Pairc an Chrocaigh - before 1959

By a deed dated 10th December 1829, the Venerable John Torrens and Rev. Henry Brownrigg leased to John Bradley "an orchard, dwellinghouse, yard and garden together with the fields adjoining" containing twelve acres and twenty four perches statute measure. The land was described as being “on the east side of the Royal Canal and on the north side of Ballybough Lane in the Barony of Coolock, Parish of Saint George and county of Dublin.” The lease was for five hundred years from 29th September 1829 and the rent seventy-five pounds a year.

By another deed of 16th April 1864, Robert Fowler leased to Maurice Butterly a plot containing 21 acres, one rood and 12 perches stature measure for five hundred years from 1st May 1863, at the rent of £175 a year. This land was described as being “on the south side of Clonliffe Road in the parish of Saint George and county of Dublin.”

The two plots of ground comprised in these two leases were adjoining. In the course of time they were acquired by the one owner. The two deeds referred to are the Association’s roots of title to Croke Park.
From time to time the area comprised in the two leases was reduced by lettings for buildings and by the compulsory acquisition of the portion by the railway wall and at the canal end by the then Midland Great Western Railway Company and the Great Southern and Western Railway Company. The rents were at the same time reduced or adjusted. The history of these transactions is long and involved.

Coming down to more recent times we find that in 1894 a company called the City and Suburban Racecourse and Amusements Grounds Limited was incorporated. That company purchased the property in the same year. For some years it let the grounds for sports meetings and whippet racing, a sport that had a brief popularity in Dublin. But the company proved to be a financial failure and in 1900 it decided to wind up. Meantime the Company had on various occasions let the grounds to the GAA. The first All-Ireland finals were played there in March 1896, when the finals for 1895, both in hurling and football, were played on the same day.

The property was put up for auction in 1906. It was described in the auctioneer’s advertisement as then consisting in all of 14 acres and 171/2 perches held as to portion under the lease of 1829 and as to the rest under the lease of 1864, the total rents payable being then £93 17s 10d.

By a deed of the 17th December 1908, the property was conveyed to Frank Brazil Dinneen, described as of Albert Villas, in the city of Dublin, for £3,250. What he purchased was the Croke Park grounds (as it is now) and also the Belvedere grounds adjoining the boundary wall on the Cusack Stand side. At that time it was all one ground, with no boundary wall between.

A word about Frank B. Dinneen. A native of Ballylanders, he was employed in the ‘Freeman’s Journal’. He was one of the best sprinters in the country in the eighties. He has been all his life active in the GAA and at different times held the offices of Vice President, President, Secretary of the Association, Handicapper and President of the Athletic Council (the Council which controlled athletics and cycling before the GAA handed over jurisdiction to the National Athletic and Cycling Association of Ireland on the formation of that body in 1922). He wrote the Gaelic column for ‘Sport’, the weekly papers published by the Freeman’s Journal company. He died in April, 1916.

Mr Dinneen’s purpose was not to make profit out of the purchase but to hold the place for the GAA. At that time the GAA’s finances did not permit it to think of taking over the place. Meanwhile, Mr Dinneen had to borrow money to purchase and hold it. In 1910, he was compelled in order to reduce the debt due to the bank by way of mortgage on the premises to sell four acres and two roods to the Jesuit Fathers for the sum of £1090. The sale was carried out by a lease of this plot, now the Belvedere College sports grounds, for the entire of the period covered by the lease, subject to a rent of £30 a year payable by the Jesuit Fathers.

In 1913 the Central Council promoted inter county competitions in hurling and football to raise funds to erect a memorial to Archbishop Croke. The original intention was to put up a monument in Thurles. The competitions were, however, such a financial success that it was decided, in addition to the monument in Thurles, to purchase the Jones’s Road ground from Dinneen and to re-name it Croke Park. Dinneen was quite agreeable. He made no profit out of his purchase or sale.

By a deed of 18th December, 1913, he conveyed his interest in the premises to Trustees of the Association. The purchase price was £1,500 in cash. The purchasers also had to assume liability for £2,000 charged on the premises, the amount of a mortgage which Dinneen had had to raise with the Munster and Leinster Bank.

