Tailteann Cup final another chapter in a long-running story

This Saturday a piece of GAA history will be created when Cavan take on Westmeath in the first Tailteann Cup inter-county senior football final.

The competition was created, of course, to provide a competitive championship football for teams knocked out of the All-Ireland SFC and who played in the lower divisions of the NFL.

All the indications are that GAA supporters in Cavan and Westmeath have bought into the concept and will turn up at headquarters in big numbers for the historic first final.

In Meath we've had our own Tailteann Cup at club level - and it's highly appropriate we should have.

The name Tailteann is of course one long associated with sport in the Royal County.

It was in an area in Teltown near Donaghmore about five or six miles from Navan, where the famous Tailteann Games were held and where the Ronnie Delanys and the John Treacys of the day could showcase their talents to all and sundry.

The games were the forerunners of the Olympics in Greece and they attracted participants, the historians tells us, from all over Ireland over the course of three days.

Whether it is true or legend the story goes that the games originated as a tribute to Taillte, the former wife of a slain Fir Bolg King in ancient Ireland. Taillte chose her burial site at Teltown and requested that trees be cleared to make space for her funeral games. The idea took off and games took place each August.

The games it appear to have taken place until around the late 1160s when the Normans started to arrive and and began to shape those parts of Ireland they controlled to their liking.

The Tailteann Games were revived in 1924. They were meant to showcase an independent, Gaelic Ireland. They were meant also to communicate to the world that Ireland was once more a proud nation. A nation once again.

The ancient Tailteann Games in Teltown took place on land now owned by the family of Philip O'Brien who is well known in GAA circles in Meath.

The opening ceremony of the new games was held before 20,000 spectators in Croke Park in '24 and for a time the tournament was a big attraction. However, in time the concept faded, the games were no longer staged at HQ.

Pairc Tailteann in Navan, previously known as the Showgrounds, was named to commemorate the ancient games in nearby Teltown.

Now the Tailteann Cup will be played back the ground on Jones's Road. History in the making.