“Why are you crying?” my mother asked. “Because Dublin lost,” my 11-year-old self replied. “But you are Tipp,” she said. “No, I am not, I am Dublin.” A tearful exchange in the Hogan Stand on the first Sunday in September 1961 at the end of my fifth All-Ireland hurling final. Having attended all but two since, that little boy is still waiting for Dublin’s next appearance in the sacred final.
We spent every summer on my mother’s childhood farm, in the late 1950s and early 1960s, in Hollyford, west Tipperary with siblings and cousins. We learned how to milk cows and save hay but when that “hay was saved and Cork bet” in Munster finals we travelled through west Tipperary following Sean Treacy’s hurling club as they challenged for junior hurling glory. We found ourselves in Annacarty, Cappawhite, Golden and Dundrum, where hurling was played to the death. Sometimes the rules were obeyed.
Our Uncle Tim, Thady to everybody else, brought six or seven of us to these matches, originally in a horse and trap and later in his upmarket yellow Volkswagen. He was a club mentor walking up and down inside the sideline whirling a hurley above his head, advising friend or foe on the pitch what to do or not do.
Sean Treacy’s was an introduction to the vagaries of club hurling but the real learning was at the county venues where we grew to idealise hurlers such as Jimmy and John Doyle, Donie Nealon, Liam Devanney, Tony Wall and so many others. But they weren’t idealised in 1961. Wall went off injured very early. Devanney moved to centre back and hurled his heart out, preventing the Dublin forwards scoring as much as they might have. He and Tom Ryan won the game for Tipp. Ryan came on as a sub at corner forward. Did he last 10 minutes? No. He and one of our heroes, Lar Foley, got sent off midway through the second half for a shemozzle that I am sure Lar didn’t start. This severely weakened the Dublin defence. That Dublin team included Lar and Des Foley, Noel Drumgoole, the Boothman brothers, Paddy Croke, Des Ferguson and the great Jimmy Gray in goal. They deserved to win Celtic Crosses that day. As it was, the two Foleys and Des Ferguson righted that wrong two years later, but in football, a Dublin reality that’s repeated to this day.
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Growing up in Mount Merrion, as remote from a hurling stronghold as Fermanagh or Fiji, I had a Wexford-born friend who was a serious hurler. One day in the 1960s he was standing at the top of Mount Merrion Avenue, hurl and kit bag in hand when a car stopped and the passenger window was rolled down. My friend stood back, he was streetwise. The driver asked him where he was going, he stood back even farther and muttered “Cuala”, whereupon the driver said he couldn’t believe it, that it was great as in his 40 years living in the area, he had never seen a young lad with a hurley in Mount Merrion or Stillorgan. He didn’t know the future was Kilmacud Crokes.
When my friend was starring for Cuala and Dublin minors along with the Holden brothers, I was playing Dublin B schools hurling with Coláiste Mhuire. One lad on the team reached inter-county level; the rest of us didn’t, which probably explains why in due course he emigrated to Kilkenny. We did reach a final in 1968, which, to the credit of the authorities, was played one morning in Croke Park – my one and only game there, never to be forgotten. Coming off the pitch I was offering autographs but nobody seemed interested. That year a number of us registered as minors with Na Fianna and, to my great delight, our under-18 team was managed by Jimmy Gray, who in the few games I played treated us as All-Ireland material.
The years between 1961 and 2010 were not auspicious. But then, in 2011, under Anthony Daly’s exciting and enthusiastic management, Dublin won the National league and 30 players climbed the steps of the Hogan Stand to hold and wave the cup to the fans on the pitch and those on the Hill – yeah, there were a few of them up there. A league quarter-final against Tipperary in Thurles in the 1990s also comes to mind. Managers such as Foley, Michael O’Grady, Humphrey Kelleher and others sweated blood for the team; Friends of Dublin Hurling ensured that there were always supporters at away games.
Those of us who love Dublin hurling, even if, like me, they are not involved in the club scene, believe that the county’s day has to come. Ballyboden St Enda’s, Cuala, Kilmacud Crokes and Na Fianna have since 2013, as either county champions or All-Ireland champions, produced magnificent hurlers. A lot is to do with the gene pool, blood and inheritance. I’m blessed that three nephews of mine, but more importantly, grandsons of the Tipperary woman mentioned at the start, have won Leinster minor hurling medals separate from each other. The second, Barry, captained the 2007 team; the youngest, Oisín, won two. There followed for him the heartbreak of losing two minor All-Irelands. Thankfully he continued to play on very successfully at club and county level. He is a hero to my grandson Matthew, who a few weeks ago in a Crokes under-nines mini All-Ireland series scored an almighty goal that John Hetherton successfully emulated in that surreal Dublin quarter-final win over Limerick.
It was a joy to observe in 2013 that Dublin had an outstanding team after the League win in 2011. Kilkenny came from behind to draw the semi-final in Croke Park. I was upset that the replay was on the following Saturday in Nowlan Park, as we were booked for a Rod Stewart concert in the RDS that evening.
Trudging off to Ballsbridge, earphones plugged in to RTÉ, I was oblivious to the performance on stage and absorbed by the commentary. When Dublin scored a goal in the final minutes that essentially sealed victory, I jumped to the sky and cheered as Rod did his thing. Neither he nor those around me had any idea what was going on but my bum met the seat before they could call the stewards to remove me. Thankfully my son was at the match in my stead. A highlight of Dublin winning the final a fortnight later was that the Leinster Council president invited Gray to present the cup to the winning captain, Johnny McCaffrey.
What’s to be said about the semi-final against Cork that year, except that Dublin had the winning of it – and of what would have been the subsequent final against Clare – but for Ryan O’Dwyer being sent off after a second yellow card with some time to go. All Dubliners have their views on the first yellow – it shouldn’t have been awarded. What a final it would have been, Anthony Daly v Davy Fitz with the smart money on Daly. It wasn’t to be.
We have a repeat of that semi-final on Saturday evening. Cork again are favourites but I dream Dublin are halfway to winning – it is July, the hay is saved and maybe the Tipperary woman who imbued this love for hurling in us may gently turn in Shanganagh soil, Cuala territory, and say “Come on Dublin, bate Cork”.
Andrew O’Rorke is a former legal adviser to The Irish Times
