19 years with no Liam McCarthy cup for Cork, get ready for a mighty game of hurling
Cork captain John Fenton with the Liam McCarthy Cup after beating Offaly in 1984 at Thurles.
I know we were in the All-Ireland Final as recently as 2021 and before that back in 2013 when the Banner bate Bannagher and put five goals in our net but boys oh boys tis so hard to imagine we haven’t brought the cup, named for Ballygarvan man Liam McCarthy, back home since 2005. That’s nineteen years, nearly two decades, truly a ‘famine’ in Cork hurling terms.
From 1954 until 1966 Cork had a 12 year McCarthy Cup-less era which coming after the glorious 40s and 50s must have been almost unbearable. I was only nine when Gerald McCarthy led his grand team to a surprise victory over Kilkenny half a century after the 1916 Rising. I wasn’t going to matches back then and though we had a black and white television I have no memory of that game - years later I got a copy of the video of the match and the raw emotion of the Jim ‘Tough’ Barry trained side was something to behold. I know that here in our parish that Cork win was so special with our very own Seanie Barry starring.
Twenty years earlier in 1946 another Bride Rovers man, Con Murphy, lined out on a winning Cork side, it’s these local links that make the GAA so special. When we see one of our own wearing the Red and White Blood and bandage of Cork pride wells up in us and the Matt the Thrasher spirit for ‘the glory of the little village’ comes to the fore. If you dragged me over red hot coals I wouldn’t watch a soccer match - this week filthy rich over paid so-called professional players will be slogging it out in Europe. I cringe when I hear of a ‘brilliant, scientific and thrill-a-minute’ scoreless draw! Oh lads leave me alone about it.
I suppose I grew up hearing about the great Jamesy Kelleher - his wife was my mother’s aunt, and Ring of course and Mackey too. In later years I was privileged to know and work with the legendary Clare hurler Jimmy Smith - he toiled for the Banner at Senior level for nineteen years, won neither League, Munster Championship or All-Ireland but was one of the very best.
Seanie Barry was playing Junior B with our Club in 66 yet was on that Cork Senior winning team, that’s sporting democracy of the purest type. Of course I’ve heard it said down the years that players from the ‘big city clubs’ sometimes found it harder to get off the Cork team whilst others every bit as good never made the cut. But let’s not be maudlin in these joyous and happy days as we plan the trip to Jones’ Road!
It’s just 52 years since I attended my first Munster Final at the end of July in 1972. In Thurles it was and we bate Clare easily 6 18 to 2 8. For a 15-year-old that summer was brilliant, travelling with Pat O’Connor and Dave Ryan to matches. Dave liked a pint and I can still remember having ham sandwiches and Nashs red lemonade in Mick O’Neills Pub in Hospital on our way to the first round, the drawn game against Tipperary. In Thurles we’d park out here near the golf club and colish the rest of the ham sandwiches from the boot of the car before strolling into the town. Back then you’d still see the signs outside houses for ‘Meat Tea’ and ‘Plain Tea’ as enterprising natives became caterers for the day, the chip and hadn’t yet been invented!
Off to Dublin then that September with a few friends from home. We went up the day before and stayed in a house in Ballsbridge where we had the exhilarating experience of having a ‘shower’ for the very first time that Saturday night! The landlady’s teenage daughter ran a sub-four minute mile along the corridor when we emerged from the bathroom towel-less!
I was crestfallen and despondent that Final day in Croke Park as Pat Delaney and Eddie Keher destroyed us in the second half. It was a long, slow train journey back to Cork that Sunday night. Limerick came good the following year but I needn’t have worried as we were still in Croke Park in September when Billy Morgan’s team captured Sam Maguire for us.
Then came the hurlers three in a row. You know it’s not those three finals I remember most but the brilliant games in Munster, especially against Clare in the 1978 Provincial decider when John ’Blondy’ Horgan gave a master class of point scoring when Clare looked likely winners. John died eight years ago and at his graveside in Passage in conversation with Seanie O’Leary the Youghal genius recalled those golden years. Seanie is gone too but the tales of songs and stories of these great Cok hurlers will live forever.
That September week end in Thurles was brilliant. I was up there on the Friday night at a concert, back again on the Saturday and for the match on the Sunday. Offaly had a grand team but John Fenton led his Cork team magnificently to a very special All-Ireland.
As a youngster I read all of Raymond Smiths’ GAA books and he enthused about Thurles and the hurling atmosphere in the Cathedral town, he was right and it’s still the same to this day. You can ‘feel’ and nearly ‘smell’ the essence of our great game anywhere in Thurles.
On Sunday May 19 this year when Cork just had to beat the auld enemy, whatever about the hay, I thought the place was electric. Lads isn’t it amazing I was never any good at playing hurling but I could talk, write and sing about it til the cows come home! Oh how lucky we are to have such a game, let’s celebrate it, marvel at it and make sure the generations to come get as much enjoyment and pride from the game as all those gone before us.
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