Therese Crowe

An Interview With The Irish Examiner's 2009 Woman Of The Year

By Mike Fitzpatrick

The Irish Examiner is this week honoring the enormously popular Therese Crowe as the newspaper's Woman of the Year, with a special evening at Chrissy Mac's Downstairs Lounge (situated at 74 Third Avenue, between 11th and 12th Streets) on Thursday, beginning at 5.30pm.

Therese, best known to Gaels throughout the Tri-State area due to her 35-year-long association with the New York G.A.A., in her official capacity as Gaelic Park's nurse, is preparing to leave New York, after forty-seven happy years here.

A glorious day at the Bronx sports venue was never the same without the lively Tipperary woman, rushing onto the field of play to tend to the young men and women injured in the line of action for their clubs and counties.

Never afraid to speak her mind, stand up for her beliefs and follow through with her convictions, Therese Crowe showed her admirable spirit and courageous personality in many a heated debate, be it sporting or otherwise, over the years, as one of the very few women in an organization dominated by men.

Fiercely proud of her Tipperary (and dare we say it, Kerry?!) roots, Therese is the first to admit that she's been spoiled by sporting success over the years but, were she from a less successful county when it came to sporting achievement either in North America or Ireland, one can be sure that she'd show the same amount of enthusiasm when cheering on her teams. In addition to her tireless work with the Tipperary Hurling Club, of which she is currently Vice President, Therese is also a member of the Tipperary N&B Association and the United Irish Counties Association, while also finding the time for dozens of worthwhile charity endeavors.

Having received many awards from the Irish American community over the years, her latest accolade, awarded to her on Thursday evening, will no doubt add to a wonderful lifetime's worth of memories when she finally settles down back in County Tipperary.

We (finally!) caught up with Therese for a quick chat prior to Thursday's festivities.

Irish Examiner (IE): So you're preparing to say goodbye to New York?
Therese Crowe (TC): Well, God was very good to me. I'm 74, I'll be 75 in October, and I'd like to go home. All my family is at home. We have a house at home, and I've a car in the garage, untouched by human hands!

IE: You''re looking forward to going back?
TC: Well yes, I mean, everything is changed now in the G.A.A. To try to keep our culture and our heritage alive, it's all down to politics now. Before, I could curse you into hell and out of it, and two minutes afterwards we'd go inside and have a drink. There's nothing like that anymore. I've never seen so many complaints and objections. They must go through over a hundred objections a week!

IE: You've been in New York some time, and what about the G.A.A.?
TC: 1962 I arrived, and I've been involved in the G.A.A. over thirty years.

IE: How did your involvement with the New York G.A.A. come about?
TC: I'll tell you, I was sitting up in the stands at Gaelic Park. When I came out here, I was working at Saint Francis Hospital in the Bronx, Fort Apache, and I was in the stand, and the next thing was, a fella from Clare got injured. His leg was bent way back from the way he'd been hit, and they went over to pick him up, so I let a shout from the stands! Don't touch him! I came down, and I braced him with a few broken hurleys, and if I hadn't, he'd have had a neck injury and a back injury.

IE: There was nobody else there who could treat him?
TC: No, there was nobody there at that time. So I went in afterwards to have a cup of tea, and as I was coming out, Lord have mercy on him, John 'Kerry' O'Donnell came up to me and said, "Miss, you did a very good job there today," and I didn't know who the hell he was, and he told me he was the owner of the park, and he asked where I was from. So, I told him I was born in Killarney, and of course he was a Kerry man, so he said, "Will you come up here every Sunday?", and I said; "Well, I don't know". Then, as I was going out the gate he shouts after me, "Oh by the way, you don't get paid!" That's exactly what he said to me, and I've been there ever since, thirty odd years later!

IE: So, you were born in Kerry, but you grew up in Tipperary?
TC: No, my mother came from Upperchurch and my father came from Clonoulty, just outside Thurles. Daddy worked on the railway, and I was just two when we left Killarney.

IE: You've always been a Tipperary girl though?
TC: Well, nobody knew I was from Killarney until the night Johnny Phelan was being honored. The next thing was, this man came up to me, and he was from Waterford, and he was a cousin of Johnny's, and he asked me if I'd mind singing the national anthem. And he said, Therese Crowe? You're not from Tipperary. Was your father Jim? And I said yes, and he told me he'd been in my house when I was a baby. See, there was no incubators in 1934, so my mother kept me for six months in front of the fireplace, for my lungs to expand. So, the next thing was, Johnny Phelan got up in front of the whole crowd and said, "So, the biggest mouth from Tipperary, was born in Kerry!", and they all booed me! When Tipperary won their last championship, a long time ago, I was interviewed after the match, and I said, I've the best of two worlds. I've the hurling from Tipperary and the football from Kerry!

IE: So what does Ireland hold for you?
TC: Well, like Dr. Martin Luther King, I have a dream! I'd like to get a piece of land, and be able to build a hospice. I think a hospice should be built in every county. It's a terrible thing, that, if you're down in Thurles, you'd have to go up to Dublin, that's ninety-five miles for cancer treatment. We have one in Limerick, but it's always full. So, you know, there should really be one in every county. I'll get involved in the hospices, and I won't even touch the G.A.A. at home. I wouldn't even last two seconds with them!