MICHAEL COLLINS AND THE G.A.A. The manuscript minute books of the Geraldines Gaelic Athletic Club, London, 1904-09 and 1909-15, two black rexine-bound volumes, small 8vo and 8vo, containing the...

MICHAEL COLLINS AND THE G.A.A. The manuscript minute books of the Geraldines Gaelic Athletic Club, London, 1904-09 and 1909-15, two black rexine-bound volumes, small 8vo and 8vo, containing the usual details of monthly committee meetings and half-yearly plenary meetings - attendances, resolutions, proposers and seconders, voting, finances, reports, elections, team selections, match results, arrangements for club dances, appointment of delegates, letters, rows and so on, each set of minutes signed as usual by the relevant chairman, the second volume with some 70 pages in the hand of Michael Collins as club secretary. The volumes are generally in good condition, covers a little worn and marked. The spine of 2nd volume is torn for an inch on one side near foot, but holding firmly, and one page in 2nd volume, glued-in at some stage, is now again loose. The first volume (1904-09) contains about 150 pp of reports neatly written in a variety of hands, countersigned mostly by P. Belton (chairman); from about 1907 the name of M.J. [Michael] Collins appears with increasing frequency in the minutes. On l July 1909, near the head of the second volume, the minutes of the half-yearly meeting record that M.J. Collins was elected Secretary, and the remaining 70 completed pages of this volume (1909-15) are in Collins' hand. There are occasional pencilled changes, particularly at first, where his minutes presumably were challenged and amended. The volume ends with the report of a general meeting on 30 Jan. 1915, countersigned 30 April 1915; the remaining pages are blank. Collins was re-elected as Secretary, and he did not return to Ireland until much later in 1915, but for whatever reason he wrote no more minutes in this book. The remaining 100-odd pages are blank. Collins' minutes are terse, to the point and anything but bland. In his first minutes, he records that the attendance on 1 July '09 'was fairly good, but might easily have been better'. On 2 October, a motion proposed by Collins and seconded by Belton refers to 'the ungentlemanly conduct' of a former Treasurer, who apparently left an unpaid balance of some 15/-, and proposes expelling him as 'undesirable and untrustworthy' (this matter recurs in later meetings). On 8 Jan. 1910, the half-yearly meeting, 'the attendance was most disheartening, only 14 members being present when the President opened'. Later he mentions 'a long rambling discussion' about cash outstanding from a dance. In July 1910, 'the secretary read his report. It was not flattering to the members, & advocated disbanding as the club had been unable to field a team for more than 6 months. This suggestion was of course repudiated' - but the report was adopted. In Jan. 1914 the secretary's report 'was very gloomy, but it was carried.' The handwriting is sometimes hasty as the volume continues - presumably he was getting busier - but it is never less than readable. From a sporting point of view, the Geraldines has never been one of the GAA's leading clubs, though it won an occasional trophy. From a political point of view, it is probably the most important club in the history of the Association. Not alone is it the club where Michael Collins played and attended regularly through most of his nine years in London - the years in which he grew from a boy to a man - it was also the venue where he met Patrick Belton, probably the man who introduced him to the IRB, as well as lifelong friends like Jack Hurley, Jack Gallagher, Dan Murphy and Mick Donoghue, whose future lives were intertwined with his own. The matches with other Irish clubs in London kept him in regular touch with men like Sam Maguire and P.S. O'Hegarty, who played their part in his general education and political development. Many other young men from the club played their own part in the Irish history of the coming decade. It is no exaggeration to say that the Geraldines Club was the nursery in which Michael Collins grew to be a man; and these minute books, with the related reports in the London-Irish press, record his growth as a player, as an organiser and as an Irishman. A superb memento of a great man, a great Club and a great Association. Provenance: Until recently on loan to the G.A.A. Museum, Dublin.

View more View less