John Arnold: A GAA day for the ages in Cork heartland
From Ballymacoda back to Ladysbridge, up to Castlemartyr then and back by Dungourney I drove.
By the light of the moon, everywhere I passed I could see the flags -on poles, gates, rooftops, trees haysheds and hanging across the streets.
The streets of the villages were largely quiet and nearly deserted at that late hour, but the fluttering flags bore testament and witness to heroes and hurlers and legends just created a few hours earlier.
The red and green emblazoned the countryside from Knockadoon to the ’Bridge. Then came the expectant and hopeful red and white up beyond Mogeely.
I don’t know where one club ‘territory’ ends and another begins, but soon the green and gold with the sash were the dominant favours.
It’s a long, long time since Mallow- born Thomas Davis wrote The West’s Awake - he was born 208 years ago tomorrow, October 14, and the Young Irelander expressed passion and determination in his song.
Ah yes, he lived but a short life, but like Martin Luther King he ‘had a dream’ and, my friends, dreams can and do become realities.
Next Sunday, the ‘Three In A line’ of County titles will hopefully be completed by the Reds of Castlemartyr and then all of Cork, Munster and Ireland will arise and with one voice proclaim that truly ‘East Cork Is The Home Of Hurling’!
On a wet a and windy Sunday morning last, I headed for Shanagarry after Mass. We were playing a Junior C Grade hurling championship game against another Rovers team - Russell Rovers. Twice my cap blew off as I stood by the goalposts as a gale blew in from Ballycotton. The home side defeated our third XV- a team consisting of young and old with a few Tipperary men added into the mix. These Tipperary men have emigrated southwards to the banks of the Bride and are imparting their love and knowledge of hurling to the generations coming along.
I was drenched to the skin leaving the pitch but had thawed and dried out somewhat by the time I got to the Headquarters of Hurling and Football in Cork.
I never knew Padraig O Chaoimh, after whom the magnificent Cork GAA stadium is named, though his wife would be connected to me through common Scanlon ancestry.
When the founding fathers of the GAA dreamt of ‘a club in every parish’ and promoting hurling - a game ‘racy of the soil’ - they surely envisaged days like this. Four great clubs vying for County Championship titles - yes, it was wet and miserable but us Gaels are hardy folk. Despite the adverse conditions, I didn’t spot a fur coat or a hip flask!
Of course I would have preferred if Bride Rovers in Green, White and Gold were out there on the pitch - we won ‘Counties’ here before and will again in the future no doubt. Last Sunday though was truly East Cork’s day.
I recall the late Joe McDonagh after the 1980 Hurling Final giving a passionate rendition of Davis’s song after Galway reached their hurling summit. Well, by half-five on Sunday evening I felt like that - pride and passion having been displayed on the pitch as Dungourney and Fr O Neill’s won Championship crowns.
These two East Cork Clubs have known success in recent years but ‘twas not always so. Dungourney were one of the top GAA Clubs in Cork in the early 1900s under the leadership of peerless Jamesy Kelleher.
Fame and tradition are great assets, yet Dungourney GAA Club won precious little between 1910 and 1972. It’s only in the last decade or so that the famous colours of Green with the Gold sash have come to the fore again.
Similarly with Fr O Neills. Named after Fr Peter O Neill who was flogged in Youghal in 1798 - receiving 275 lashes of a whip entwined with strips of lead and tin. He was deported to Botany Bay where he remained for three years. The GAA club that bears his name was formed in 1959 but didn’t win their first East Cork title until 1996.
So, Dungourney and Fr O Neill’s have known their share of heartbreaks and ‘what ifs’ down the decades. I suppose all GAA clubs have, so when victory comes at last it’s great to celebrate and rejoice that all the generations gone before us in every parish are being ‘thanked’ and rewarded for the seeds they have sown.
Unlike many other so-called ‘sports’ where money is their pride, joy and reason for existence, we in the GAA family can truly appreciate what sport in its truest sense is about. On the fields of play in East Cork, we have great rivalries, but on days like Sunday last we can join in the success of neighbours.
I went home for about an hour and in fairness the cows were milked as ‘oftimes before. As the October darkness rolled in I was on the road again to Dungourney. Here the parish gathered in their own ‘field of dreams’. The floodlights were alight and the pitch was full of youngsters hurling.
The people of Clonmult and Dungourney thronged to give a rousing welcome to their County Champions. Soon ‘home were the heroes’ on a bus led by a cavalcade of tractors. The young team, managed by Martin Denny, born and bred in England, were given a real victors’ welcome from their own people.
Early this year, the Dungourney team were spoken of by many as ‘likely to be relegated’ and now here they were on an October evening home, with the Cup named for a great Gael from Castlemartyr, Paddy Walsh.
I thought of Kelleher and his men of long ago walking to the train Station in Mogeely en route to Thurles, Limerick or Jones’ Road in Dublin. I could imagine too people like Dan Kenneally, Pa Treacy, Liam Ahern and their 1972 captain Pat Cronin smiling down celestially on the joyous, happy crowd greeting the hurlers of 2022.
I slipped away to travel onto Ladysbridge and Ballymacoda to meet the Fr O Neill’s people. When I hit the ’Bridge, the formal ‘welcome home’ speeches were just finished and the happy fans and players had crowded into the local hostelry.
There I met them, young and old - from 93 to tiny tots. I’ve a few cousins on the team - from my father’s and mother’s sides - so ‘twas great to catch up with them.
For years in the ’70s, ’80s and ’90s they strove in vain to win an East Cork Junior title. Like Mayo people some spoke of ‘a curse’, but that’s long forgotten now as this glorious generation of hurlers have won so much.
I suppose many of the younger lads will never know what men like Matt Ahern, Brendan Ahern, Dick Lane and Haulie Donnelly did for their beloved club. They worked away - mostly through lean years - but their dedication and example has made Fr O Neill’s a Senior Hurling Club.
Those red and green and green and gold flags will flutter long into the winter and so too will the Red and White of Castlemartyr.
Weekends like these are what we all live for.
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