Last Friday night saw my whole family out for the night. With no plans of my own, I decided I head off to the dogs at Harold’s Cross. Not something I do often, but I have probably gone every couple of months in the decade or so I have been living in Dublin. The bookies were familiar faces, the crowd the usual mix of greyhound regulars, foreign tourists, stag nights and sharp dressed twentysomethings having some fun before they headed off to the clubs.
The night was cold, I wasn’t winning, so after about eight races I headed home and thought nothing more of it. And then the news came that the gates at Harold’s Cross had been permanently locked due to unsustainable debt. The dogs, that had been racing at Harold’s Cross since 1928, would race there no more.
The news saddened me and I was struck with a sense of topophilia: a love of sporting place. Now clearly I didn’t love Harold’s Cross in the way I love my family or my own home, but I felt a sense of loss. I had seen my first dog racing in Ireland at Harold’s Cross in the early 1990s, and always enjoyed the buzz of the place. I have memories of being there on a Grand National night when the place was packed, and also fondly remember youngsters in their Communion clothes placing money with the bookies from their new found wealth.
Harold’s Cross, like all dog tracks, struck me as a place where diverse parts of the community, locals, tourists, greyhound obsessives and the one-off party package goers came together. Everyone had a good time, there was never any trouble and the races came thick and fast. Perhaps I won’t mourn Harold’s Cross, but I will miss its cozy embrace.
Clearly greyhound racing is in a state of decline (not just in Ireland) and the loss of one of the two remaining Dublin tracks was perhaps not that much of a surprise. But our capital city has been very bad at losing and forgetting sporting sites. This is a city that is hugely enamoured of Croke Park and the Aviva (our national stadia), but seems to behave quite fast and loose with the rest of its smaller scale sporting heritage.
For a country that professes to love sport, Ireland, and in particular the capital, have appeared content to let sporting sites disappear into oblivion with barely a whimper of protest. Think about it - Harold’s Cross has staged dog racing for nearly 90 years. Great greyhound stars back to Mick the Miller raced there, tens of thousands of people passed through its gates over the decades and, in non-dog sports, five different League of Ireland teams called the place home over the years.
If anyone suggested that the Church of Christ the King, at Turner’s Cross in Cork, also opened in 1928 (our finest example of an art deco style concrete building) now be closed and demolished, there would be outrage. Why then, given our love of other forms of architecture and historic places, do we value our sporting heritage so little?
Perhaps one problem is a weak sense of place as it relates to sport. This clearly doesn’t apply to the GAA which, at parish level, is deeply rooted in the ground and community. Where a sense of place is weak is in Ireland’s professional sports. Professional rugby is a relative newcomer and the provincial model covers too much geography. Is the Leinster team really representing Leinster? Or Dublin? Or south city Dublin? As such, it doesn’t matter that its home shifts from Donnybrook to the RDS to the Aviva. Fans pragmatically accept the different leagues, competitions and the varying quality of the visitors means that Fortress Aviva as ‘the’ permanent home ground can’t be built.
Likewise in soccer. The League of Ireland has always struggled to win a large, regular following. In Dublin, which is ‘the’ city team? There are simply too many that cover the area in and around the M50. In the coming years we will lose Tolka Park and the Carlisle Grounds, as their clubs either move into ground shares or move on to new stadia. The history and heritage are lost, a sense of place disappears, and few will care. Outside of the GAA, Irish sporting enthusiasms go beyond any sense of local and concentrate instead on the international teams in rugby and soccer. The rest - whether dogs, League of Ireland, race tracks or swimming pools - have all been seen as expendable facilities. And no one, outside a few dedicated aficionados, will defend their home and heritage.
Contrast this lack of love for sporting heritage and place with the recent story of Millwall in south London. Never a fashionable or much loved club, but one that had been located in its home borough for 130 years. Its ground, the New Den was threatened with a compulsory purchase order and enforced move out to suburban south London. Faced with a vociferous campaign from the club, fans, local councillors and Members of Parliament, the purchase order has been dropped and Millwall will stay rooted in their community, in their place. In Ireland, and in particular Dublin, sports grounds have fallen by the wayside for a plethora of reasons over the decades. Financial mismanagement, overzealous developers seeking land, poor leadership from council and government, and a general sense, outside the two national stadia, that everything else is simply too small to be protected.
The closure of Harold’s Cross is a loss to the Dublin sporting scene and to the city’s heritage. The city as a whole needs to rethink its love of place in the sporting sense, and not simply let sites close and slip away. I’d rather Harold’s Cross was there and entertaining people. Now it’s a memory and will soon only traces of it will be found in the archives.
What else has the city lost?
Phoenix Park Racecourse: At the heart of the city's greatest green space, Phoenix Park races was opened for business in 1902 by the Peard family. It was one of Ireland's great flat racing courses, but due to financial problems closed permanently in 1990.
Glenmalure Park: Home to Shamrock Rovers from 1926 to 1987, Glenmalure was one of the most high profile victims of the property speculation of the first Celtic Tiger era. A 20,000 capacity, regular big crowds and some famous European nights all came to an end when the site was purchased for development. It would take another 22 years until Rovers found their next permanent home in Tallaght.
Baldoyle Racecourse: Racing at Baldoyle dated back to the 1840s, and it was one of Dublin's premier tracks that attracted huge crowds from the city to the major holiday meetings. The track ran into trouble in the 1970s when the funds for renewing and updating its various stands weren't available. Baldoyle closed in 1972 and its major title races redistributed to other tracks in the greater Dublin area.
Professor Mike Cronin is Academic Director of Boston College in Dublin and a renowned sports historian.
