The day of the 1980 All-Ireland is a pure haze. It’s an awful thing to lose an All-Ireland. It would nearly affect you for 12 months. It would nearly be a class of an effort to play club matches. You know, you wouldn’t like meeting people. You’d be inclined to keep to yourself. I’d be telling Seamus here. He doesn’t know what it is to lose an All-Ireland.
— John Flanagan, Seamus’ dad
For Limerick’s championship matches the Mams and Dads sit within sight of each other, close enough to see a reflection of the match in every face. They all know now that winning takes care of everything, except the wishing and the worrying. That continues, come what may.
Ger Hegarty says that Mike Nash “pucks every ball, every single ball” and sitting across the table on a perishing evening in Limerick, Nash enters no plea in response to the charge. On match days, Nash and Aaron Gillane’s Dad, Damien, have contrived a piseog, a small placebo for their rattling nerves. “I have to see him,” says Nash, “and he has to see me.”
Brian Finn says the nerves are “getting worse. Worse. I don’t want them to lose, you see. They’re going to lose some time. The fear of losing now is a big factor. I don’t know do the players feel it. I don’t think they do.”
The blood that ties them to this team is an old rope in their lives. On the Limerick team are five sons of former players, more than any other All-Ireland winning team in history: Ger and Gearoid Hegarty; Brian and Sean Finn; Mike and Barry Nash; John and Seamus Flanagan; Tommy and Nickie Quaid. It is another golden thread in their identity.
Between the generations, though, is a canyon in their experience. Only their dreams were the same.
“The one thing they haven’t experienced, and never will, is the hunger we had as supporters,” says Finn. “To be waiting 45 years [for an All-Ireland] is something that shouldn’t have been. They don’t realise what that was like. I don’t think they ever will. You couldn’t. You couldn’t realise it until you’ve lived through all that misery and heartbreak.”
I’d be in the upper side of Feohanagh. Tommy Quaid would have been on the Newcastle side of the parish, a couple of miles away. We were friends all our lives.
Tommy used to give me hurleys. He was a real professional and I was nearly the opposite. Tommy could have five or six hurleys going into any match, and one of them could be as nice as the next. You’d say, ‘How could he come by such nice hurleys?’ But, of course, he’d pick them and do a bit of lightening to them and have them well taped, and he’d have grips, and every whole thing. Other fellas would have two hurleys, but that would be about it.
Tommy started off in goals, because I’ll tell you why. He was quite small when he was young and at that particular time the small man was put into goals so that he wouldn’t get injured. He slept hurling. It was his first love.
We lost more than we ever won. Jesus, we lost a lot of finals together. Minors and Under-21s. We’d be coming home and we might call for a few drinks in Newcastle. Tommy never drank or smoked and then we’d pass his house, and wouldn’t Tommy be out with his hurley. He’d be outside hurling away, and like, it was the furthest thought from our minds – only to come home and drown our sorrows. He was a different breed.
And then one day they brought Tommy out of goal. We were playing a west [Limerick] junior final against Feenagh – 1980 or 81 - and after two draws the selectors came to the decision, if we don’t do something we won’t win this match. I’ll always remember the day. I was playing full-forward inside and Tom Quaid was playing centre field, and he was like a horse that had been inside in a stable and being fed oats. He was unmarkable.
— John Flanagan
Knockout
This is how it started. Finn made his championship debut as an emergency centre fielder against Waterford in 1985, and was left out when Cork riddled them in the Munster semi-final; Ger Hegarty started at centre back against Clare in 1986 and was replaced after 28 minutes, innocent of their second half collapse; Mike Nash was fired into centrefield against Kerry in 1989 and floundered, miles from his natural habitat.
“I got the curly finger after about 20 minutes,” he says. “We were losing. That was me gone for four years.”
Around that time, though, it was easy to make a case for Limerick, if you had a mind to do so. Hegarty’s team had won a minor All-Ireland in 1984 and an Under-21 title three years later; the seniors had won back-to-back National Leagues in 1984 and ‘85. “At the start of every year,” says Hegarty, “I always thought we had a chance.”
In those days losing in the championship was compounded by months of anguished reflection. No backdoor, no round-robin. A shot at redemption was a year away. In that environment, wounding defeats often became infected. Between 1985 and 1993, Limerick won just seven championship matches, two of them against Kerry; this year, their sons won six championship matches in three months.
“I don’t think the modern players get the pressure of knockout championship matches in May,” says Hegarty. “I remember we got beaten by Clare in Ennis in 86. My club was out two weeks later and we got beaten in that as well. That was it. Gone.”
