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GRANGEMOCKLER

CO. TIPPERARY · IE

Grangemockler
Gráinseach Mochláir, Co. Tipperary

The Ireland's Ancient East
STOP 05 / 05

Gráinseach Mochláir · Co. Tipperary

A crossroads village with a stand named after it in every GAA county in Ireland.

Grangemockler is a small crossroads village in south-east Tipperary, on the N76 between Carrick-on-Suir and Callan. Two hundred people, a church, a pub, the GAA club, the road. There is nothing unusual about this description except for one fact that changed the geography of every GAA ground in Ireland.

On 21 November 1920 - Bloody Sunday - British forces entered Croke Park in Dublin during a Gaelic football match between Tipperary and Dublin and opened fire on the crowd. Fourteen people were killed: thirteen civilians and one player. The player was Michael Hogan, a corner-back from Grangemockler. He was twenty-four. The Gaelic Athletic Association named the main stand at Croke Park after him, and it has carried his name through every subsequent rebuilding. Every All-Ireland final is played in the shadow of that name. The village that produced him is small enough to walk in five minutes.

Pat O'Callaghan, the double Olympic hammer champion of 1928 and 1932, had strong connections to south Tipperary and the parish here, though he was born at Derrygallon near Kanturk in Co. Cork. The GAA club is Grangemockler-Ballyneale. The landscape is quiet Golden Vale farmland rolling toward the Suir valley. Come because the Hogan story demands it be visited, not because there is a great deal to arrange.

Population

~200

Walk score

Village in five minutes; the road to Carrick in less

Coords

52.3983° N, 7.4983° W

01 / 05

At a glance.

Three things every local will eventually mention. Read these and you've already understood more than most day-trippers do.

01 Michael Hogan

Shot dead at Croke Park. The stand bears his name.

On 21 November 1920, British forces opened fire on the crowd during a Gaelic football match at Croke Park, Dublin. Fourteen people were killed. One of them was Michael Hogan, a Tipperary player from this parish. The Hogan Stand has carried his name ever since.

Stories & lore → 02 St Mary's Church

The parish church above the village.

St Mary's Catholic Church sits above the crossroads, the kind of solid rural parish church that anchors this part of south Tipperary. The Hogan connection gives it a weight most country churches don't carry.

Stories & lore → 03 South Tipperary

Suir country, between Carrick and Callan.

Grangemockler sits on the N76, the road that links Carrick-on-Suir south-east to Callan in Kilkenny. Quietly agricultural country - the kind of south Tipp townland landscape that produced players and fighters in roughly equal proportion.

Walks & outings →

02 / 05

Stories & lore.

The reason to come back. The things every local will eventually tell you about, usually after the second pint.

Bloody Sunday, 21 November 1920

Michael Hogan

Michael Hogan was a corner-back on the Tipperary Gaelic football team. On the morning of 21 November 1920, IRA units in Dublin killed fourteen British intelligence officers - a coordinated operation directed by Michael Collins. That afternoon, the Royal Irish Constabulary Auxiliary Division entered Croke Park where Tipperary were playing Dublin, and opened fire on the crowd and players. Thirteen spectators and one player were killed. The player was Michael Hogan, aged twenty-four, from Grangemockler. The GAA named the principal stand at Croke Park - rebuilt and expanded multiple times since - the Hogan Stand. It holds over 16,000 people today. His name is announced at every major match played there. He had played his last game in the parish he grew up in.

A name on every match day

The Hogan Stand

The original Hogan Stand was built in 1924, four years after the killings. A two-tier replacement, opened in 1959, held around 16,000 people. The current three-tier structure - the one seen on television at every All-Ireland final - was completed in the early 2000s as part of the Croke Park redevelopment. When the ground is announced, when the attendance is read out by stand, the name Hogan is said. It has been said tens of thousands of times since 1924. The village it refers to is on the N76 between Carrick-on-Suir and Callan, and most people who say the name have never been here. That is not a complaint. It is simply the arithmetic of what a name does when it outlasts its owner.

Olympic gold, south Tipp connection

Pat O'Callaghan

Pat O'Callaghan was born at Derrygallon near Kanturk, Co. Cork, in 1906. He won the Olympic hammer throw at Amsterdam in 1928 - Ireland's first ever Olympic gold medal - and retained it at Los Angeles in 1932. His connections to south Tipperary were real: he trained, competed and spent significant time in the Grangemockler-Carrick-on-Suir area, and the parish claims him with the easy authority of a county that knows how to count athletes. He is not buried here. He is not from here. But the association is genuine, and in a village this size, genuine association is the same as belonging.

03 / 05

When to go.

There is no bad time. There are different times.

Spring

Mar-May

The south Tipp roads are quiet and green. Carrick-on-Suir is twelve minutes by car and has everything you need for a night out.

◉ Go

Summer

Jun-Aug

GAA season. The club grounds are active. The landscape is at its easiest to walk. No crowds at any time of year.

◉ Go

Autumn

Sep-Oct

All-Ireland final month is September - a good time to think about where the name Hogan Stand comes from and make the drive out here before the trophy is lifted.

◉ Go

Winter

Nov-Feb

Very quiet. The church and the village are accessible. Come for the story, which is season-proof. Don't expect open doors.

◐ Mind yourself

04 / 05

What to skip.

Honestly? Don't bother.

If a local was sitting beside you, this is the bit where they'd lean in.

Treating this as a tick-box on the Carrick-on-Suir day-trip

If you drive twelve minutes out of Carrick, stop at the church, and drive back in fifteen, you have been here without arriving. The Hogan story takes longer than that to sit with.

Expecting a heritage centre or interpretive trail

There is none. The village is the memorial. The GAA club is the living institution. The Hogan Stand is in Dublin. Come with what you know, not with the expectation that someone will explain it to you on a panel.

Getting there.

By car

Grangemockler is on the N76, 12km north-west of Carrick-on-Suir and about 15km south of Callan in Kilkenny. From Clonmel, allow 25 minutes north-east via the R697 through Killenaule country. From Kilkenny city, come south on the N76 via Callan - about 40 minutes.

By bus

No direct bus service. Carrick-on-Suir is the nearest hub with Bus Éireann connections to Clonmel, Waterford and Kilkenny. A car is the practical option.

By train

Nearest station is Carrick-on-Suir on the Waterford-Limerick Junction line. About 12km by road from the village.