When visitors to Croke Park take the official tour, someone usually points to the Railway End of the u-shaped stadium and asks, “When are you going to fill in the gap?”
“That’s Hill 16,” says the tour-guide.
“Oh. That’s Hill 16? Oh. Okay. Wow.”
Three parts of the horseshoe stadium — the Hogan Stand, Cusack Stand, and Canal End — rise magnificently into the Dublin skyline. The GAA broadly planned for Croke Park to assume the bowl structure of sporting landmarks like Giants Stadium in New Jersey. Three-quarters of Croke Park resemble this vision. One end remains a vision of the past.
Croke Park is as much about the past as the present. It is monument to a sense of Irish identity, spiritually if not literally, built over bodies and bullets. The Hogan Stand is named after Michael Hogan, the Tipperary captain who died on Bloody Sunday, November 20, 1920. Along with 12 others, Hogan was murdered when British forces invaded the ground and attacked players and supporters.
But ‘Headquarters’ is not just a playing field. It is also a registered limited company. A place of hospitality suites, pop concerts, corporate patrons and VIPs. Amazingly the GAA has balanced football tradition and corporate attentions successfully. While a relic of the past, for better or worse Hill 16 is trying to move forward.
The steel fixtures on the Hill are shiny. The paint is fresh. Access areas are well designed. The 13,000 people inside can be evacuated in under eight minutes. It is — as terraces go — a thoroughly modern structure. But still underneath remains evidence of the most dramatic days in Ireland’s history.
For a short time, the Railway End was a mound of earth known as Hill 60, after a 60-metre-high hill fought over at the battle of Suvla Bay in the Great War. When Sackville Street was in ruin following the 1916 Rising, it was decided that the debris would be used at Croke Park. Hill 60 was levelled. Hill 16 rose on the bedrock of revolution.
The famed terrace has always lagged behind the rest of the stadium. It was only in 1936, when the Cusack Stand became two-tiered and seated 5,000, that the turf and mud of Hill 16 was replaced with concrete terracing.
Not much changed until the football final of 1983. Dublin beat Galway, but the day was overshadowed with concerns for crowd safety, particularly on the Hill. Overcrowding and thuggish elements led to surges and scuffles. Focused on safety, the GAA directed a reconstruction of Hill 16. The work was completed in 1988, allowing a capacity of 10,000 spectators.
The GAA then looked towards the rest of the ground, and initiated plans for full redevelopment of Croke Park. This involved once again a redesign of Hill 16. The new version was officially opened on March 14, 2005.
Marcus De Burca is the official GAA historian. A Dubs supporter, he recalls standing on the Hill in his teens. “In the 1930s, when I stood there, I stood on the rubble of the Rising,” he says. From a staunch GAA family, De Burca is happy with the redevelopment. “Though I’m keen to see the first day when the Dubs play there,” he laughs. As ever with Croke Park though, the past is never far away. Enthusing happily about the new stadium, De Burca slides into the story of how his father — “a man with minor IRA connections … he had a revolver” — escaped capture on the Bloody Sunday of 1920. De Burca’s father ran into a garden on Clonliffe Road and joined a group of men playing cards. De Burca sat down and took a hand. Someone took away his coat and revolver, and hid them in the house. Someone else poured him tea and gave him a cigarette. Not a word was spoken until the British search party had passed.
A Belgian company is currently working to build a giant TV screen above the Hill. On matchdays, the whole of the stadium will look towards Hill 16. More than just a few will be looking with envy. Croke Park has a capacity of over 82,000. The Hill holds 13,000. It has become — in more ways then one — the most exclusive part of the stadium.