CAVANMAN'S DIARY: A Cavan company that commands respect
Paul Fitzpatrick
A Monday night in Croke Park and another launch, a staple of the GAA reporter’s diet. Mostly, they are paint-by-numbers affairs, a few words from an official or a sponsor here or there and then a photo opportunity.
This was one, last Monday, was markedly different. It took place in the gleaming Cusack Suite, a room which is a perfect metaphor for where the GAA wants to position itself. It is pristine, super-modern but yet, overlooking the hallowed turf and surrounded by sepia-tinted images of the association’s history, there is a sense of being rooted in something substantial, too.
We were there for the launch of Friends of Cavan GAA in Dublin but, while there were deep pockets in the room (the press were seated in what we will call the shallow end!), this was no thinly-veiled shakedown.
Well over 100 of the Cavan diaspora were there - supporters, business people. It was an opportunity for networking but, mostly, it was a chance for Cavan county board to drum home a message about the importance of community and a shared journey.
That sounds like rubbish, like marketing speak, but somehow, the board managed to find the perfect tone on this occasion.
Firstly, Kevin Smith and Tom O’Reilly gave an update on the plans for the development of the Polo Grounds Centre of Excellence. Then, there was a panel discussion, with Mickey Graham, Dermot McCabe and head of athletic development André Quinn outlining a pathway for players.
Former Cavan ladies footballer Pamela McCabe, a marketing manager with Kingspan, delivered a punchy address on that company; the chairman, Kieran Callaghan, spoke sincerely about how club and county footballers, contrary to consensus which says they are too focused on their sporting pursuits, are in fact “the best employees you will ever have”.
Martin Reilly, sporting a broken nose from the day before, told his story, too. He left school with just a Junior Cert, chasing a soccer dream in the UK. When that didn’t work out, he returned home and threw himself into Gaelic. He served an electrical apprenticeship, followed a route opened up by GAA connections to DIT and ended up with an honours degree.
But the speaker who lingered in my memory driving back down the road was Brendan Murtagh, co-founder of Kingspan and a two-time Ulster SFC medallist with Cavan.
Kingspan have been sponsoring Cavan for 26 years, the longest link in the country. In the mid-1990s, they presided over a number of different companies. Once all were brought under one umbrella and an approach was made, they jumped at it.
“First of all, we had to have a brand,” he recalled.
“We had different companies and, once we had a brand, as soon as we were asked, we were in. The first person to approach me was ‘Wee Martin’ [McHugh] and that was just about sponsoring the jerseys. And we had success almost straight away in ‘97.”
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The company started “really, really small”, he said.
“It started at the back of a pub in Kingscourt. Real basic engineering. We went up to Forkhill to get some old second hand axles and things like that to make trailers. It was a bit of a nuisance coming through Dundalk...”
A lucky break or two fell their way in the early days, he explained. A product manufactured under licence from a large company in the UK proved successful; soon, the Yorkshire firm were working for the Cavanmen.
An objective from the start was that the company would remain where it started.
“We were determined to keep it Cavan-based, even Kingscourt-based, which hasn’t been easy because we are lying up against Meath, we are inches from Meath and inches from Monaghan. We acquired businesses, which had far better facilities than we had in Kingscourt, but we were determined to keep it in Kingscourt.
“Given the investment that has gone in, in the last 18 months, we are going to be known as a Cavan-based company for many, many years to come.”
The football landscape Brendan Murtagh grew up in was totally different to the current one, despite the best efforts of all involved. Cavan were football royalty, something he noticed when enrolling in boarding school in Waterford in the early 1960s, when Cavan’s All-Ireland wins were fresh in the memory. Put simply, Cavan football commanded respect.
And did that adolescent revelation, many miles from home, that Cavan could hold its own anywhere influence the growth of Kingspan into a global concern? I would imagine so.
“It was very interesting because it kind of demonstrated the whole power of the GAA and the Cavan thing. When I went down, there happened to be a lot of students there from Kerry and west Cork.
“And the fact that I was from Cavan, it was amazing the difference it made. That was 1960 or so, it was only eight years since Cavan had won the All-Ireland so we were very highly regarded.”
That was the start of the 1960s. The end of it produced another memorable event for a young Cavan footballer making his way in business.
“Subsequently I shared a flat in Dublin with a couple of those Kerrymen and, in 1969, they went on and won an All-Ireland. We should have been in the final, we lost a replay to Offaly.
“The only good thing about that was that I went out to the Kerry do that Sunday night out in Bray thinking all I had to do was nod at somebody and I’d be brought in. But a couple of us were turfed out and we went in to a ballroom just outside of Bray... and I went home with a wife.”
As I left, in a hurry, to get back down the road, I glanced back over my shoulder to see the room deep in conversation. Nobody was leaving in a hurry, which has to bode well.