EMINENT GAA historian Joseph Martin has published a fourth edition of his acclaimed history of the GAA in Tyrone.
The GAA in Tyrone: Raising the Red Hand in the Twenty-First Century, will be launched this evening at the county’s annual convention.
The publication brings the story right up to date, and covers in detail the county’s latest All-Ireland triumph.
The book also examines the Association’s response to the Covid-19 crisis and the effect the pandemic has had on GAA activities in the county.
Tyrone’s fourth All-Ireland senior championship victory, secured on a glorious September day in Croke Park, provides a fitting opportunity to capture the remarkable story of the GAA in the county in the twenty-first century.
The first edition of The GAA in Tyrone was published in 1984, alongside histories of many other Irish counties, to mark the centenary of the Association’s founding.
A second edition, The GAA in Tyrone: The Long Road to Glory, was published in 2004. It updated the previous work and covered the subsequent 20 years leading to both the centenary of the founding of the GAA within Tyrone in 1904 and, of course, the winning of the Sam Maguire Cup for the first time in 2003.
A shorter, special edition, The GAA in Tyrone: The Road to Greatness was published in 2005. It summarised the previous periods and covered in detail the next two years, culminating in the second All-Ireland senior football victory of that year.
Joe Martin’s latest work captures the amazing and sustained transformation of the GAA in Tyrone during the first two decades of the 21st century. This remarkable, unprecedented period has seen the county elevated to the top tier of Gaelic games - a consistent force to be reckoned with at the very highest levels of Gaelic football.
The purpose of this new volume - The GAA in Tyrone: Raising the Red Hand - is to bring that story together.
It is a story, however, that cannot be told in isolation from the efforts of generations of Gaels in Tyrone to establish, secure and enhance the Association in the county.
This publication first summarises briefly the history of the GAA in Tyrone from its beginnings until the end of the last century.
It then focuses in some detail on the historic achievements of 2000 to 2008, when incredible success at underage level and a breakthrough in winning the county’s first National Football League served as a prelude to the stunning achievement of winning three All-Ireland senior football championships in six years.
The book captures the following 10 years, a period which still ranks as one of the most successful in the history of Tyrone GAA even if the ultimate successes of the immediately preceding years were not replicated.
Finally, it deals with the challenges faced by the county during the pandemic of 2020, and the glorious achievement of winning a fourth All-Ireland title in 2021.
In addition to this, it details some of the major developments that have transformed the GAA in Tyrone over the past 20 years. Beyond the fields of play in inter-county football, the story of the GAA in Tyrone in the twenty-first century is an equally remarkable one.
Hugely significant developments have taken place, most notably the provision of the world class Tyrone GAA Centre at Garvaghey and the establishment of Club Tyrone.
Tyrone clubs have developed the most modern facilities and infrastructure for players and spectators and the county has utilised modern means of communication and new technology and sports science to a standard that would match many professional sporting organisations.
Another highly significant development captured in the book is the expansion of sporting opportunities for women and girls on an unprecedented scale and the increasing participation of women in all aspects of the workings of the Association in the county.
In addition to recording the achievements of the Association both on and off the field of play, this book includes colour photographs of Tyrone’s winning teams at provincial and national level over the past twenty years.
Like its predecessors, it also contains a wide range of appendices, including Tyrone club championship winners, Tyrone’s record in senior football championship games since 1904 and team lists of Tyrone’s provincial champions at every level and of the teams who represented Tyrone at senior level since their first participation in 1904.
