From glamour to controversies, new book shines light on history of the All Stars

Next week, it will mark its 50th anniversary. The first All Stars were presented this month in 1971. It is an unfortunate reality that Covid has completely disrupted both the 50th awards 12 months ago and now, their golden jubilee. Any plans for a commemorative tour and gala evenings to celebrate the anniversary have had to be shelved for both years.

By the weekend after next the land will thrum to the assorted dissatisfactions with the selections of many of those interested in the games. The criticisms will not always be polite and certainly not always rational but they will be testimony to the enduring interest in the All Stars.

The public is more informed these days. Fifty years ago, the status of the national media GAA correspondents was remarkably elevated by today’s standards. They were also the only ones who got to see a sufficiently broad palate of matches to be in a position to make the call on teams of the year.

By today's standards the idea of a cigarette company, Carrolls, associating itself with sports awards is hilarious

In those days there weren’t any local radio stations and so the appetite for the games all around the country was yet to be fully satisfied.

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Now there are vast amounts of the intercounty season broadcast live and people have better data to make up their own minds, which the majority manage to do without finding it necessary to impugn the motives or intelligence of the selectors.

One of the commemorative events, which has gone ahead is the publication of the book, All Star Gazing by Moira and Eileen Dunne, daughters of Mick Dunne, the former RTÉ and Irish Press Gaelic games correspondent, who was the driving force behind the scheme, founded in conjunction with Paddy Downey (The Irish Times), Pádraig Puirséal (Irish Press) and John D Hickey (Irish Independent).

By today’s standards the idea of a cigarette company, Carrolls, associating itself with sports awards is hilarious but maybe the same will be said in time to come of the alcohol sponsorships that the GAA dropped only in recent years.

The book captures the unlikely glamour of the whole thing. At first some players were relatively unmoved by being selected as All Stars. The whole thing was new and it was hard for some to distinguish between it and being asked to play for an invitation team, as Meath’s Pat Reynolds tells the authors.

If there was any doubt that this was a different matter entirely, the publicity campaign by Carrolls made clear that the All Stars were an entirely new level of recognition. Black-tie evenings weren’t common entries in players’ diaries in 1971 and the social whirl around the night in the Intercontinental Hotel (later Jurys) was “something special” to quote Limerick’s Eamonn Cregan.

Then taoiseach Jack Lynch attended to present the statuettes, which had been the work of Ireland’s best-known sculptor Gary Trimble, and he would be a regular guest at the awards, including the week he resigned in 1979 when he told the assembly that he “was back with his own”.

As it happens I was there for that. On college vacation I had a kitchen porter job in the Jurys kitchen and was trundling the crockery off to dishwashers as the courses were consumed. Anyway, I would go on to have worse nights at the All Stars.

The book deals with various controversies that arose throughout the decades, most calamitously the omission of Hurler of the Year Brian Whelahan from the 1994 hurling team. There were a number of issues and having written about it previously I won’t repeat myself beyond pointing out that a number of spoiled votes were nonetheless counted.

There was no post-mortem, as the Bank of Ireland was withdrawing from the All Stars to concentrate on its new role as title sponsors of the football championship.

Powerscreen took over the awards scheme and decided with the evident approval of the GAA to ditch the journalists, who had originated the whole thing, and base the All Stars on a vote of intercounty players.

It wasn’t deemed a success after two years and with new sponsors Eircell on board, the journalists were brought back – only after we had insisted on an end to the secret ballot, which had facilitated the Whelahan fiasco and the abolition of the rule that any sending-off would automatically breach the sportsmanship rule and therefore disqualify a player.

It includes, for the first time, a comprehensive list of not just award-winners but All Star nominations and makes good use of Mick Dunne's scrupulous personal archive

As someone with a ringside seat for the whole pantomime, I would take issue with the comments of former director general Liam Mulvihill that the journalists “were happy to withdraw at that stage” and “relieved not to have to pick the All Stars and . . . glad that they couldn’t be blamed”.

Perhaps he was talking to different selectors but any of them that I knew were very unhappy with the power grab that had removed us from a scheme that had been created and maintained by journalists and well used to being blamed – a risk we were happy to resume when the scheme got back on track.

That quibble aside, this is a nicely produced and worthwhile publication. It includes, for the first time, a comprehensive list of not just award-winners but All Star nominations and makes good use of Mick Dunne’s scrupulous personal archive.

There is a wealth of interviews with a range of award-winners from the start up until the present and a definitive charting of how a scheme to recognise players became over 50 years an institution that continues to engage and at times infuriate.

All Star Gazing: 50 years of the GAA All Stars by Moira Dunne and Eileen Dunne; €24.99 in most book shops

smoran@irishtimes.com