Farranferris stars mark 50th anniversary of Harty and All-Ireland victories

While St Finbarr’s College, Farranferris had claimed the Dr Harty Cups of 1971, 1972 and 1973, the quest for four in a row had hit a snag.

An important berth in the team needed to be filled but coach Fr Michael O’Brien was able to call upon some divine inspiration. As related by team captain Tadhg Murphy to the late Tim Horgan in Farna’s Hurling Story, the man who would come to be known as ‘the Canon’ landed upon a solution, as he so often did.

“We lost our full-forward early in the championship and we were badly caught,” Murphy said.

“Fr O’Brien was talking to me about it in the corridor one day when tall JJ Murphy from Waterfall came walking towards us. ‘That’s our new full-forward,’ he said in a flash and within a matter of weeks he had converted the surprised JJ into a forward, who would score three goals in the Harty final.”

That trio of green flags was among a total of ten scored against Limerick CBS in the final 0 the score was 10-11 to 2-2, with Farna having registered 8-9 before their opponents got off the mark.

Victory over St Kieran’s College of Kilkenny secured All-Ireland honours and the 1973 and the 1974 teams marked the golden jubilee of the latter triumph at a special function in Flannery’s on Glasheen Road last Friday night.

It was the first such anniversary celebration, with some players not having met each other since leaving the school. However, the passage of time had not broken the strong bonds.

“This was the very first reunion that we had had,” says Tadhg Murphy.

“That even made it more special in a way.

“We made contact with everybody. There’s a couple of lads living in America and a few doing the Camino walk but, overall, we got a massive response. Anybody who could be there was there, which was brilliant.

“There was a bit of work in it, to be honest, but we got there.

“Fifty years is a long time and the group dispersed after leaving school, so some people mightn’t have seen each other at all but after 15 or 20 minutes it was like we were never away!

“It was like being back in the classroom and the craic was mighty.”

Naturally, talk was of battles won and lost in the yellow and white of the school – which closed in 2006 but is still behind only North Monastery and St Colman’s College for Harty titles by a Cork school.

Ultimately, the evening was about the special connection forged and how it has endured for half a century.

“It wasn’t even about the matches that much,” Murphy says.

“In our time, our numbers in Farranferris would have been very small, relative to the teams we were playing against.

“We had a very small population, maybe 270 or 280, but I think that that was almost the secret to our success.

“Fellas were so united and there was such a strong bond. If Farna were playing a Harty match on a Wednesday, it wasn’t just about the players or subs at all or Fr O’Brien but the whole school – the teachers, the students, the gardener out the back, the kitchen staff – they were all into it.

“It was like mobilising the Yellow Army and that really added something special.

“The boarding was a huge factor, too. Hurling was like a religion so, when you were finished your schoolwork for the day, what else would you be doing?

“You’d go up for ‘a slog’ as we used to call it, that was how you’d pass away the time.”

Farranferris 1973 and 1974 panels: Frank Canty, Tim Cashman, Francis Collins, Bernard Condon, Denis Cronin, Gerry Crowley, Finbarr Crowley, Johnny Crowley, John Delaney, Denis Fitzpatrick, Denis Forde, Pat Hayes, John Higgins, Tim Hourihane, Seán Manley, Ger McEvoy, Martin Moir, JJ Murphy, Michael Murphy, Tadhg Murphy, Teddy Murphy, John O’Donovan, Kieran O’Driscoll, John O’Flynn, Paudie O’Regan, John O’Reilly, Jim O’Sullivan, Martin O’Sullivan, Frank Tobin, John Whooley.

• Seán Manley, part of the 1973 team, sadly died last Thursday but his memory was honoured at the event