The late Tom Scully It was fitting that the President of the GAA, Nicky Brennan was present at Tom Scully's obsequies. That is the way it should have been. There was probably no great oratory heard as his coffin was lowered into the bowls of Athleague Cemetery, but there should have been. Why? Linger a while and I will give you a boatload of reasons. I first met Tom - I never called him anything but Scully, or Tommy, either salutation would be dripping with respect - in dark, dank, unwelcoming Manchester, around the end of the 1950s. I was six months over my 17th birthday, and like many, many thousands of my fellow nationals, we were forced to seek employment in any city of England or Wales at the end of a railway track from Holyhead, or Rosslare. I met plenty who lived in Rugby, Barnsley, Oswaldteistle even, because that was were the train stopped. But Manchester became home to Scully and I. Tommy had arrived some six years earlier. He was a man of Manchester, or an Irish Mancunian, very quickly. He had seen too many Paddies on park benches, or under viaducts. They were decent young people when they arrived in the Lancashire City, but for reasons of no basic education (the three R's), total fear, no self-confidence, they took the quick downward curve route. They were dead men walking. Tommy Scully had been indoctrinated with a great gra for the GAA, and it's inherent Irish traditions. That was no accident, as he originated in a little place called Carron, which is situated on the edge of the Burren in County Clare. As one of the founders of the Harps and Shamrocks Club in Manchester, he gave the Irish immigrants a focal point. "Paddy" was still very much a foreigner in a foreign land. It still took ten hours to get from Dun Laoghaire to Manchester exchange station. One felt like a thief in the night arriving in that God-awful station at 5am. It seemed to the locals as if this mass immigration was unacceptable, but if it happened during the dark hours it was acceptable. He was a one-man crusade. He rescued lads from doss houses, flea-pit accommodation, even police stations. I knew him to bale lads our for being drunk and disorderly. Young lads trying to be grown men long before the bristle on their chins toughened. Scully got to know them, and he dragged them into respectability, and decency. Not that they were neither, but they got to run with the wrong crowd, and couldn't get out. Tommy Scully used his GAA club to give them opportunities. He enlisted the help of some well to do Irish construction companies: England was still reeling from the darkest days of the Second World War. Manchester got hammered on successive nights for three months. Flatened, it needed manpower to get itself off it's knees. "Paddy" had come to sort it out. Tommy Scully found work for many, who were to become strong members of his club. Other clubs used the HArps and Shamrocks template. Scully helped. Fr Emmett Fullan from Derry started the St Brendan's GAA club on City Road. He stitched an Irish Club (dance hall) to it. He befriended many great Irish men at the time, many of which were emigrants like him. They remained friends forever. Many of them came from County Kilkenny. Jim Hynes, now resident in Bennettsbridge, but a native of the Rower Inistioge was Scully's lieutenant in the Harps Club. Another Kilkeeny man was also attached. Olly Ryan, former Kilkenny minor hurler, and also a native of Inistioge, linked up with Scully and Hynes. The Oisin Club in the Chorlton/Whaley Range areas was flying, founded by the great Kildare man, and life-long friend of Tom Scully, Joe Cahill. Another group of "Paddies" from Cavan, Monaghan and Meath started the Shannon Rangers club in Bolton, a brother of the great Dan Kennedy, a captain in 1947, was a strong founder of that Club. He never missed calling into Scully's premises whenever he visited Bolton. They were great friends over a thousand laughs. Steven Somers from Coon was a founder member of the Rire Go Club in Manchester. Pat Doherty and Mick Connolly from Graignamanagh were emigrants like all of us. Scully heard they were on the boat, and he hired a taxi to drive to the Mail boat to collect them. More followed. The Moondearg Hurling Club was started in Middleton. Their colours? You guessed it; black and amber vertical stripes. Tommy served as secretary and chairman of the Lancashire County Board through the 1960s and 1970s. Timpsons were an enormous footwear manufacturing company in Manchester, with whom Tommy Scully worked. He was instrumental in getting jobs for all the lads that played with his club in the factory. Other clubs would contact him in the hope that he would get jobs for their players. The bottom line was always, if they were a member of any GAA club, and Tom Scully could help you, he would. He had many battles with authority. You must remember that there were no GAA pitches anywhere in the Manchester area. The nearest GAA pitch was in Birkenhead, some 40 miles from Manchester. Tommy, having established a rapport with some of the large Irish Construction Companies, whose proprietors had become local politicians, and City Fathers, used his influence to get pitch accommodation for our National games. He even succeeded in getting the world-famous (at the time) Harris Stadium opened for football games on a Sunday, but he never suspected