An Fear Rua has not been behind the door in the past in his criticism of Guinness Ireland when that has been warranted, but – fair play to them! – this year’s advertising campaign in support of their sponsorship of the senior hurling championship was masterly, writes An Fear Rua …

The campaign theme ‘Not Men, but Giants’ was entirely appropriate and was ‘executed’ – as the advertising ‘types’ like to say – brilliantly on billboards and in newspaper advertisements around the country. AFR admits that much somewhat ruefully, given that his web site was one of those who suffered when – at the very last moment – Guinness decided not to use any web advertising in support of their campaign. (For a while there, some of the Gowlnacalley-John Redmonds’ boyos were calling for a boycott of Guinness products in the back ‘shnug’ of Ma Molloy’s famous drinking emporium, until wiser counsels prevailed…)

However, similar praise cannot be adduced in favour of the radio ‘execution’ of the ‘Men, Giants’ advertisements. These were supposed to be a stirring version of what a dressing room pre-match oration of the old school sounded like, or maybe what some pony-tailed male advertising ‘creative’ imagined they sounded like, never having set foot inside a GAA dressing room, most likely. Instead, they sounded more like a cross between Mel Gibson in ‘Brave Heart’ and the late, lamented actor Mícheál MacLiammóir on speed, brandishing his hurley in his hands and waving it about the dressing room.

But, whatever our reservations about some aspects of the Guinness ad. campaign, a GAA man died recently who was truly not just a Man, but a Giant as well.

An Bráthair Liam P. Ó Caithnia, a member of the now dwindling community of Irish Christian Brothers, died towards the end of last month aged 76. He was a considerable scholar, who carried his learning lightly, gave of his time generously and contributed significantly to writing in Irish.

GAA members everywhere will be forever in his debt for his three magisterial works on the true history and origins of hurling and Gaelic football and his biography of the key founder of Dis Great Assooosheeayshun Of Ours, Michael Cusack. Brother Ó Caithnia’s magnum opus, Scéal na hIomána, was described by the late Eileen O'Brien of the ‘Irish Times’ as a ‘heroic history of hurling’, and by Trinity College lecturer Alan Titley as among the few most important books written in Irish in the 20th century.

Scéal na hIomána was published in 1980. A copy of it, acquired at a book auction some years ago, is among An Fear Rua’s most treasured possessions. The book is breathtaking in the range and depth of its research, covering more than a thousand years of history, and it is presented in a most easy-to-read manner, in mellifluous Irish. One of the highlights of the book is the careful way it delineates the influential role of wealthy landlords in promoting matches between tenants, that were the forerunners of the modern inter-parish games under the organised GAA. Also interesting – particularly in the light of Cusack’s founding role (given that he had played cricket while in Trinity College) - is Ó Caithnia’s honest delineation of a common ancestry in ancient times of sporting pastimes that later evolved not only into hurling and Gaelic football, but also into hockey, cricket and even soccer! When you turn the pages of this handsome book of more than eight hundred pages and savour its words and phrases, you know you are in the presence of genius.

Báirí Cos in Éirinn (1984) was his a history of Gaelic football before the formation of the GAA and Micheál Cíosóg, his biography of the GAA’s founder.

Scéal na hIomána was the outcome of twenty years of research, mainly in the archives of the Folklore Commission, where Prof. Séamus Ó Duilearga supervised it as a doctoral thesis. The Irish-American Cultural Institute awarded Ó Caithnia for it.

The final chapter on folklore is one of the most entertaining. Appropriately enough, as we face into Oíche Shamhna – Halloween – it recalls stories of teams being cursed and hurling seen being played by pookas on moonlit nights; and of midnight contests between the dead and fairies (though not of John Ryan’s ‘GI’ type, presumably), with young hurlers being snatched from the land of the living to assist the deceased veterans. In more recent times, AFR has witnessed a few hurling teams that seemed more dead than alive as well, but sure, we’ll be charitable at the back end of the year and hope that their afflictions may pass.

Liam Ó Caithnia was born in Cork on September 14th, 1925, the third child of Leo Canny and Mamie Conway. His father was a fitter/turner in Ford's. Liam attended the famous Cork Model School where a teacher, Mrs Lillis, instilled a love of the Irish language in him. At the age of nine he was sent to the Gaeltacht in Béal Átha an Ghaorthaidh, in West Cork, where he acquired a love for traditional music that was to play a major role in his life.

As a young Christian Brother, his first assignment was to Mount Sion in Waterford. No doubt, his time in that renowned cradle of hurling Men and Giants – like Keane, Flannelly, Power, Walsh and Grimes – fanned the flames of his latent enthusiasm for the games. Over the years he taught in schools around the country including: Kells, Co Meath; Drimnagh Castle, Walkinstown; Tralee; St Joseph's, Fairview, An Coláiste Oiliúna, Marino, Coláiste Mhuire and O'Connell Schools, Dublin; Dundalk and Newry.

As we note the sheer geographical spread of An Bráthair Ó Caithnia's educational work and think of the many boys and young men he must have enthused for Gaelic games in his time, we might also reflect on the self-less role played by many young Christian Brothers in building up what is now the modern GAA in many parts of the country. Isn’t the modern day phenomenon of Offaly hurling supremacy often ascribed to the arrival of a committed De La Salle brother to teach in a vocational school in – was it – Birr in the early Seventies, which started a string of Vocational Schools championships that later were turned into senior All Ireland gold? The rights and wrongs of a debate on the role of the religious in education in Ireland are for another time, and probably another forum, but for GAA followers at least, their role in the growth of the Association will be a major entry on the credit side of the ledger.

AFR's view is that the GAA should do at least two things to honour this man's memory. Firstly, they should look to supporting the republication of his books to bring them back before an appreciative public. Secondly, wouldn't it be an appropriate gesture for some unit of the GAA - national, provincial, colleges or county - to name or re-name a hurling competition in honour of this giant of the GAA? After all, the GAA has no shortage of trophies named after ermine-cloaked prelates of the Roman Catholic hierarchy - Harty, McRory, McKenna, Ryan, for example - so honouring a humble teaching brother would mark a move towards egalitarianism!

Br Liam P. Ó Caithnia: born September 1925; died, September 2001 … Ar Dheis Dé go raibh a anam uasal Gaelach …

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