Teddy McCarthy will be a cherished son of Cork forever

BEFORE North Monastery played St Flannan’s in the 1983 Harty Cup final, the St Flannan’s students made up a song about Teddy McCarthy.

In a time long before the internet or social media, every student in Flannan’s knew full well who McCarthy was, and what he was capable of.

Flannan’s had seen that first hand in previous years. By the time, he was in his last year in the Mon, McCarthy was such a colossus that the students in Flannans had composed a song around how they had the boys to shut down the man, Teddy Mac from the Mon.

The students got into trouble in school the following day for the wording of the song. They were getting some dodgy looks as they sang the chorus, but they belted it out anyway, somehow hoping that the air and words of the tune might distract McCarthy as he went about his business of trying to cut Flannan’s to shreds.

The biggest talking point around the school in the lead-up to the game was who was going to mark Teddy Mac. 

Whoever did in another Flannan’s victory — which was the Ennis college’s second year in a row beating the Mon in a Harty final — had hero status around the school for weeks afterwards, as if he was some kind of David who had taken down a Goliath.

To have that kind of notoriety at that age, and on that stage in the early 1980s encapsulated just how good McCarthy was, of how his deeds and feats had travelled so far that teenagers all over Clare, hours away from Cork city, were fully aware of Teddy Mac.

What cemented McCarthy’s status even more was that he was just as good at football. A year after that 1983 Harty final, McCarthy won the first of his three All-Ireland U21 football medals.

It doesn’t always happen where a rare underage talent fulfils that potential at senior level, in one code, never mind two, but McCarthy did more than just prove he could be as good as his underage career suggested he might.

Being the only player to win All-Ireland senior medals in the same year ensured McCarthy’s iconic status as the GAA’s dual jewel. And yet McCarthy’s greatest legacy around that achievement probably reached far higher and had a much deeper meaning for Cork GAA teams than what McCarthy actually achieved himself.

Of the small number of players (14) that have won All-Ireland medals in hurling and football, on the field of play, eight are from Cork — Billy Mackessy, Jack Lynch, Brian Murphy, Ray Cummins, Denis Coughlan, Jimmy Barry-Murphy, Denis Walsh, and McCarthy.

McCarthy’s status towers above everyone else but it was almost expected that if anyone was going to manage that unique double that it would be a Corkman.

When McCarthy finally managed it, his achievement further added to the mystique around Cork teams and the near-indestructible status Cork GAA had at that time when reaching 11 All-Ireland finals — in either code — in 10 out of 12 seasons between 1982 and 1993.

The fact that McCarthy played in eight of those finals (nine if you included the 1988 football replay) just added to his immense standing within the GAA.

Given the pressures involved, especially for a dual player, McCarthy couldn’t have done what he did unless he had the mental strength to match his elite athleticism and ability to excel in both codes.

From a young age, McCarthy exuded that confidence, swagger and fireproof belief. Selected to make his senior hurling championship debut in the 1986 All-Ireland semi-final against Antrim, McCarthy chose to go on a foreign holiday instead.

What other player would have made that choice at that time? What GAA players even went on a sun holiday in the middle of the season back then? That practise was even uncommon among the general public at the time.

It didn’t seem to bother McCarthy that he might miss out on an All-Ireland final, especially when Cork were so hotly fancied to beat Antrim. Even if he had, his attitude seemed to smack of, ‘there will be more All-Irelands to play in and win.’

FAITH

There were, but management still selected McCarthy to make his senior debut in the final. That’s how good McCarthy was. That’s how much faith the management had in him. That’s how much confidence McCarthy had in himself.

Throughout his career and life, not everyone may have agreed with what McCarthy did, or what he had to say, but he did it anyway. And, similar to his dual career, he did it in such a way that people will always remember him.

In the iconography of hurling’s greatest moments, McCarthy’s status as one of the greatest high fielders in both codes, especially in hurling, will forever endure and remain indelibly linked to his legacy.

That legacy will endure forever, not just because of what McCarthy did, but in the unique manner of how he did it in such a majestic and free-spirited form.

When McCarthy was soaring towards the clouds to claim a ball among a forest of hurleys, he was not only executing a skill unique to himself, carried out with grace and class and courage and perfect timing – McCarthy was also painting an image that made Cork people immensely proud of who they were, what they could achieve, and of how they felt it was always possible to reach such dizzy heights.

Teddy McCarthy will always be one of Cork’s most cherished sons, loved by the people who he made so proud that they were able to call him one of their own.