Is Jim Young Cork’s best ever sportsman?

Last May, Paul Young presented Glen Rovers with a silver replica of the Liam MacCarthy cup.

The replica belonged to his late father, Dr Jim Young.

Young and seven other players, Christy Ring, Jack Lynch, Din Joe Buckley(all Glen Rovers), Alan Lotty (Sarsfields), Batt Thornhill (Buttevant), Willie “Long Puck” Murphy (Ballincollig) and John Quirke (Blackrock) were each presented with a replica to mark their achievement of playing in, and winning, four All-Ireland titles in a row with Cork between 1941 and 1944.

As part of the evening, on May 9, I presented a talk on Jim Young’s life as one of Cork’s leading sportsmen.

Jim, or James Edward Young, was born in Dunmanway on October 16, 1915. He was the eldest child of Jack and Margaret (nee McSweeney). Jim’s father, Jack, had been a member of the 1911 Cork team that won the All-Ireland Football title against Antrim.

The Young home was a musical home.

“There was always singing, dancing, and games: hurling football and handball,” Jim Young once said.

There was a tennis club in Dunmanway, but it was considered exclusive. The Youngs and some of their friends decided to found a tennis club for the rest of the town.

Before he headed off to secondary school in 1929, Jim Young won the club’s Men’s Doubles championship with his father and the Mixed Doubles championship with his mother.

Moving to St Finbarr’s Seminary, Farranferris for his secondary education proved to be a sporting life-defining moment for the 13-year-old Jim Young.

On the day he set out for Farranferris with his father Jack, he was given a present of a hurley by Cork hurling star Jim Hurley.

Armed with his new hurley, Jim honed and developed the hurling skills that he would display for the next two decades. While at Farranferris, he won a Cork Colleges Junior medal in 1931 and a Cork Colleges Senior in 1933.

Paddy O’Connell was the man responsible for bringing Jim Young to Glen Rovers. During the early 1930s, the Glen would regularly play Farranferris on Wednesday afternoons. O’Connell noted Jim Young’s potential when he was playing with Farranferris.

Other players like Dan Coughlan (Ballydehob), and Bishop Michael Murphy (Kilmichael) also joined the Glen from Farranferris. All these players had no home clubs and were eligible to play with the Glen.

In September 1933, Young moved to Maynooth to study for the priesthood. At that time, clerical students were not allowed out of the College to play games, which meant that his hurling and football were confined to the summer months. For example, he starred with Glen Rovers’ senior team when the Glen defeated the Barrs in 1935. But he missed the subsequent games because he was back in Maynooth. It was a similar story in 1936.

Young decided to leave Maynooth to join the Civil Service in 1937. He made up for missing the county finals of 1935 and 1936 by winning both the Senior Hurling final with the Glen and the Senior Football final with Carbery. He played in Dublin with the Civil Service in 1938.

Jim left the Civil Service in 1939 and returned to Cork to study medicine at UCC, and he rejoined the Glen.

September 3, 1939 was a proud day for the Young family. Jim was picked to play in his first senior All-Ireland final against Kilkenny, and his brother Eamonn was picked to play in the All-Ireland Minor final. The minors won; the seniors, however, lost by a point.

At UCC, Jim became involved with the Students’ Union. Through these activities, Jim attended a dance held by Cork Constitution Rugby Club in October 1939. Word got back to the County Board about this, and they decided to take action. Jim Young was suspended for six months for breaking Rule 42 of the Association – the Ban. The suspension was later reduced to three months.

The Fitzgibbon Cup was held in Cork in 1939. UCC defeated UCD in the final. Young was captain and received the cup.

However, the Cork County Board intervened, stating that Jim Young and two other UCC players were suspended and as a consequence, were illegal. The cup was taken away from UCC and no medals were presented.

Following his reinstatement as a player, Young had two very successful years in 1940 and 1941. He won one All-Ireland senior medal (1941), two National Hurling League medals (1940 and 1941), and two county medals with the Glen in 1940 and 1941.

