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Finnegan's in the News!
Finnegan's televised the recent GAA
games, a fact which caused some interest all the way back in Gerry's
home town of Dundalk, Ireland! This article then appeared in the
Dundalk local paper.
Click
here
to read the article.
__________________________________________________________
Irish
journalist, Liam Horan, was in Bangkok covering the Irish team in the
World Transplant Games and visited Finnegan's while he was here to
watch the GAA games.
Click
here to read the article Liam
contributed to the official
Transplant Team Ireland website.
Click
here
to listen to Liam interviewing John Loftus and others live from
Finnegan's!
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This article then appeared in the
Irish Examiner
on September 4th 2007.
LH Bangkok view
By Liam Horan
“…ramble in for a pint of stout, and you’d never know who’d be hanging
about…” – as the song goes.
Bangkok
being one of the most famous crossroads in the world, Kinnegad on a
grand scale, there was always the likelihood of chance encounters at
the counter.
Ballybrown man John Loftus – a silver medallist in the World
Transplant Games just two days earlier – took his seat in Gerry
Finnegan’s Bar, only to discover the man sitting right alongside him
was another son of Ballybrown, Sean Shanahan.
“It’s a small world alright,” noted John. “and it’s great to meet one
of your own at a time like this. I’m fierce nervous about the game.
I’m always the same before Limerick play – I thought about flying home
from the World Transplant Games early to be there for the match, but I
decided it was just too much hassle,” said John.
Globetrotter Donal Maye from Limerick city had home thoughts from
abroad, too.
“I’m on my way home to Ireland after travelling for a year. I spent
ten months in Melbourne and Sydney. I was in Sydney the day we beat
Waterford in the semi-final. I thought about going home for the final,
but decided I just couldn’t manage it and also do the stop-offs I
wanted to do on the way home,” said Donal.
“So here I am. In Bangkok. But I would love to be in Croke Park. It’d
be great to be there. I dream of one day running out onto Croke Park
to celebrate a Limerick victory.”
Reports from home suggest there were three Limerick fans to every
Kilkenny supporter in Croke Park on Sunday. In Finnegan’s, in the Nana
region of Bangkok, the figure was closer to 30:1.
The Irish team for the World Transplant Games swelled the attendance –
and the numbers of those roaring on the Shannonsiders. Murt and
Catherine Murphy and Donie
[Liam Horan] McCarthy from Co.
Cork wanted Limerick to win. Badly. And Martin and Teresa Hannon from
Co. Longford, too. Tony Gartland from Carlow. Monica Finn and Jimmy
Service from Roscommon.
And virtually everyone else too, it seemed.
The only confirmed Kilkenny fans on site were Rita Brennan from The
Village and Emma Walsh from Ballyraggett (both hurling strongholds…)
Their fight was brave and unrelenting, but they were utterly
out-numbered, out-shouted and out-sung – until the throw-in.
The match changed everything.
Pretty soon, the tidal wave of support for Limerick was stilled. The
two early goals for Kilkenny acted as a passion-killer in Irish bars
the world over.
“Hoping against hope,” is how John Loftus described the state of play
at half-time. “We needed the start Kilkenny got and it’s very hard to
see Kilkenny letting us back into it. It’s very hard to see where
Limerick can win it from now.”
It
had none of the excitement which gripped Finnegan’s a week earlier
when Dublin and Kerry rolled out their seismic clash. “I suppose we
were on top all through,” said Rita, girlfriend of the crest-fallen
Sean, “but even though Kilkenny have won many All-Irelands, it’s
always great to have another one to celebrate.”
Donal realised his dream would have to be put on hold. “My father
Hubert is from Mayo,” he pointed out, “so I have too much experience
of losing All-Ireland finals. But maybe one day it will happen for
Limerick, and hopefully Mayo will get to win an All-Ireland soon too.”
An
hour after the final whistle – as midnight beckoned in Bangkok – a
furry of Irish songs on the p.a. lifted spirits somewhat. “It was a
good year for Limerick, though,” said Sean, “and hopefully next year
they can build on it and at least win a Munster title and maybe more.”
John Loftus – who was a mentor when Ballybrown reached the 1990
All-Ireland club final only to lose to Ballyhale Shamrocks – did most
to dispel the gloom. An unlikely source, given his lifelong love
affair with the green and white.
“It’s midnight now,” he announced to one and all, “and this day,
September 3rd, seven years ago, I got my new kidney. I got
a new life. I have two birthdays now, and even though Limerick lost
the match, I intend to celebrate this birthday because some things are
more important than hurling can ever be.”
And so vanquished Limerick, victorious Kilkenny, and partisan
neutrals, had a Ceili at the crossroads of the world.
*
Liam Horan was in Bangkok to report on the World Transplant Games in
Bangkok. You can read about the team’s record medal haul on
www.TransplantTeamIreland.com. For an organ donor card, free text
the word ‘DONOR’ to 50050.
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