Cricket at Killaloo.

Auckland Star, Volume XXV, Issue 30, 3 February 1894, Page 4 (Supplement)

Cricket at Killaloo.

How Killaloe Played Ballyhooley.

Incidents of the Game

'Twas Paddy Malo'ne, fche spalpeen, thab first brought the crickets to Killaloo—bad ceas to ib. 'Twaa to Cork the ould man sent him to sell the pigs, and 'twas there that he saw the quality play in the crickets. Arrah !he was full up of it when he came back to the parish of Killaloe. ' Whirro6 bhoys,' sez he, •if ye seen what I seen, it would have taken the eight clane out of your eyes.' ' What's that, Paddy ?' sez we all. 'Crickets, 1 sez he. ' Musha, what might that be?1 eez we. 'Look now, at the ignorance oi the lower orders,' sez Paddy. 'Ye unfortunib omadhauns,' sez he, 'did nivir ye hear of crickets?1 'No,' sez we, nor you ayther till ye winfc to Cork to sell the pigs!' ' Well, that's a fack,' says Paddy. 'How do you play it, anyhow ?' sez we, curious-like. ' Well,' sez Paddy, ' 'tis like this, d'ye see. There's one chap, d'yo see, with a bib oi lithcr stone in bis fisb, and there's another man standing with a powerful big broad stick, foreninsb him. All of a sudden, d'ye see, he geis mad ab something, and ho takes a bit of a run and he shies that stone straight up at the chap with the shillelagh. Bedad, that bhoy doesn't wait for it to sthriko him, but he draws out a powerful sthroke at it whin it's comin'. Maybe he hits it and maybe he doesn't. Mostly he stharts to run thin like the divil. At first, thinks Oi to myself, when Oi see him skelpin' along, faith, he's going to knock biatherumskites out of the chap that threw the stone. Bub divil a bib ! When he camo close up to him he thought better of it, d'yo ccc, and turns tail and skelps back again, as if Old Nick was after him ; ond faith there was another' chap on the sam 9 job, .and divil such tarin' up and down Oi eeen since the day Nick Sweeney eat down unbeknownst on the bees nist in Sullivan's meadow. Bedad, Oi don't wonder they ran naybhor, for the chap that threw the sthone that caused all the row, he had a powerful lot of friends standing round, and they was breakin'their hearts to get hould of that same atone to throw ab them two poor divils racin' for their lives. Well, ab last, a man that wasn't in the fight ab all, shouts " Over !" Bedad, I'm glad of that thinks I, for if this lasts much longer, some of these poor divils will be slaughtered, for what) chance could they have against eleven mm, standing all round them? Bufc shure, it wasn'b " Over " ab all, at all, bub ib began again, and with that I jumps over the. railins', and, sez I, ' It isn't a Malone that won't lind them two poor chaps a helpin' hand.' So I gave a whirroosh, an' in I goes. Faith, I cleared the fluro for a sthart, but ib wa3n'b long till I was stritohed out, and when I comes to, who d'ye think was sittin' on me head bub one of them two spalpeens thab I went to help. 'Faith, this is foin gratitude,'eez I. 'Arrah,' sez they,' you fool it's a game we're playing.' ' Musha, bad cess to ye and your game,' sez I. ' It's a headache I've got in iviry bone of me body, and now,' sez I, ' what do you call this ?' • Crickets,' eaya they. ' Faith !' sez I, ' this is blio game for the parish of Killaloo, and it's the heads we'll bate off the township of Ballyhcoley ab the same game. And now, bhoys,' Bez Paddy Malone, 'faith, I'll learn ye how to play it.' So that was how the crickats came to Killaloe, and whin the bhoys from ballvhooley heard that there was crickets at Killaloe, 'faith,' aez they, ' it's not the like of the parish of Killaloe will becomin'over us with crickets, it's crickebs we'll have in Ballvhooley too.' So thab was how the terrible match between the parish of Killaloe and the township of Ballyhooley was played on St. Patrick's Day. Faith ! 'twill be long beforo that day is forgotten. Bedad, the docthora talk aboub ifa as the eqod ould times. And tbhen it's .good times for the docthors, ye may bet Us mighty bad times for everyone rise. Shure, for a year afterwards if they see a man who could walk straight, and had all his legß and arms on him, and no chips out of his skull. Faith 1 the bhoys would say, ' there goes a newcomer, divil a bit ay a cricketer he is.' Bub wait till Oi till ye aboub a match. Such deligW%ed. sftYlW&joo Oi never encountered.

