As I Roved Out: All-Ireland Hurling Final Diary
Happiness is.....Leo McGough and his brother Michael revel in the glow of Clare's minute after the final whistle of last Sunday's amazing All-Ireland final in Croke Park
With the week’s that in it your scribe indulges his Clare inclinations with diary entries on milestone dates in his personal hurling history …
It was a diary that sparked my interest in the All-Ireland hurling final and it’s all got to do with my Holy Communion suit! You see I made my communion in 1968 and the suit for the occasion – short trousers and all! – had in the jacket pocket a free diary which, if memory serves me correctly, had a sky blue cover.
What I am certain of is that that diary contained on one of the small pages inside an All-Ireland senior hurling and football Roll of Honour, the name of the county, their number of titles and the years they won them all neatly noted. I was mad keen to update it and so at eight years of age I became aware that you had to wait until the first Sunday of September for the All-Ireland hurling final. As it turns out that week-end the McGough family were down in Inagh, Co Clare as the parents visited their parents.
Neither set of Grandparents had a television and indeed televisions were few and far between in the small village while the two pubs were obliged to close between the hours of two and four. The morning of the match I remember going to early mass in Inagh and afterwards Daddy buying the ‘Sunday Independent’ upon which on the front and back were huge half-page colour photos of Wexford and Tipperary, the purple and gold, the blue and gold particularly striking as most papers only carried black and white photo’s at that time.
This impressed on a small child that this hurling final was very important indeed and I was delighted when I heard my cousin Patsy, a hurling fanatic, making arrangements for us to watch the match in the Priests house behind the church. Dinner was eaten in a state of high excitement and the two mile walk down to the village was slowed by my constantly checking that the diary was safely in my trouser pocket along of course with the pen that was going to etch in 1968 behind either Wexford or Tipperary.
Years after I read of people gathering in houses all over the country to hear Mícheál Ó hEithir’s radio commentaries and I imagine this gathering in the Priests house in Inagh was something very similar. The ‘parlour’ was packed, mainly with old men (many were probably only in their 20’s or 30’s but old to me!) and while I don’t remember much about the match itself I do remember the Priest himself, a Fr. Ryan, a Tipperary man getting some gentle slagging from the Clare natives/ Wexford won the day and with serious intent I immediately promoted them from 4 to 5 in the diary’s roll of honour.
1968 was also the year I became a devout Clare hurling supporter as in the Spring of that year I listened with my father on the wireless in Brownes Hill to Clare playing Kilkenny three times in the National Hurling League semi-finals and 56 years later without resorting to the archives I can recall the three scorelines, 3-8 apiece, 2-10 apiece, 1-11 to 1-7 for the Cats. One those games I watched highlights of on a black and white television in neighbouring Guard McGrath’s house.
It was from that same Holy Communion Diary I learned Clare won the All-Ireland Senior Hurling Championship in 1914 and, not yet 10 but already ‘into history’ and records, I experienced the thrill of seeing my name in print on a newspaper for the first time when my query to name the Clare team that won that 1914 title and who captained the team was published and answered in ‘Question Box’ on the sports pages of Friday’s ‘Irish Independent’. A further thrill awaited when a letter arrived to Brownes Hill from a brother of Sham’ Spellissey who was on that victorious Clare team pointing out that the newspaper answer contained an error, ’that E Grady should have read E Grace’. It was from that 1914 query that my fascination with team line-outs was born with the search for christian names, the players clubs and who scored blossoming into the ‘Flagship Hurlers’ project which is a complete record of every county’s flagship hurling team. In the 1980s writing a column called ‘D’arcy Says …’ for the Clare Supporters Club magazine I was delighted to reveal in an ‘Unsung Heroes’ piece that that 1914 team had called on the services of two substitutes whose names had never been included in the record books. (D’arcy was my Granda McGough’s nickname and coincidentally the two subs in question also had nick-names, John ‘Langer’ Rogers and Paddy ‘Bucky’ Moloney).
