'Some turn out for a team that didn't win': Huge welcome for Cork's hurling heroes at Páirc homecoming

The line of the night, overheard on the premium level of Páirc Uí Chaoimh in tonight’s homecoming, was surely “it was some turn-out for a team that didn’t win”.

The music was great for what was billed the Rebels’ Return, but the rock star reception was reserved for Cork’s homecoming heroes, and even though the senior hurling team did lose to Clare by a heartbreaking single point on Sunday, you would not have known that by the cheers coming from the pitch.

The welcome for each player was rapturous as they took to the stage just after 7.15pm, with every cheer louder than the last, but the noise greeting goalkeeper Patrick Collins was deafening, and was followed by chants of “Packie, Packie”.

Lord mayor Dan Boyle has only been in office a few weeks but his time wearing the chain is off to a flier, and he looked proud as punch standing on the stage beside the deputy county mayor, Fianna Fáil councillor Seamus McGrath. Tánaiste Micheál Martin was in the audience, looking as happy as a man with an overall majority.

The crowd was awash with red and white, with flags and hats and jerseys, speckled here and there with the yellow bibs of stewards, fire service, paramedics and gardaí.

It very much a family audience, and some of the younger members turned cartwheels and did handstands on the edges of the crowd, while other smallies, armed with hurleys, bate sliotars at each other, perhaps dreaming of taking to the stage themselves some time in the early 2040s.

Some 7,000 tickets had been sold for the homecoming at what was for some a controversial €4 a head, and with the crowd covering about half the pitch, unofficial GAA estimates suggested the turnout was somewhere a little north of that figure, with no-one turned away at the gates.

More than 15,000 tickets had been distributed free of charge for Sunday’s Rebels’ Fanzone at SuperValu Páirc Uí Chaoimh, and only 8,000 people had shown up, leaving some of those who couldn’t get tickets feeling hard done by.

When asked whether donating that €4 a head fee to a local charity might have eased some of the controversy, one GAA member, speaking anonymously, said that all the volunteers running Monday evening’s event surely deserved to be fed for their troubles.

Sunday’s Well fans Anna Campbell Toner (8) and her brother Dylan (7) weren’t too troubled by the entry fee, and thought the homecoming was brilliant. They hadn’t watched Sunday’s match, but they did catch the highlights and both thought the Rebels' Return was fantastic.

“We love the atmosphere and the music, it’s really good,” Anna said.

Dylan said he was particularly glad that one particular rule, advertised in advance, had been relaxed on the evening.

“We also thought that under-16s couldn’t go, so it’s really good that we got to come,” Dylan said.

Mella Fitzgerald was one of the mammies in the crowd, and she said she has long done her bit for the Rebel County.

“I’m from Ovens, living in Dublin, and I’ve got two little boys who don’t stop wearing Cork jerseys all year ‘round, and this has helped them wear the Cork jerseys a little bit more,” she said.

She and her family had been in Páirc Uí Chaoimh the day before to watch the All-Ireland in the Rebel Fanzone too.

“That was fabulous. Apart from the final result,” she said.

James O’Connor, Fianna Fáil TD for Cork East, said everyone in SuperValu Uí Chaoimh was very proud of the Cork hurlers after what he called “an astronomical game of hurling” on Sunday.

“A huge number of the players come from across east Cork, and I’m particularly proud of my cousin, Seamus Harnedy, my former schoolmate, Declan Dalton, and so many of the other players, not alone in east Cork, but right around the county,” the Cork East TD said.

There was music before and after the team took to the stage, and it added immeasurably to the atmosphere in the build-up.

The Frank and Walters were as great as they always are, but it was only when they launched into ‘After All’ that the audience really got into it, perhaps a testament as much to the influence of local Young Offenders made good, Conor MacSweeney and Jock O’Keeffe, as to the enduring power of Cork’s favourite long-time purveyors of indie love songs.

Still, ‘After All’ was the perfect lead-in to the team taking the stage, and after all the speeches were done, and in a lovely touch, John Spillane sang ‘The Banks’, leading into ‘The Boys of Fair Hill’ and his own song ‘The March of the Cherry Trees’.

“Well done, everyone, well done,” indeed.