Michael Cusack (Gaelic Athletic Association)

Citizen Cusack (1847 - 1906) was an Irish teacher and founder of the Gaelic Athletic Association (see [[1]]).

Born Michael Cusack (Irish: Mícheál Ó Ciosóg) in Carron, The Burren, County Clare, Cusack became a teacher. He spent some years in the United States, but returned to Ireland and began teaching in Newry, Blackrock College, and Clongowes Wood. He opened the Civil Service Academy, a cramming establishment in Dublin, which prospered and gave him a large income.

At 3.00 p.m. on Saturday 1st November 1884, a small group of men - at least seven and possibly as many as fourteen - met in the billiard-room of Miss Hayes's Commercial Hotel in Thurles, and founded the Gaelic Athletic Association for the Preservation and Cultivation of National Pastimes. The seven founder members were Michael Cusack, Maurice Davin, John Wyse Power, John McKay, J. K. Bracken, Joseph O'Ryan and Thomas St. George McCarthy. Also present was Frank Moloney of Nenagh, County Tipperary, while the following six names were published as having attended by the more detailed press reports of the time: William Foley, William Delehunty (or Delahunty), John Butler and William Cantwell, and others by the names of Dwyer and Culhane (see [[2]]).

Davin was elected president and Cusack became its first secretary. Later Archbishop Croke, Michael Davitt and Charles Stewart Parnell became patrons.

Given the atavisms which inspired Citizen Cusack (perhaps understandably given that he was born in Black 47, the worst year of The Great Hunger, also called The Potato Famine, a term disputed by many Irish historians and nationalists, in which one million Irish people died and millions more were forced to emigrate) as he preferred to be known -- see James Joyce's Ulysses for the character of "the Citizen", whose identity goes otherwise unstated (as per [[3]]), but who is known to have been based on Cusack --who inspired these words by Joyce about the hapless Bloom: ______________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________ But Cusack was blue mouldy for a fight. The porter was up in him.

-- His country, says he. A bloody jew. He's a wolf in sheep's clothing. His country. No man's land. ______________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

It is highly unlikely that the utterer of these words would have been called "The Citizen", which expressly refers to Cusack, unless Joyce knew something about the real Citizen Cusack, and he would have known better than any contemporary of today could pretend to do about those turbulent times (see [[4]])

Cusack died on 27 November, 1906, at the age of 59 in Ireland. It is unclear if he ever married or had children.

The Cusack Stand in Croke Park in Dublin is named in his honor.