagandists who seek to construct a cartoon version of history where the past is stripped of all complexity.

He was actually born in New Zealand in 1865, where his father was serving as an officer in British army. The family returned to Ireland when he was a young boy and they settled in Nenagh.

Maloney loved sport. Indeed, like many other sports lovers who lived in Tipperary in the 1880s, Maloney was initially a cricketer. In fact, he was actually honourary secretary of the Nenagh Cricket Club in 1884 when the GAA was founded.

In response to the founding of the GAA, he immediately began chairing a sub-committee of that cricket club, which was appointed for ‘the revival of national pastimes’.

Within a month of the founding of the GAA, the Nenagh Cricket Club began planning to hold a hurling match. By March the sub-committee had evolved into the Nenagh Hurling Club and, on that Sunday in March 1885 when the first hurling matches were played under GAA rules, Nenagh played a team from nearby Silvermines, with Maloney as referee.

Through 1885 Frank Maloney’s drive was crucial to the formal organisation of hurling across the northern part of Tipperary. He had begun corresponding with Michael Cusack in late 1884 and it was to Maloney that Cusack had turned when he wanted to stage his great hurling spectacle in Dublin in early 1886 by inviting a team from North Tipperary to play a team from East Galway in the Phoenix Park.

Maloney had arranged the trial matches for players from all the various villages and parishes around Nenagh to choose the North Tipperary team.

He used the momentum generated from their victory to establish a sort of umbrella organisation – the North Tipperary Branch, GAA – which oversaw more than 30 clubs in the area by the end of 1886.

The most obvious way in which he did this was to arrange for a competition between all the clubs of the area to play off for the Silver Cup which had been won by the North Tipperary team in Dublin. This competition drew intense interest in hurling through the latter part of 1886 and into 1887.

Maloney also refereed the All-Ireland senior hurling semi-final when Tipperary beat Kilkenny in Urlingford in October 1887.

In general, Maloney understood the changing landscape of Victorian sport. Most impressively, he constructed the infrastructure needed to support a modern club. He organised regular training sessions for his hurling team and ran fundraising events to aid in its preparation for the hurling championship. This included selling books of raffle tickets in aid of ‘the world-famed hurling team of North Tipperary.’ When he ran the annual sports, he laid down a cinder track and sought to attract the best athletes in the country by collecting donations from local businesses to offer as prizes. Among the prizes on offer were a violin, a writing case, a tea and coffee service set, a box of cigars, and a barometer clock.

It says much for Maloney’s ability that he was scarcely 20 years old at the time. He was a born organiser who owned and ran a hotel in the town.

One of the places where a plaque was erected in his honour was the site of his old hotel – The Castle Hotel at 35 Pearse Street. He bought it with his wife, Mary Anne Gleeson when he was just 20 years of age in 1885. They lived there with their adopted son, William Chumney Maloney.

Across the many years when he ran the hotel, he was also a publican, hotelier, farmer, auctioneer and corn store owner.

He became Town Clerk of Nenagh in 1891 and spent three decades in that role, managing vital projects which transformed the water and sewage systems, as well as delivering council housing.

All the while, he stayed involved in the GAA. He was secretary of Nenagh GAA club, secretary of the North Tipperary Board and then from 1907 to 1909 chairman of Tipperary GAA County Board.

He had previously also been vice-president of the GAA at national level.

The story of his life has been told by Nancy Murphy in an article entitled ‘Frank R. Maloney – Nenagh’s GAA pioneer’ which was previously published in the ‘Tipperary Historical Journal (1997)’ and has been put in context by the fine multi-volume history ‘Gaelic Games in Nenagh’.

The launch of the plaques is a reminder that the legacy of Frank R. Maloney’s involvement in the GAA can also be found by the fact that three of his great-great-grandchildren – Noel, Maeve and Hugh Maloney all played for Tipperary, with Hugh winning an All-Ireland in 2010.

Other descendants won club rugby trophies in Munster, played international tennis and were notable in angling.

The plaques unveiled in Nenagh are a fitting tribute in a hurling year that could not have ended in a more suitable way.

Paul Rouse is professor of history at University College Dublin