STRANGE DOINGS IN THE LATIN QUARTER OF CASTLEISLAND
D.H.
One balmy Summer evening a man was seen at the Fountain with a bucket of whitewash. Another man joined him and together they measured the street and proceeded to paint lines on it. Tom Browne and his comrades who daily guarded the southern approaches to the town watched them with silent curiousity and came to the conclusion they were council men preparing to gig up another water main.
Later a truck arrived from the Tralee Road with two enormous contraptions made of wood which were unloaded and placed against the fountain. Rumour piled rumour and men who rarely ventured from the security of their homes were seen milling around the fountain in anxious little groups. Around eight o'clock the onlookers observed two buses approaching - one from the Killarney Road, the other from Tralee Road - and each disgorged a ferociously brawny selection of young men wearing singlets and tennis shoes. The wooden contraptions were set up at either end of the painted lines and a game - for such it was - commenced. There was a slight delay at the start while Gerald Wren's cows moved across the pitch in stately procession on their way to pasture beside the river.
The teams set to with a will. Never before was such a spectacle seen in Castleisland. The emphasis in those days was on brawn more than skill. No wonder the games needed two referees, we discovered that one of the teams hailed from Killorglin and their opponents from Tralee. One of the Killorglin stalwarts was Donal Prenderville, a Cordal man and a great all-round sportsman who had emigrated to Killorglin in the practise of his profession. Accordingly we decideded to support the men of Puck. The game was played at a furious pace and many a hefty warrior hit the deck. The referees ran and waved their arms and blew their whistles and were in grave danger of being trampled on. In to-day's terms it could be described as being a rather physical encounter with a simple philosophy - if your opponent flattened you, you just got up, flattened him back and got on with it. Elbows and knees were much in evidence and the referees showed commendable courage in going in to sort out the loose mauls.
The scoring system was beyond us and God or man couldn't make hog or dog of the rules, so we concentrated on the action. "Janey", said an old man when another body came crashing down at his feet " I don't know what they call it, but it's a great game".
Suddenly the game was over and nobody could calculate the score. Paddy Hussey drew on his vast experience in the ring, "A win on points for Killorglin" was his verdict. Later in the Crown, strong men clutched large pints and pondered this new arrival on the sportin scence. Men who travelled abroad on beet campaigns to England were drafted as consultants and their opinions weighed carefully. There was food for thought for a long time to come. A new era had dawned. The year was 1950. Basketball had arrived to Castleisland
D.H.
This article was published in the 1986 Christmas Blitz Programme