Back then, the championship was more stratified than it is now. Whether you won most of the time, or lost most of the time, the system was sympathetic to the status quo. Limerick were in the squeezed middle class, sometimes living beyond their means.
“I think when we played Tipp in my time we always had a chance – in my head anyway,” says Hegarty. “Cork was the team that used to get inside my head. Cork had this grip on Limerick. The sight of the red jersey just killed us off.”
In reality, their record against Tipp was appalling too: between 1988 and 1991 they lost to them in four consecutive championship matches, by an aggregate of 40 points.
“Look, the late 80s were bleak,” says Hegarty. “You had two or three very dominant clubs in Limerick and I think at that stage a lot of fellas said, ‘Do you know what? Limerick aren’t doing much’ – and they concentrated on their clubs. They were bleak years.”
Hegarty still thinks about a draw against Cork in 1987, when they led in stoppage time and had the game at their mercy. Hegarty was certain he had been fouled in the middle of the field, and was bewildered when the free was given the other way. Then a snooker ball was thrown from the crowd and the game was stopped while the Limerick manager Eamon Cregan brought the incident to the referee’s attention. It might be the only recorded incursion of a snooker ball in a hurling match, ever. More time was added. With the last puck Kieran Kingston struck an equaliser for Cork.
“If we had got to the Munster final we were coming up against a young Tipperary team, who were also trying to make a breakthrough,” says Hegarty. “Who knows what would have happened? Cork destroyed us in the replay.”
“A lot of hard luck stories,” says Nash.
“A lot of hard luck stories,” says Hegarty.
My first year was 1980. I was 24 or 25. Feohanagh were only a junior club at that stage. Sure, you wouldn’t be in the limelight, and maybe not good enough either. My hurling would be very, very limited. I suppose I’d be a good worker alright, but that would be about it.
In 1980 we played Cork in the League final. It went to a replay and Cork won well the second day. We met them again in the Munster final, and after I not playing that great in the League final, there was big pressure to perform. I got sick going to the match. I suppose it was the tension.
We won and I’d say I played well enough. I didn’t score, but I hurled quite well. I remember at one stage ploughing into Martin Doherty when he was coming out with a ball. I wouldn’t be one now, say, to shirk a challenge. Well, he gave me a belt. I don’t think I ever got a belt like it. I thought my jaw was broke. I suppose his shoulder met my face. Oh, he was a strong man.
For the All-Ireland we stayed outside in the Green Isle Hotel. I’m living here in a class of a cul de sac [in the countryside] and I wouldn’t hear a car from one end of the week to another. Between the traffic and the tension I didn’t sleep a wink. There was maybe seven or eight of that team had never played in Croke Park before. It was my first time. Limerick were only beaten by three points but Galway were the better team all through. That’s as near as we got.
— John Flanagan
Can’t forget
“It’s Johnny Dooley who’s going to take it. Will he go for a point? I think he’s been instructed to do so ... He’s going for a goal! And he’s got it!!” – Ger Canning, RTE commentary, 1994 All Ireland hurling final.
Twenty eight years later the scene is still preserved for forensics. No new evidence has emerged. The case has never been closed. They can’t forget. Shrapnel from the blast is lodged in all of them. Embedded for life.
Everything about it is stunning, still. With 64 minutes and 29 seconds on the clock Limerick led the All-Ireland final by five points; when the final whistle blew five minutes and 45 seconds later they had been wiped out: 2-5 without reply.
Look at the replay from the RTE camera hanging on the frame of the goal: for Dooley’s free Mike Nash is the only Limerick defender standing on the goal line. The other five have stepped forward: two paces, three paces, trying to stand square to the angle of Dooley’s shot.
“That was eagerness,” says Nash. “Everyone wanted to stop the ball. Joe Quaid moved out, Ciaran [Carey] moved out. They’re super players, like, super ball stoppers.”
Forty seconds later, Offaly got their second goal. Limerick were still taking a standing count when the haymaker landed.
“It was just a sequence of events,” says Hegarty. “We were in complete control. OK, the [first] goal went in. Joe pucked the ball out to me. I would call for that ball today, tomorrow, next week, the week after, if it was the same circumstances. And every single day Joe would lob that ball down on top of my sconce.
“It slipped through my paw. A great challenge from Michael Duignan. Great challenge. Just got up and ruffled me. Broke the ball away. Before the ball hit the ground it was gone. The next thing I knew the ball was in the back of the net. It was just one of those things. You’ve got to live with it.”
