By Paul Fitzpatrick
One of the brightest minds in the history of the GAA, Down native Joe Lennon, passed away last week - and what many may not realise is that Joe was also a handball enthusiast, a player and coach who was out-spoken in his support for the game.
The late Lennon, who died aged 81, was best-known as an outstanding footballer, winning three All-Irelands with Down in the 1960s, and also as a pioneer of GAA coaching and a deep thinker on the game.
He was born in Poyntz Pass, on the Armagh-Down border, in 1934 but was raised in Aghaderg, Co Down. The village of Poyntzpass was once a garrison and, in the late 16th and early 17th centuries, local folklore has it, soldiers stationed there constructed a ball-alley to keep themselves busy during the idle hours.
Maybe it was that open-air court which inspired the young Lennon to take up the game. Regardless, he quickly excelled when he enrolled in St Colman's College, Newry.
He won the Ulster Colleges Senior Singles title in 1952 (there was no Colleges All-Ireland competition at the time), also landing the Ulster Minor Doubles title for good measure and going on to reach the All-Ireland final where he and his brother Michael lost to Swords and Tunney of Mayo in Charlestown.
(As an aside, handball was clearly booming in the famed Newry footballing nursery in the 1950s. In a 1984 Sunday Independent centenary special on the great Down team, it was recorded that Dan McCartan “was more interested in handball” than football and was only cajoled into playing with the big ball when the team were stuck for a goalkeeper. Macartan would later win three All-Ireland football medals alongside Lennon.)
The following year, in the colours of Aghaderg, Joe beat his brother Eddie in the county Junior Singles final and he competed strongly in Ulster for a number of years.
By that stage, however, he had begun to establish himself on the Down senior football team and he would help them to a breakthrough first Ulster title in 1959, adding six more in the following eight years along with three All-Irelands, the last, in 1968, as captain.
After training as a meteorologist – which took him to England, the Isle of Man, the Shetland Islands and the Persian Gulf – Lennon returned home and qualified as a teacher. While studying in Loughborough Training College, he witnessed at first hand the emphasis on coaching and his thesis went on to form the basis of the Book Coaching Gaelic Football For Champions, published in 1964.
A priest named Fr Louis Brennan, based in the Franciscan College in Gormanston, read it and wrote to Lennon; soon the first Gaelic football coaching courses were being run. Hurling, camogie and handball followed, all in Gormanston.
In time, he became Director of Sport at the school and led the opening of the handball courts to the general public in 1971.
So impressed with the lecturers in Loughborough with Lennon that they strongly considered introducing Gaelic games to their curriculum, with a report in the Irish Press in November 1963 stating that “handball may be the game chosen”.
This was indicative of Lennon's attitude to the sport – in 1967, it was reported, he spoke at the county board convention in Meath and stated that there was “no reason” why handball and camogie shouldn't be included in all national coaching courses.
By then, he had been heavily involved in handball in the county.
In 1965, when the covered court was opened in Kells (and a monster 32-team tournament, won by Des McGovern and Liam Molloy, didn't finish until 1.45am!), the local Meath Chronicle made a point of reporting that “Down star Joe Lennon was in attendance”.
In the early 1970s, in his late 30s, Lennon made a comeback to competitive handball, lining out for Down in the Ulster Junior Singles Championship having polished up his skills in Gormanston.
The love of the game runs in the family, too – Joe's son Niall was a keen player who represented Meath on many occasions and made it to senior grade within the county.
Ar Dheis Dé go raibh a h-anam.