Had Robert Louis Stevenson been around this week to meet supporters of the Tyrone football team, he might have revised his view that it is better to travel hopefully than to arrive, writes Chris Dooley.
Travelling hopefully is one thing; travelling interminably and never reaching your destination is another. Last Sunday Tyrone arrived after what must have seemed the longest of journeys. Tomorrow just might be the turn of Ballyskenagh.
Admittedly, the presence of this tiny club in the Offaly senior county hurling final for the first time in its 75-odd years has not yet captured the attention of the nation. But take it from me, it is the most exciting thing ever to have happened in Ballyskenagh.
The word is pronounced, by the way, as Bally-shken-ock, with the emphasis on the final syllable. But explaining the pronunciation is the easy part. Describing how one might actually find Ballyskenagh is a more complicated matter.
It is a rural area in Offaly of about 100 houses, adjacent to the Tipperary border near Roscrea, but you won't find the name on any map: three centuries ago it was renamed Mount Heaton, after being acquired by Richard Heaton, a Yorkshire-born royalist and clergyman - and also a noted botanist.
In due course a hurling club - Mountheaton - was also to bear his name. Founded in 1925, it had one notable success, defeating Eglish to win the South Offaly Junior Championship of 1927. Unfortunately, the Midland Tribune reporter was familiar with the names of the Eglish players only, but managed to provide a balanced account: "For the losers, W. Cunningham played a great game, while Molloy, Burke and Kinsella were conspicuous in their efforts to stem the tide of defeat. All of the winning team played excellently, and seemed to be much quicker than their opponents."
After a two-year lapse in activity, the club was revived in 1942, but this time with the old name of Ballyskenagh. Apparently for economic reasons, the newly constituted club switched counties to North Tipperary, which involved a reduction in distances to matches. The minutes of a club meeting held on June 15th, 1949, give an insight into the importance of such factors. For an upcoming match against Moneygall, eight miles away, "it was decided to take only one car for those who had no bicycles and the rest of the team to cycle".
A successful stint in Tipperary - two junior championships were won - ended in 1961 when a rule was introduced limiting each parish to one club. Ballyskenagh is in the parish of Roscrea, which had a fine hurling club of its own, so it successfully applied to be allowed to compete again in Offaly.
Rival supporters with very long memories love to remind 'Skenagh fans about that historical connection with Tipperary. On the rare occasion when a 'Skenagh player might accidentally strike an opponent, one is liable to hear a provocative jibe about "typical Tipperary hurling" or some such comment.
It is difficult to explain to people who are sane, and whose lives do not revolve around GAA county and club loyalties, why the lowest blow that can be delivered to Offaly hurling supporters is to accuse them of being from Tipperary. But that's the way it is. And the occasional dig about the club's past association with the neighbouring county is just a cross Ballyskenagh supporters have to bear.
My own earliest memories of seeing the team play are from the Offaly championship of the early 1970s. Fitness levels then were not as high as today, but the matches were fiercely competitive - occasionally, too much so.
A newspaper report on one match began: "Ambulancemen making their way through an angry throng, on their stretcher a semi-conscious man with his wounds still bleeding. No, readers, this is not a description of a riot in the North, it happened at the Coolderry-Ballyskenagh senior hurling encounter at the Birr venue last Sunday." Not surprisingly, the match was abandoned and both teams were ejected from the championship.
The club has won many titles over the years, including some at junior, intermediate and under-age levels. It has had great players, such as the current team manager, Paddy Kirwan, who was part of the breakthrough Offaly team which won the All-Ireland final in 1981, and Pat Cleary, man-of-the-match in the follow-up triumph of 1985. But never before has a Ballyskenagh team reached the lofty heights of the senior county final.
'Skenagh's opponents tomorrow will be Birr, the record-breaking All-Ireland club champions, who are chasing their fifth Offaly and third All-Ireland titles in succession.
When the Ballyskenagh players, led by captain David Franks, line up behind the band for the pre-match parade, they will stand alongside some of the greatest hurlers of the modern game, such as Brian Whelahan, the only present-day player to be selected on the official team of the millennium, Johnny Pilkington and Joe Errity.
Ballyskenagh have a few notable players of their own, such as Offaly regulars Franks, Brendan Murphy and Mick O'Hara, but Birr are odds-on favourites.
Whatever the outcome, it will be an emotional afternoon in Birr, where the match takes place. All eyes will be on the pitch, but there will also be thoughts of the great Ballyskenagh hurlers and club activists of the past who strove to achieve a day such as this, but didn't live to see it, my late father prominent among them.
After a 300-year absence tomorrow is the day when, metaphorically at least, Ballyskenagh will be put back on the map.