Share ! Oi was three weeks afterwards in $'^ the country hospital, beforo Oi: could -tell - - day from night. But no matter, for the spalphoen that bowled me <j U b has gone on crutches ever since. > The bhoya from Ballyhooley wore, the ' O'Flahcrtiea and the Connors and\ the '■" O'Gradya and the Murphys and the Hooli- " guns and the Bradys. lliganb crioketerg i they was. too. We had the divilVovra i^ fighb before we got them all out, and if ib 1 hadu't been that bhoy Brady, the captain '-m was stretched kickin1 with a ethroke of a * wickot, bedad, I belave they'd all have *'?* been there still. Then in we goes. ,; ' Mick Hogan was our captain (Red Mick * they call him, for his hair is as ruddy as ' a mountain fox) and Thady McGuire thab bate Andy Walsh's head in at tbeGalway Fair and was let off for justifiable homicide, as Andy waa the ugliest man in the ■ parish. Ho was an iliganb long stop was ' Thady. Faith, he'd stop anywhere you 1' • pub him for a week if you gave him whisky ! enough. Then there was Barney, the ? piper, the pleasantesb company ye ever: v -'■' seen at a funeral Faith, he was a fine -'■•<, cricketer, and before the day wob oub he distributed the materials of a new sab of '' pipes about the persons of three Bally, vi hooley men, and ib took six of the clivereßh J docthors in the country a week to reassemble that instrument, carving ib oub & ; : bib aba time, and bhe mouthpiece, - faith, waa found six months after • in the back of Dan Murphy's head. ;v But the fun began whin Larry Sweeney \j wint in. He was the finest lookin' bhoy in j the country side, and all the gala in the -^ I place was clane crazy about him. Maggie ! ! Murphy was there sitting in the tenb,.>'. ■•* drinkin' portlier and atin' oranges like a ■■;•'! lady. Ye mind Maggie, a red-haired ', colleen with a cast in her eye, but faith she ,1 had two heifers and a pig more for her ,1 fortune than any girl in the parish, nob to f;-1 \ mention £2 10s in coppers in an ould , 1 stockin', saving your presence. Well, ' there she was sittin' with an iliganbW ; : dress on her, and green and yellow ribbons, /, i and red roses Ob for a duchess in her hat. . ; Well, all of a sudden, Long Thanu : f! O'Flaherty bowls up a ball at Larry, and ■'.'■ j he mint to hit him on the head, but bedad >'j ib winb low and hit him on the legs. ' How's v. that?' sez he. 'Out,'say& the Ballhooley .} umpire. Faith, was the last words be ;.; uttered, for Larry etriched him out dacbb )■ J with a clane stroke. 'Yes,'eez Katie Hal- ' ; Vt loran, one of the Ballhooley girls in the ;*\i tent, 'of course he was out.' Thin, Maggie :t j Murphy let's a yell out of hor, and she took ;,/ a grip of Katie's back hair, and she ! • mopped the fiure with her till you couldn't m tell which was Katie, and which waa pprther, • ' for the table was upset and the flure was }; swimming with porther. Ould Halloran, ■•(/; whin be sees his daughter on the flure,■-;K| runs up to help her, but ould Murphy, ,?| Maggie's father, unsthraps his wooden leg :;'J| and knocks half of ould Halloran's false / ,|| teeth down his throat, and they've niver ,(?■ been heard of since. Mrs Muldoon, thab '•) kapee the public house in Killaloe, and is ; ; 16st weight and 40 inches round the waist, ;< j sab down on top of the schoolmaster of - Ballyhooley, a lame littla spalpeen hew,;/,;; and I heard he's niver been the same min'X\ i'< since. Well, Red Mick was the last'left,: iy standing on the ground, and, sez he, as he ;< , picked his way oub among the corpses, S •Faith ! ib was a grand match. There's i:half a wickeb and one of the balls,'«-.; soz he, 'concaled somewhere about me, and ; }:i if they only lefb me an eye to see where! s| they are, faith I I'd be all out. Nb ; ? | matther. Sweep up the ladies,' Fez he,- ,»«•! 'and send the fragments of the Ballyhooley f| iliven home on their own shutters, and give ,f| mo a dhrink, for the finest divarsion ivir I seen is this same crickets.' Well, rest his '■}', sowl, he died liko a haro, and he had his ■ | rivingo, for his skhull spoilt the bead ' cricket bab in the Ballyhooley Club.' fflffl