In 1942, he became President of the Students’ Union and won a second All-Ireland medal.

In 1943, Jim Young won his first of four Railway Cup medals when Munster defeated Leinster in the final. Under the president’s rule, he transferred from the Glen to UCC also in 1943 and won a Munster Senior Football medal with Cork. At the end of 1943, he won a Sigerson Cup medal with UCC.

He graduated with his medical degree in 1944 and won his fourth All-Ireland senior hurling medal. He rejoined the Glen in 1945 and won his fifth, and final, All-Ireland medal in 1946 along with a fourth Railway Cup medal.

In 1947, Dr Jim played in and lost his last All-Ireland final. Just as in his first final eight years earlier, Cork lost to Kilkenny by a point.

Away from sport, Jim Young married Eileen Walsh from Bantry in 1947. The couple had met at UCC. Eileen was studying Zoology and Botany.

He was elected captain of the Glen senior team in 1948 and began his year by also captaining Cork to win the National Hurling League.

Jim Young arguably gave his greatest exhibition as a Glen Rovers hurler in the 1948 county final.

Early in the second half of the final, Christy Ring was sent off and Blackrock looked like winning the game. Young, aided by Jack Lynch, drew on their years of experience and, almost on their own, led Glen Rovers to a famous win.

In 1949, Jim won his ninth senior county championship medal with Glen Rovers. He was now 34 years of age and announced his retirement from playing.

Retiring however, did not mean his competitive sporting life was finished. Jim returned to tennis, took up squash, played golf in Muskerry Golf club (where he reached a playing handicap of 4) and when there wasn’t much on going on with those sports, found time to go shooting.

A fiercely competitive tennis player, Jim captained Douglas to the Munster Championship in 1954 (when he was 39). He was elected President of the Munster Lawn Tennis Association for the 1959/60 season.

He won several Munster Championships at Men’s Doubles and won 10 Munster Championships at Mixed Doubles.

In 1960, two local Tennis Clubs in Ballinlough merged to form the Cork Lawn Tennis Club. Jim became the club president. The new Cork Lawn Tennis Club dominated club tennis throughout the 1960s.

In 1966, Young led Munster, as non-playing captain, to win the province’s first inter-provincial title. He was subsequently appointed Ireland’s non-playing captain for the 1968 Davis Cup campaign. Unfortunately, Monaco defeated Ireland in the Davis Cup game.

Jim Young was President of the Glen Rovers until he became chairman in 1977.

He continued to play golf and shoot, and was a founder member of the Intercounty Hurlers Golf Society. Young was always on the sideline, as a medical adviser for Glen and Dohenys teams. By now, he was affectionally known as “The Doc” to everyone.

James Edward Young passed away on August 23, 1992. He was 76 years of age. By then, many of his comrades from the Glen teams of the 1930s and 40s, had either passed on or were unable to be around the club anymore. One of his teammates from the 1940s was heard to remark, “That’s the last of our superstars gone now.”

There have been many fine sportsmen and women in Cork. Many of them could easily cross over from one sport to another. But very few, if any, have achieved what Jim Young achieved across so many sports.

He was undoubtedly one of Cork’s greatest Gaelic Games players, but he also achieved so much across so many other disciplines that it can truly be said that Jim Young was, is, and always will be, one of Cork’s greatest sportsmen.

Jim Young’s GAA honours

Honours with Cork

5 All-Ireland SH medals

6 Senior Munster SH medals

4 NHL medals (1 as Capt.)

1 Munster football med

Honours with Munster

5 Railway cup medals

Honours with Glen Rovers

9 County SHC medals (1 as Capt.)

Honours with Carbery

1 County SFC medal

Honours with Dohenys

1 County JFC medal 1935*

1 West Cork JFC medal 1935

Honours with UCC

2 Fitzgibbon Cup medals (1 as Capt.)

1 Sigerson Cup Medal

Honours with Farranferris

1 Senior Cork Colleges Medal

1 Junior Cork Colleges Medal (Capt.)

This story originally appeared in the 2025 Holly Bough.