that the very fanatical Lords Day Observance Society would vehemently opposed to any sporting occasion being played on a Sunday, particularly one where a few bob would be collected on a gate. Did you ever think why soccer was always played on a Saturday in the UK? The Lords Day Observance Society was a fastidiously strong Church of England lobby, which had many of its members on the House of Lords. They were totally against un-necessary servile work being done on the Lord's Day. That included the running of sporting events, as they deduced that people were employed to facilitate the running of such sporting events. Memory brings back a vision of Tommy. Scully taking on Her Majesty's police as they arrived to halt a football game in the Harris Cycledrome, as they had reports of money in the box at the entrance turn style were donations by GAA supporters. One must be mindful of the cenvention's at the time. there was a very strong under current of resentment towards Irishmen, partly due to their reputation as rabble-rousing drunkards, and membership of an organisation called the Connoly Association. That organisation was considered to be very radically opposed to any semblance of Democracy. It was also assumed that it was pro Communist, and very much part of the overall IRA plan of succession in Northern Ireland. Considered very Republican, as was the GAA of the time, in the eyes of Authority, it as known that after any Republican activity on mainland UK, member so the GAA were automatically taken into custody by the police. On more than one occasion, Tom Scully would have been questioned about his activities. It is quite impossible to evaluate the contribution made by Tommy Scully and his ilk in the development, and propagation of the GAA in Lancashire. I well remember him calling to player's digs, or flats in the he middle of the night with game fixtures, We are talking about a city twice the size of Dublin, that was still running electrified trolley buses, with the last bus travelling anywhere no later than midnight. He used his bike to travel. I can still see him packing hurls and jerseys under the stairs of the number 60 double decker bus that travelled from Canon Street in city centre to Heaton Park, an enormous public park on the north side of Manchester. Having alighted from the bus, he was forced to carry the load some two miles to the pitch. Heaton Park was as big as the Curragh. But Tom Scully did that "for the lads". But it was more than that. His love for his native game touched paranoia proportions. He had an interest in football, but t'was furling that the Bannerman gave his life to. He was the only person that ever suspended me, and how we laughed about it when we met. He loved telling the story, but sin sceal eile go la elie. My job took me to other places, and my friendship with Tom Scully was temporarily halted. He returned with his wife Pauline around the mid 70's. He started his repair business on Rose Inn Street, and has remained there. His premises were a haven for returning emigrants, GAA allicados, an "old Clareman" and his neighbouring business acquaintances. Scully met kings and queens of sport. He was delightfully acceptable company in any domain. He was Banner to the marrow of his bones. He always lived in the hope that Clare would win the All Ireland Final every year. He never failed to pin his colours to the flagpole at every given opportunity. A lovable rogue, it would be understandable of some might have through that he was arrogant. But he was a great leg puller, and a superb raconteur. It always amazed me that he never immersed himself in the GAA as assiduously as he had done in Manchester. After all we are talking about two completely different arenas. In Manchester to was a labour of extreme hardship, at home in Ireland, it would be a chore of great acclaim, and joy. However he very much involved himself with is business, and the business of his street. Showing his tremendous powers of leadership, Tommy Scully would never allow anybody to sell him a pup when it came to improving the business lot of Rose Inn Street. When he needed something done, he had a penchant for pressing the right bell. He earned the respect of his neighbours. They were certainly aware that when he undertook an enterprise on their behalf, it would be afforded the greatest endeavour by the Clareman. There will be a history of stories told about Tommy Scully, some by people unknown to this scribe. He merits every accolade levelled on him. His contribution has been immense . His friendship, though hard earned, will stand the rest of immortality. Is it any wonder that his obsequies were attended by such imposing icons as Bishop Willie Walsh, Bishop Laurence Forristall, GAA President Nicky Brennan, and many more. If there was, or is a better GAA person than Tommy Scully from Carron in the County Clare, I would deem it a great pleasure to meet and greet him. But that person had not been born. People like Tommy Scully come round but once in a millennium. I was glad to have been around when Scull was here - even though he suspended me. When they write the complete history of the GAA, Tommy Scully should merit honourable mention at least. He had no equal among GAA men. Courtesy of the Kilkenny People 11 May 2007 Tweet

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