Clare GAA president Tom Malone died last week. In a series of wide-ranging interviews with Joe Ó Muircheartaigh, the Miltown man reeled in the years of his lifelong obsession with the Gaelic Games and much more.

THAT hoary old cliché of ‘fíór Ghael’ was lobbed onto Tom Malone’s lap many times over the years. It wasn’t the easy way out to explain the man’s passion, just the only way as he clocked up another milestone come Clare GAA convention time.
At the last and final count, Malone had attended 72 consecutive conventions – from the cold flag floor days of Ennis Courthouse, on to the Temperance Hall and the Queen’s Hotel and through to the West County or Auburn Lodge in recent years.
Wasn’t just GAA though – it was only part of the story. There were other strands in business, others in sports like cycling, terrier and flapper racing, music and republicanism as evidenced by the decommissioned IRA guard of honour over his grave in Ballard Cemetery on Friday last.
“I was involved in a lot of things,” he revealed in conversation a few years back. “I’d always take a chance.”
So it was when Malone set up his own GAA club, 72 years ago on May Day, 1936.