by Donal Keenan
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‘Rebel strike throws Cork hurling into state of crisis’. The headline on the front page of the Irish Examiner on 30 November 2002 did not come as a surprise to supporters around Cork city and county. For three months towards the end of the year it was clear that the stand-off between the players and the Cork County Board was of a different hue to anything seen before in Gaelic games. Central to that were the very public positions taken by players of the stature of Seán Óg, Donal Óg Cusack and Joe Deane, three of the most popular sportsmen in the county. It was the first battle of what proved to be almost a decade of conflict that led to two more strikes, in 2007–8 and 2009. The issues were complex: the players wanted better facilities, more modern management structures and better expenses. Three times they withdrew their services and each time positions became more entrenched and the divisions became greater.
Seán Óg Ó hAilpín has been talking for a couple of hours. The chat flows freely, tales are swapped and the mood is light. It is springtime 2010 and a new season is about to start. His presence in the foyer of the Silver Springs Hotel has caused quite a stir, though he is the only one around who doesn’t seem to notice. Men and women, young and old, steal a glance from time to time but are too polite to interrupt. Two twenty-somethings do ask if he will attend the kick-boxing exhibition later that evening.
‘What time?’ he asks.
‘7.30,’ they reply and head off delighted.
Then the conversation turns to the strikes. Immediately the discomfort is obvious. It is not because he is embarrassed or ashamed of what has happened in Cork GAA circles over the last decade. He still believes passionately that the players had a just cause, that there was no other choice but to take the stand they did. It was always a matter of principle. But Seán Óg regrets the hurt caused. The regret is sincere; that is easy to tell from the pained expression on his face. The conversation that flowed so naturally is now halting, he wrings his hands together and does his best to articulate what are very mixed feelings. There is pain, real pain.
‘No matter what I do for the rest of my life, in sport or away from sport, there will always be a scar. Those strikes are the scar and we will go to the grave with it,’ he says candidly. ‘We had three strikes in what was it, eight or nine years, and every one was worse than the other. Did they have to happen? Some people will ask why we wanted to change a system that has brought Cork thirty hurling All-Irelands. But times had changed. We had a group of good, disciplined guys who wanted to compete at the very top and unfortunately we felt the County Board was not giving us the support we needed. We took a stand based on certain principles and no one won. There was no winner.
‘I felt a stand had to be made. It had nothing to do with money. I don’t care about not being paid as a hurler, but the least the players should expect is to be made feel that they are worth something to the association. When you win they are all over you, they all want a part of you. When you lose they walk all over you as if you don’t exist and that pisses me off. It has nothing to do with being paid, it is about looking after your players the very best way you can.
‘The Cork County Board was out of date and didn’t un-derstand the demands on modern players. It was a clash of cultures. I didn’t enjoy any of it; anyone who did must have been mad. I wanted to be playing; I had no wish to get into boardroom battles with the greatest boardroom battler of them all, Frank Murphy. Frank is a shrewd man, an experienced official and a politician. Here we were as players who were used to training and playing with no experience of working the system and we were standing in a room fighting a case; it was daunting to say the least. We didn’t want to be there. We were seen as upstarts; people formed their own opinions on us and fair enough. But we didn’t wake up one morning and say we were going to take them on and give them a hard time. We didn’t do it for fun. It is not good reading on our CVs to be involved with three strikes.
‘Gerald McCarthy was caught in the middle of the last strike and became the scapegoat. I can understand people questioning us and being angry with us. Who were we to take on a legend of Cork with seven or eight All-Ireland medals jangling in his pocket? I would be a conservative, a traditionalist. I love hearing stories about teams in the 1950s, 1960s and 1970s, the Christy Rings and all that. It fascinates me, because to understand where you are going in the future you need to know about the past. Because I was involved in the strikes people might regard me as a radical. The way the Gerald thing went made me very sad because Gerald was a player himself. There have to be serious lessons learned. It will take time to heal the hurt. We did things wrong and the County Board did as well. Last winter was a torture; it affected everything, you became almost paranoid just walking down the street. There are people today who won’t look at me or talk to me because of my involvement.’
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Solace is to be found in the bosom of the family. In the spring of 2003 Seán Óg was again making the familiar journey across Cork city to training three times weekly. He had a familiar passenger beside him in the car: Setanta. Only this time Setanta was not travelling as a brother, supporter and ball-fetcher. He was a team-mate, potentially at least. The third of the Ó hAilpín boys had been causing quite a stir as an under-age hurler in the county and had played in the All-Ireland minor final of 2001 in which Cork beat Galway.
‘Away from hurling we were going our separate ways,’ recalls Seán Óg. ‘I had moved out of home and I was getting on with my life, getting serious about my career in banking. There is a six-year age gap between us. Setanta was a student in Waterford without a care in the world. But when it came to training with Cork and playing matches we travelled together and it was special.’