The ball landed beyond the Limerick full-back line, flush into Pat O’Connor’s stride; he met it on the first bounce. O’Connor was Nash’s man.
“We were still shocked after the ball going in [from the free],” says Nash. “We weren’t guarded. Next thing the ball is ...”
“Maybe I called for the ball too quickly as well,” says Hegarty.
“Ah everyone was anxious to go back down the field and score the goal,” says Nash. “That’s what it was about.”
In the time that remained, Quaid landed two more puck-outs on Hegarty; he won them both. On the Limerick team, nobody had a hand like his.
[ Limerick hurlers hope for respite from injuries as they prepare to go againOpens in new window ]
They regrouped, and for a few years in the mid-90s Limerick were serious contenders. They believed Tom Ryan ran a good ship. They adored Dave Mahedy, the team trainer. “Dave was incredibly professional,” says Hegarty. “Dave introduced a level of professionalism that every county embraced afterwards. We had it first in Limerick.”
Nonetheless, nothing was smooth. “There was always aggro,” says Finn.
“There was always some controversy,” says Nash. “You’d come into training and there’d be something – nothing at all to do with us, and nothing at all to do with hurling. You’d get sick of it. They just wanted to get rid of Tom [Ryan]. In 1997, when we won the League, the final was played in October. That was Tom’s last game and it was my last game too.”
Finn had retired before Limerick reached the 1996 All-Ireland final; Hegarty had been slaughtered by a knee injury and wasn’t on the panel either; at 32, Nash was the oldest man on the team. Wexford were reduced to 14 men before half-time. Limerick still lost.
“People will say that ‘96 was a worse defeat than ‘94,” says Finn. “A Wexford team that came from absolutely nowhere and went absolutely nowhere afterwards. With all the second half, with an extra man, and maybe the wind at your back. Couldn’t take them down. People will say that was nearly worse.”
And yet, 1994 is inescapable. Whatever happened afterwards in their lives, a small part of them is frozen there.
“About seven minutes into injury time in the All-Ireland in 2018, I was thinking about it,” says Finn, as Limerick’s eight point lead had dissolved to just one point. “Even in the Cork final two years later – 12 points up with five minutes to go – it was on my mind. You just don’t forget those things.”
When Tommy won his All-Star [in 1992] the people of Feohanagh organised a night below in Castlmahon for him. There was sods of turf lit here at the top of the cross and there was a band playing, down into Liston’s Lounge below. The place was packed. He had hurled 16 years with Limerick at that stage and there was years he probably should have got an All-Star. When he eventually got it I suppose there was euphoria. That’s what the people of the parish thought of Tom Quaid. He was down to earth. Sincere. The exact same as Nickie now.
He finished the last few years playing with Effin. People didn’t begrudge him going because he was working and living over in that side of the county. He had given 20 plus years of outstanding service here. When he went to Effin our paths weren’t crossing as much, but we were always on the phone. We went back a long way.
The accident was a desperate, desperate shock. He was doing some bit of fabrication on the Credit Union in Charleville when he fell. It was an horrific accident. Myself and my wife Ann okayed it with the family to go up and see him. He was above in hospital in Cork. He was unconscious. There was only piles of tears.
It was one of the biggest funerals I ever saw in my life. Tom is buried over in Effin. There’s a fine big head stone, with hurleys drawn out on it. I’d know well because I was often at the grave.
— John Flanagan
Fast track
For the golden generation, not everything happened at the same pace. Some of them were on a fast track: Cian Lynch first, Sean Finn not a million miles behind. Others took their time; delayed, or diverted. When Limerick won the Under-21 All-Ireland in 2017, Seamus Flanagan was only a sub; a year later, he started the senior final. Gearoid Hegarty made the Under-21 team in 2017, but not the year before, and as a minor he had spent two years on the Limerick panel without playing a minute in the championship. Around that time, he reached a crossroads.
“Gearoid fell away from the game, to be honest,” says Hegarty. “He was going playing football. I always saw plenty of hurling ability in him, but it looked like he was slipping away from the game. He built a connection with John Bruder, a former Limerick football manager, and he introduced him to the training that’s required to make the step up to inter county level. And that was the beginning of the transformation. Then along came John Kiely and he built a connection with him. He emerged as a 21 year old, which is late enough.”
[ Hurling champions Limerick lead the way with seven All-Star awardsOpens in new window ]
“He didn’t emerge,” says Nash, “he was there all along. And I told you that. And we said it below in Castletroy. He should have been on those minor teams. He was a big gangly young fellah, but he could flick the ball from there into his hand and he could do what he liked with it. This fellah [Ger] started telling me that he was only a footballer. ‘Fuck you and your footballer,’ I said to him. ‘You know nothing about hurling if you think he’s a footballer.’”
