DEATH OF MARTIN WHITE:THE PASSING of Martin White, whose death was announced on Wednesday night, takes away from the GAA one of its most distinguished links with the past. At 102, he was the oldest surviving All-Ireland medallist, having been on the successful Kilkenny hurling teams of 1932-33 and '35.
Yet more than that, he embodied the continuity of the game’s history, having started his playing career with the famous Tullaroan club on the same team as the great Dick Grace, who played on the Kilkenny All-Ireland winning team of 1909, the year Martin White was born and with whom he won a county title in 1930.
He also formed the last living connection to the famous All-Ireland final of 1931 when Cork and Kilkenny had to meet three times before the Munster county won out, helped by the broken ribs that prevented the legendary Lory Meagher from playing, leaving him in tears on the sideline, powerless to affect the outcome.
It was the final that broke hurling as a mass spectator sport and the three matches averaged attendances of over 30,000.
Martin White didn’t line out in the two replays, an omission that still rankled with him slightly decades later, but he lined out at full forward in the successful finals of 1932, against Clare, and 1933 and ’35, against Limerick. When work with Clover Meats took him to Cork he played his last match for the county in the Leinster final against Dublin in 1938.
A graduate of the famed St Kieran’s College hurling academy in Kilkenny, he won Leinster medals in 1925 and ’26 against Blackrock College and Newbridge College, both now better known for rugby.
After Cork, he moved to Dublin in 1948 to run the Boston Bakery in Drumcondra. He was involved with the Crokes club, hurling partner in the 1966 amalgamation that formed Kilmacud Crokes, with whom he maintained a decades-long association, and was chairman of the Kilkenny Association in Dublin.
Two years ago he was honoured with a specially-struck All-Ireland medal to mark his 100th birthday and Kilkenny’s four-in-a-row.
Throughout his great longevity Martin White remained alert, driving a car until well into his 90s, and interested in the modern game. Interviewed by Ian O’Riordan in this newspaper before the Kilkenny-Cork All-Ireland final in 2003, he compared the preparation in his day with the modern version and gave his views on contemporary hurling.
“Well we wouldn’t have done much training then. Nothing like today. We’d have started before the Leinster final, meet about a fortnight before the game, in the evenings. It wasn’t tough training either but it was different then. Lads were very fit anyway. There was nothing to do in the evenings at that time only play games of some description. Either that or go the pictures.
“So you could say we were training every night in the summer time. We just did a bit of extra training coming up to the final. But we always finished on a Wednesday night before the All-Ireland final. And were told to rest then.
“Scoring was low in our time. But the ball was so much heavier. It had a horse-skin cover, and if it got wet it was even heavier. So every puck-out landed in the middle of the field. You’ll see tomorrow the ball landing between the full backs and the half backs. But I like today’s hurling. It’s very fast, and you have to be very fit to play it.”
GAA president Christy Cooney said yesterday: “Martin’s passion for our games and for hurling specifically remained undimmed and I had the privilege of meeting him in the run up to this year’s hurling final, which he was looking forward to immensely.”
Martin White features in Hurling Giants, the second of Brendan Fullam's trilogy of books setting down the reminiscences of hurlers. The author recalls: "After Martin had written a piece for me a few gentle tears fell from his eyes. 'Don't mind me, I get a bit sad when I think of all the colleagues who have gone and the memories they bring back'."
Now he has finally been reunited with those colleagues but his own legacy is unassailable.
