Tony Considine
It’s been my habit for many years now to visit the two competing counties on the week of an All-Ireland final, just to get a flavour for what’s happening, the mood in the camps and so on.
On Monday I decided to add to that and visit the winning county, to check out the reaction.
The first place I visited was the Market Square, where the stage was set for the homecoming, and I saw a load of youngfellas on their break from school, every one of them with a hurley, tapping around.
I happened to meet a touring Yank and he said to me – “Why are these guys allowed go around with these lethal weapons?
If they were in the States they’d be locked up!”
I explained to him that if they WEREN’T carrying a hurley in Kilkenny, they’d be looked at with even more suspicion.
Later that evening I met a 90-yr-old guy, Pat Shortis, and a friend of his, a youngster of 82 called Jimmy Cody, two guys known in Kilkenny city as The Wetland Orchestra.
They were on the footpath on John Street waiting to play a bit of music for the team as they passed by on the open-top bus.
Pat told me his first All-Ireland final was 1931, and he was at the replay also. I asked him, “What keeps you going?” He said to me, “Every All-Ireland Kilkenny win, every trip they make down this street with the Liam McCarthy, is special.” Nodding in agreement was his friend Jimmy.
Pat also told me that in 1938 he was summonsed for singing a few songs in the street at quarter past twelve at night, after Dublin had beaten Kilkenny in the Leinster final, ‘disturbing the peace’ he was charged with.
If the Guards were to have done the same thing this Monday night, Kilkenny Castle wouldn't have held the crowd.
All of that illustrated for me what hurling means to Kilkenny people.
Young lads, ould lads, all out in the rain and not feeling a drop of it.
They don’t just love hurling in Kilkenny, they’re completely immersed in it, and that applies to all ages and all genders.
I spent the day talking with people, and of course the only talk was of hurling, and I have to say I was really impressed with the depth of their knowledge – a few of them knew almost as much as myself!
Ah the craic we had, the laugh, and that’s another thing; for all their seriousness, they’re able to enjoy it too.
Their knowledge and love of hurling goes beyond their own borders too, and due respect is given to others.
Recognising I was from Clare, Seanie McMahon in particular was a name that came up in conversation a lot, the great Clare centre-back of the 90s, but the man everyone really wanted to know about was Ger Loughnane.
They know we’re good friends, Ger and myself, and to a man - and to a woman - they were asking about Ger’s health, and insisted I passed on their good wishes, which I will. They don’t just love their hurling, they love hurling people.
What amazed me too, the number of people from various counties outside of Kilkenny who had come down for this homecoming.
I met people from Wexford, from Laois, from Offaly, from Clare, from Limerick, from Galway; I even met people from the north, from Antrim.
The only Tippman I met, however, was Colm Martin, a barman in Bridie’s of Langton’s, who had lost a bet, had to remove his Tipp jersey and wear the black-and-amber for the whole night. Word passed around fairly fast and a busload of his own people from Moneygall came down to Langton’s to see the spectacle for themselves, and to add to the unmerciful slagging poor Colm was suffering.
That was all the part of the day in Kilkenny, and as the evening got longer the arguments got louder – who was the best Kilkenny player of all time, who was the better right-half-back, Brian Whelehan or Tommy Walsh.
But it was hurling, hurling, hurling, and the one word that kept coming up – sweet.
This, they reckoned, was the sweetest All-Ireland, sweeter even that 1967 when they finally broke the Tipperary hoodoo.
I spoke to one very quiet and very knowledgeable man, Pat Maher, from the city, and he wanted to ensure I noted one very important fact; Kilkenny have won eight All-Irelands in the last 12 years, and not one of those has been through the back door.
That’s a matter of some pride there – they don’t like losing, they especially don’t like losing in hurling, which probably explains why they have yet to win when going through the qualifiers.
To sum up, to really appreciate what hurling means in Kilkenny you have to be there on a day like this.
Even before the night was done they were already looking ahead, but not to next year’s All-Ireland – no, it was to their own club championship, and the local rivalries, the battles now to come between guys who would have died for each other last Sunday but will now be ready to almost kill each other for a different but very similar cause in the coming weeks.
That’s Kilkenny. They can handle success, that really came home to me, but then again they’re very used to it. It’s no coincidence though, no coincidence at all.
Source: http://feeds.examiner.ie/~r/iesportsblog/~3/aZCOU18pR9o/post.aspx
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