The trustees to whom the Park was conveyed were: Dan Fraher of Dungarvan; Michael F. Crowe of Dublin; Luke J. O’Toole of Dublin; Alderman James J. Nowlan of Kilkenny; Tom Kenny of Craughwell; John J. Hogan of Dublin; Patrick Whelan of Newbliss; John E. Malone of Ennis; and John Collins of London.

On 7th September 1914, the Gaelic Athletic Association Limited was incorporated as a company. (It is not generally remembered that there are two distinct bodies - the Gaelic Athletic Association, the body which controls the games and competitions and which is unincorporated, and the Gaelic Athletic Association Limited, the incorporated body which owns Croke Park). Some three months later, on 14th December 1914, the trustees to whom Dinneen had conveyed the place, formally assigned it to the new company.

Such in brief is the history of the title to Croke Park, the name by which the Jones’s Road premises has been known since it was purchased from Dinneen in 1913.

The deed by which the place was conveyed to the trustees by Dinneen has a map showing two stands on the Jones’s Road side, one described as a “grand stand” at the Clonliffe Road end and the other, nearer to the canal, described simply as “stand”. The grand stand was simply a fragile timber pavilion with an office underneath. The other stand was later developed into what became known as the Long Stand.

The subsequent landmarks in the history of Croke Park may be briefly summarised. About 1917 the hill now known as ‘Hill Sixteen’ was built up from rubble, mostly supplied by builders clearing O’Connell Street after the destruction of 1916. It was in fact first known as ‘Hill Sixty’, the name of a hill in France which had become famous during the 1914-1918 war because it had been captured and re-captured so often that it was reduced to rubble. In later times Croke Park hill became more appropriately known to an affectionate public as Hill Sixteen.

Croke Park will of course, be for all time associated with Bloody Sunday, 21st November 1920. On that morning during the War of Independence, almost the entire British Secret Service in Dublin was wiped out by the Irish forces who swooped upon the spies in their different lodgings. As a reprisal, the British military and the British auxiliary forces, accompanied by an aeroplane and by armoured cars, surrounded Croke Park while a challenge football match was in progress between Dublin and Tipperary.

They reached the Park about seven minutes after the match had started and without warning, poured volley after volley into the crowd of spectators, who numbered about six thousand. Michael Hogan, one of the Tipperary backs, was shot dead on the field of play. Twelve other people were also murdered and many were wounded.

In 1924 the first revived Tailteann Games - a week of hurling, football, camogie and other competitions - were held in Croke Park and for the occasion the first Hogan Stand was erected, named in honour of Michael Hogan. The second and third Tailteann Games were also held in Croke Park in 1928 and 1932, after which the festival lapsed. Croke Park continued to be the venue of many notable athletic and cycling sports, including a number of international contests, until in the early thirties it was decided to reserve the ground solely for hurling and football.

In January 1936, after an exchange of small strips of ground between Croke Park and the Belvedere authorities, the contract was signed for the building of the Cusack Stand. Because the ground was not available owing to the building operations, the 1937 hurling final between Tipperary and Kilkeny was played in Killarney, the only hurling final played outside of Croke Park since 1909.

The next big job undertaken was the building of the terracing at the canal end. That was in 1949. Subsequently the Corner Stand was erected in 1952.

In recent years, the Association has been able to acquire a number of the houses in Jones’s Road, fronting Croke Park, together with their garden plots. It was essential to take this step in order to provide proper approaches to the Park in its new setting; without these houses it would have been impossible to erect the new Hogan Stand in the manner in which it has been done. When the area covered by these houses is taken into account, the total size of Croke Park is approximately eleven statue acres.

The Rateable Valuation of Croke Park is £1,050, so that it pays in rates alone over £2,000 a year.
At the beginning of 1957 the vast scheme for the rebuilding of the Hogan Stand was begun. Its completion is marked by today’s ceremonies.

Taken from the programme to mark the offical opening of the new Hogan Stand during the 75th year of the GAA’s hsitory on June 7th, 1959.