Why did Kathryn stumble upon an old GAA medal found exactly 100 years later to the date on the inscription and at a time when she just happened to be crafting presentation medals for the exact same club for the exact same GAA presentation awards on the exact same day?
Coincidence or something more…you decide! This is a story from one of our makers Kathryn Smyth who makes the most amazing GAA jewellery and the story surrounding one very special commission is just as amazing.
100 Year old Midleton GAA Medal found in an old sewing box.
Hi, Kathryn Smyth here
I just have to tell you about this unusual antique GAA medal, and the incredible coincidences connected with it. As a sculptor and jewellery maker with a lifelong love of hurling and Gaelic football, I was asked by Midleton GAA club (Cork) to design presentation pieces for 3 past teams, to be presented at the annual club dinner dance always held on on St Patricks Day. They were commemorating the 50th anniversaries of 2 victorious teams, 1962 & 1963, half a century ago, and also the 25th anniversary of the All Ireland Club winning team of 1988. With the age range being from mid- forties to mid- eighties (quite a span!), I decided that sterling silver tie pins would be the most appropriate. I designed a sterling silver tie pin depicting a specially engraved diamond shaped patch of grass upon which a simplified hurler soloed the sliotar on his hurley while running at full pace- a skill synonymous with hurling.
Tie Pin designed by Kathryn Smyth for Midleton GAA awards 2013
When they were finished I thought that the tie pins would look extra special presented in remodelled sliotars (stitched leather hurling balls), so I set about dismantling the leather ‘Cummins Sports’ sliotars, and removing the solid cores from within. I then replaced them with black velvet covered foam, re-stitched the sides and added some ribbons in the Midleton GAA club colours to use as ties. I must admit that I deeply regretted my decision as the process left the tips of my fingers raw from being pin pricked whilst re-stitching the tough leather balls!! Still, it would be worth it!
As I was stitching another of the leathers by hand I broke my last needle. If only I had an awl! I asked my sister in law next door, if she had one strong enough for the job in hand. She brought me back an old musty box filled with all sorts of bits & bobs & told me to have a rummage in it as I would probably find one in among the odds and ends. It turned out that this was her grandmother’s old sewing box. In among the threads, pins, remnants of wool, bits of cloths, tobacco boxes, old coins, screws, nails, the odd nut, buttons, clips and even shoe horns, I found not one but two awls!! Then something black and unusual caught my eye at the bottom of the ancient box. It was a piece of badly tainted metal. Curiosity alone led me to ask if I could use my jewellery polishing products to clean it up to see what it was. My sister in law laughingly told me to take it away and was highly tickled at the idea!
Detail on back of medal showing the 1913 date and jewellers stamp.
Remodelled Sliotars used to house the sterling silver awards designed by Kathryn Smyth Jewellery
So I set to work and slowly it emerged that what I had found was a beautiful sterling silver medal! Even more surprising was that it turned out to be a GAA medal from 1913, EXACTLY 100 years before. I checked with all the family but nobody knew anything about the existence of the medal or its recipient. My husband’s mother was an only child; his father played hurling with Cloyne, another GAA club, so it wasn’t him. Who could have been presented with this and why, in all that time, had nobody found this medal? Had it lain hidden in the bottom of a musty sewing box for all of those 100 years? Stranger still that it was found 100 years to the very day, at a time when I was just completing design pieces for the very same club for very same presentation reason, at the very same time of year- 17th March , better known worldwide as St Patricks Day! Yet nobody even knew it existed or where it had come from or who had been honoured with it!!
I discovered from a knowledgeable friend, (a jewellery maker and master engraver with a huge interest in history and hallmarking), that the medal was even more unusual in that it was made during a very difficult time in Irish history and the particular jeweller who made the item had at the time, refused to recognise the power of ‘foreign invaders’(Britain) controlling the Assay Office in Dublin Castle. He would not pay their tax for stamping his work so, in protest, he refused to send it and just marked all his own work himself here in Cork. However he had sent this particular piece, most probably to antagonise them as it was a winner’s presentation piece for a truly Irish sport, our national game, Gaelic to the core and as such frowned upon by Dublin Castle at that time!!
We decided to bring the medal with us to the club presentation night in Midleton GAA Club in the hope that some of the older club members might be able to shed some light on my find. The presentation of the tie pins nestled within the sliotars went down so well with the recipients and I was delighted that my work and novel idea with the sliotar cases was such a conversation point!
The presentation tie-pin in the sliotar case
After the formal dinner, a group photo was taken of the award winners, my husband included, following which we showed our find to the organisers. They were amazed as just that very day someone had handed in an old photo they had accidently come across. They pointed to the wall and we looked up, and there within touching distance was the framed photo… of the 1913 winning team! We checked the names, and looking straight back at us was Tom Donovan, a grand-uncle of my husband! You could even tell they were related! The mystery of the medal was solved but we were left wondering if Tom had actually been trying to tell us this all along! Either way he was very much part of those celebrations. Sometimes fact is stranger than fiction.
It was as if Tom Donovan was staring right at me from out of the old photograph .
Midleton Junior GAA Team 1913
Kathryn Smyth
See more of Kathryns’ GAA designs here http://bit.ly/1tZfEZc