The 1978 Munster final. Heartbreak for my father and the legion of Clare supporters who had endured the famine years. Daddy was born in 1924 and was just eight when Clare won the Munster title in 1932. His only recollection of that year was of his father, along with a group of local men, leaving Inagh to cycle the 150 miles to Dublin for the famous Eucharistic Congress religious celebrations.
Clare never won the Munster title again during his lifetime. Joe McGough, died on January 4, 1993, 68 years of age; Clare were crowned Munster champions on July 5, 1995. Munster finals had been reached in 1955, 1967, 1972 (the semi-final my first Clare championship game, a famous victory over Limerick in Ennis) and 1974, Clare’s hopes dashed on all four occasions. Then came that great league team of Seamus Durack, Ger Loughnane, Colm Honan, Michael Moroney and Noel Casey, men who under the tutelage of Fr. Harry Bohan and Justin McCarthy evolved from having a ‘great record in Tulla’(unbeaten on the windswept hill for many years) to having a good record elsewhere, the league final win over Kilkenny in Thurles in 1977 celebrated with much of the passion and exuberance associated with ’95.
But the championship, or rather the Munster championship, remained the Holy Grail and when the saffron and blue won the League again in ’78, Clare people really began to believe that ‘immortality beckoned’. Daddy was one such believer and in the lead up to that Munster final of nigh of 46 years ago fashioned lovely souvenir trophies made of ash with wee bog-oak hurls, a picture of each player on the front. These were trophies he was going to present to the hurlers themselves after the Munster final. Aware of the Clare track record in finals, he penned Munster SHC instead of Munster Senior Hurling Champions on each plaque. Alas, it was a precaution that proved correct. Clare got a standing ovation from their success starved supporters going in at half-time in that Munster final, trailing Cork by just two points, the wind to come in the second half. 30 minutes from glory ….
It was not to be, Cork won 0-13 to 0-11 and went on to complete an All-Ireland three-in-a-row. On the evening of that Munster final, accompanied by my godfather, the late Eamon Horan we visited the Anner Hotel in Thurles and Daddy presented the devastated Clare hurlers with his trophies. God knows what they thought at the time but I am aware that many of those players still have those plaques in their trophy cabinets.
The father never let his hopes get as high after that and though Munster finals were again reached in 1981 and 1986, his heart didn’t appear to be in it the same as ’78 and Limerick and Cork again shattered Clare hopes. When he passed away in January 1993 Charlie Keegan’s obituary in this newspaper was accompanied by a photograph of my father taken with those 1978 Clare trophies.
The first Clare game after my father died, a league game against Galway in Ballinasloe, became part of the grieving process and having stopped with the sister Marianne in Ennis I thumbed to the Galway venue, picked up by a mini-bus carrying a small group of diehard Clare supporters now all gone to their eternal reward. It was on that day a man who was to inspire the Banner to All-Ireland glory both as a player and a manager made his competitive debut. Enter centre-stage Brian Lohan, he of the famed red helmet, low to the ground snatch and inspirational clearances. As a defiant defender and now as an inspirational manager he has stoked the ‘Clare Roar’.
The personal events surrounding the 1995 All-Ireland triumph, their first since 1914, are stories for another day, suffice here to say that that September Sunday when Clare beat Offaly in the All-Ireland final gave our family magical memories to be forever treasured including the fact that my mother’s trip to the Banner for the homecoming was her last visit to her native county, passing away on September 21, 1996.
The Ger Loughnane managed, Anthony Daly skippered Banner win Clare’s third All-Ireland thanks to Jamesie O’Connor’s winning point inching out Tipperary.
A Saturday evening replay and Davy Fitzgerald’s springer Shane O’Donnell scoring 3-3 against Cork makes it All-Ireland No 4 and sets up the ‘Drive for Five …’
They say ‘a picture paints a thousand words’ and for once I agree so for this entry I direct you to the photograph of my brother Michael and myself taken after the final whistle in Croke Park last Sunday and sent to my partner Carmel with just two words: Happiness is …