“He arrived anyway,” says Hegarty. “Better late than never. A group of them came together. Like-minded. All hungry. Good attitude. Limerick always had great players. The difference between the current squad and us is that they have the full complement. They have 20 or 25 very hungry guys.”
Brian Finn gave years to the Limerick academy as a coach. He could see what was coming too. In Kiely’s first year they lost both of their championship matches, but they rattled Kilkenny in Nowlan Park in the qualifiers, and they could see the germ of something.
“They were very young,” says Finn. “I remember Sean getting a shoulder-stroke-arse off Walter Walsh in that match and it nearly killed him. You sort of knew you had something going forward. But then, you have to do it when you get the chance. Once they got it done the first time [in 2018] all the baggage was gone and they could express themselves. Nothing will beat that, no matter what they do. Even if they win five-in-a-row – please God they will – nothing will take from that game.
“I thanked Graeme Mulcahy at the medals presentation the other night for the wonderful point he got in injury time in 2018, when the tide was absolutely rushing against us. You’d thank fellas for the rest of your life for what they’ve done.”
They don’t see any let-up. Nobody has broken ranks to go travelling. Nobody seems satisfied. “I will always remember,” says Hegarty, “Gearoid had a few of the lads over for a few beers after the 2018 All-Ireland. The house was on a high. I remember saying to Sean [Finn] – these are the words I used – ‘Is there another one in ye?’ And Sean turned to me and said, ‘Only one?’”
Nash, Finn and Hegarty all played with John Kiely in the early 90s. He didn’t make the match day panel for the 1994 All-Ireland final; two years later he wore number 24. In the following winter he was cut from the squad. Back then, how could anybody have guessed what he would become?
“Absolutely not,” says Hegarty. “Absolutely not. I would have said there were six or seven fellas miles ahead of John [as potential managers]. But, do you know what, the cream has come to the top.”
“He used to travel to training with TJ [Ryan], Frankie [Carroll] and The Jap [JP Ryan],” says Nash. “They were always skittin’ and messin’.”
“The players can still have a bit of fun with him,” says Finn. “They’ll throw him in the water or throw him into a bouncy castle and this and that. But anybody who steps out of line knows about it – and has known about it.”
“There’s an undercurrent there,” says Hegarty. “If you’re not performing there’s someone there to take your place. Back in our day, it was nearly impossible to get taken off. John Kiely and Paul Kinnerk have taken off fellas with multiple All-Stars. And it’s accepted. John’s attitude is, ‘If it’s not your day, next man in.’”
[ Limerick obsession runs deep in GAA book of the year so farOpens in new window ]
On their march, new summits come and go. This year, they became the first Limerick team to beat Tipperary in four consecutive championship matches. To the Limerick hurling tribe, stuff like that matters. In the history of the game, only Cork and Kilkenny have won four All-Irelands in a row. That is on their minds now. The only thing on their minds.
“We probably don’t give them half the credit they deserve,” says Finn. “Seriously. You go home and see their gear bag thrown around the place and you say, ‘What the fuck is going on here?’”
“They don’t look for credit,” says Hegarty. *
“I never thought, in my wildest dreams,” says John Flanagan, “that I’d see an All-Ireland coming in here, to this house.”
All they lost, in dead matches long ago, has no life now.
“I said it to you Ger, years ago,” says Nash. “‘The boys will win it for us.’”
Dads and their lads
Tommy Quaid (1976-1993)
39 SHC appearances. 2 Munster championships
Nickie Quaid (2010 – 2022)
55 SHC appearances. 4 All-Irelands, 5 Munster championships
Brian Finn (1985 – 1994)
13 SHC appearances. 1 Munster championship
Sean Finn (2017 – 2022)
32 SHC appearances. 4 All Irelands, 4 Munster championships.
Mike Nash (1989 – 1997)
15 SHC appearances. 2 Munster championships
Barry Nash (2016 – 2022)
27 SHC appearances. 4 All Irelands, 4 Munster championships
Ger Hegarty (1986-1998)
19 SHC appearances. 1 Munster championship
Gearoid Hegarty (2016-2022)
33 SHC appearances. 4 All-Irelands, 4 Munster championships
John Flanagan (1980-1984)
12 SHC appearances. 2 Munster championships
Seamus Flanagan (2018-2022)
26 SHC appearances. 4 All-Irelands, 4 Munster championships
