CRICKET FOR BREAKFAST, DINNER & TEA, THE SEQUEL

The news to Cricket Leinster that our 2022 President, Jim Bennett, was continuing to write blogs, came through over the weekend, and with his kind permission, his 2024 edition of Cricket for Breakfast, Dinner & Tea will be published here on our website for all to read and enjoy.

The first edition, which begins below, will kick off proceedings right at the beginning of this year and take us through to the beginning of the cricket season, in April....

Blog 1, January – April 2024

Breakfasts

My cricket-related activities during the close-season may be divided into three sub-categories – breakfasts, writing, and occasional presentations. The breakfast meetings are an important factor in maintaining social contacts and in helping to keep up to date with happenings at The Hills CC. A full attendance consists of Michael Dwyer, Matt Dwyer, William Dwyer, Martin Russell, John Archer, Barry Grimes, Paschal Henchy, and me. The numbers varied from week to week, but it was only on an infrequent occasion that there was less than four people present. In keeping with the dictum of his body being a temple, Michael Dwyer invariably opted for the smashed avocado while everyone else chose some variation of a cooked breakfast with homemade brown bread and marmalade for William Dwyer.

Presentations, Podcasts, Radio Interviews 

Jim Hawkins is a professional photographer, filmmaker, and podcaster, with whom I have collaborated on a variety of local history projects. He invited me to make some podcasts in which the history of cricket in Fingal would be chronicled. We met on five occasions during February and March, and we recorded five podcasts. The editing process is in hand and the podcasts should be available in the not-too-distant future.

Fergus Carroll of NEAR FM does a tremendous job in publicising cricket on his Saturday morning sports programme, and on a number of occasions, he contacted me to discuss events in the cricket world, with the first one being on 2 March when we had the opportunity to talk about Ireland’s historic win in the test match against Afghanistan. We chatted again on 13 April when the very sad demise of YMCA CC was the main topic of conversation, and we also discussed the prospects for the various clubs for the 2024 season. Finally on 27 April, we looked forward to the first-round games in the Bob Kerr, Irish Senior Cup, and the National Cup.

Malahide CC organised a series of historical talks during the winter, and Brian Gilmore invited me to make a presentation at one of the evenings. Unfortunately (or fortunately, depending on your point of view), Brian was unavoidably absent due to a family commitment), and the onus for organising some of the talks devolved to John Morgan, the newly elected President of Malahide CC, and Anna, his wife.  On 28 March, there were two complementary talks, with Paddy Ryan, the eminent local historian, speaking about the Talbot family for the period, 1861 to 1971, while I gave an input on the history of Malahide CC for the same dates. The two talks were well received by the capacity attendance which included members of the Wright family, local elected representatives, and club members of all ages, among whom was Richard Hammond who had played on the Malahide team which won the Junior Cup in 1963, Ray Daly who captained the double winning team of 1971, and Dougie Keegan who captained the double winning Thirds team for the same year. During the evening, a framed photograph of John Wright was unveiled by members of the Wright family and John Morgan. It would be remiss of me not to acknowledge the brilliant baking which was organised by Anna Morgan and some of the other club members.  

The success of the first evening encouraged John Morgan to invite me to give a second talk which would bring the history of Malahide CC up to the present day. That talk was given on 25 April, and on that occasion, the attendance included Brian Gilmore, who had returned from Vietnam. The members of the audience were very helpful because in many instances, some of the people present had played in the games that were being referred to in the presentation.  Adrian Henchy, the Mayor of Fingal, was present on the second evening, and The Hills CC was represented on both evenings by Michael Dwyer and on one evening by Martin Russell.

I received an invitation from the Howth Peninsula Heritage Society to give a talk on the History of Cricket in Fingal, and that was a challenging assignment because I wanted to give a local flavour to the presentation, but I was not sure if cricket had ever been played in Howth. Fortunately, I have subscriptions to a number of Newspaper Archives, and I found sufficient references to “Big House” cricket in Howth to make the talk more relevant for the audience. I was very grateful to Dr Bill Tormey and John Morgan for attending the talk despite some logistical mishaps. In John’s case, the train did not stop at Howth, and he had to get a train back, and Bill went to the wrong hall initially.