Two years late, but Dublin footballers finally crowned All-Ireland champions at Croke Park
Dublin, 17 June 1923 - It was a case of better late than never for the Gaelic footballers of Dublin who were yesterday crowned as the All-Ireland champions of 1921 at Croke Park.
The score-line of 1-9 to 0-2 was a measure of Dublin’s superiority over their Mayo opponents, but this was a game that, notwithstanding the favourable weather and fine field, never rose to a standard that would enthuse the neutral.
Indeed, Mr. P. Burke, a Tipperary pressman, has written in the Independent that this was one of the worst finals ever witnessed and that both teams did not give the previous year’s winners, Tipperary, ‘ten minutes warm football. ’
This is perhaps unfair to the victors whose win was built upon a strong defence, the foundation of which was goalkeeper, P. Fallon, who is the sole survivor from the last Dublin team to win an All-Ireland back in 1908. Whereas the honour of selecting that Dublin team fell to the Geraldines club, on this occasion the selection responsibilities fell to 1921 county champions, St. Mary’s. Yesterday’s final was played before a poor enough crowd of 15,000 spectators, the majority of them travelling from the west. It was noticeable that fewer clergy and women were represented among the attendance, but politicians were still plentiful.
A spectator’s view provided in this morning’s Irish Independent suggests that the forthcoming election may have been a factor in the healthy political turnout as, apparently, ‘all Irish politicians suddenly discover in such a crisis that they have been life-long patrons of Irish games.’ The fixture also saw the St. John Ambulance Brigade deployed for the first time in a big match and their services were required on a number of occasions during the game.
[Editor's note: This is an article from Century Ireland, a fortnightly online newspaper, written from the perspective of a journalist 100 years ago, based on news reports of the time.]