Donal O’Grady had been installed as the Cork manager after the turmoil of the strike and knew the Ó hAilpíns better than anyone. At 6 feet 5 inches, Setanta had a physical advantage, but he also possessed speed, balance and natural skill. O’Grady saw him as a target man as well as a score-getter. Playing alongside players of the experience and calibre of Alan Browne, Joe Deane, Ben O’Connor, Niall McCarthy and Timmy McCarthy, Setanta would be a quick learner.
By the time Cork returned to Croke Park as the Munster champions, having dethroned Waterford in the provincial final, the whole country was aware of Setanta. ‘Santy’s on the run’, shrieked Cyril Farrell, the Sunday Game Live TV analyst, during the All-Ireland semi-final replay against Wexford. It reflected the growing excitement everywhere about hurling’s new superstar.
Although Cork were beaten in the All-Ireland final by Kilkenny, Setanta and Seán Óg had enjoyed a memorable first season together in the Cork jersey. Both were selected as All Stars at the end of the season and Setanta was named Vodafone Young Hurler of the Year. But on the night of the glittering All Stars banquet in early December it was Emile who accepted the award on behalf of her third son. Setanta was on the far side of the world in the land of his birth starting a new adventure.
‘It had been a great year but there was no indication until very late that Setanta would get the opportunity to go to Australia and embark on what he hoped would be a professional career,’ says Seán Óg. ‘It was a fantastic opportunity for him and he has done very well out there. So while having the chance to play together in 2003 was a great privilege, I look back on it with a tinge of sadness because I don’t see him coming back now, at least not before I stop playing.’
While Setanta went through the arduous task of adapting to a new game in Melbourne, Seán Óg and Cork embarked on another wonderful odyssey in 2004. It was almost certainly Seán Óg’s best year in the Cork jersey and he ended with another All-Ireland medal, his second All Star and won both the Vodafone and Texaco Hurler of the Year awards. But the year was memorable for other reasons too. ‘The journey that began in the back yard back in 1990 reached its destination,’ is how Seán Óg explains it. Na Piarsaigh won the Cork Senior Championship and Seán Óg, Setanta and Aisake Ó hAilpín were part of the victorious team.
‘Setanta
had signed a contract with Carlton AFL club that year but was home for a few weeks. The club management convinced him to help us out. He came on in the county semi-final and won it for us. Then he was a great target man for us in the final.’
Seán Óg and Setanta also played together for Ireland in the International Rules series against Australia that autumn. Seán Óg was a mildly controversial selection because he had not been involved with inter-county football for four seasons. ‘It came out of the blue. I was reluctant at the start to become involved because I knew there would be hassle and I didn’t need it. But Larry Tompkins [a selector with Ireland] convinced me to give it a try. I was embarrassed going to the first trial. I knew there would be people wondering what I was doing there, this hurler. But very quickly I got to know the lads, they welcomed me and I began to feel part of it. Now I treasure it, because beating the Aussies ended a great season on the right note. The fact that Setanta would be playing was a big factor too and it was great to win the series that year. It really made 2004 special for me.’
His views on the series are interesting. ‘People knock International Rules and I can see why. Aussie Rules is no relation to Gaelic football. You kick the ball, hand pass it and catch it but that’s it. You are trying to marry two completely different sports, two different cultures, different ways of thinking. That is why you get the problems. Having said that, having worn the Irish jersey, having stood for Amhrán na bhFiann in Croke Park, it meant so much and for that reason alone I would be in favour of keeping it going.’
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Aisake Ó hAilpín watched Setanta’s early progress in Melbourne with interest. Like all other young men with a talent for sport, he yearned to play full-time. The opportunity arose when Carlton placed him on their ‘rookie’ list for the 2005 season. Although he did not manage to play a senior game for the club in three seasons in Melbourne, Aisake learned a great deal about conditioning and the lifestyle of a full-time sportsman that would ensure on his arrival back in Ireland a quick return to the Cork hurling squad for the 2009 Championship.
His presence provided Seán Óg with a great tonic. He had endured the traumas of another strike, plus the only suspension of his entire career as a result of what became known as ‘Semplegate’. It was a controversial pre-match scrap before the opening round of the Munster Championship between Cork and Clare in June 2007. Seán Óg, Donal Óg Cusack and Diarmuid O’Sullivan were suspended along with four Clare players following a post-match investigation. ‘What happened shouldn’t have happened,’ admits Seán Óg. ‘Although how two teams were allowed run onto the pitch at the same time is another issue. I wish it had never happened, because it would be great to look back on your career and have a clean record; I never even got a yellow card and that means as much to me as winning the All-Ireland.’
The Ó hAilpín story continues. On 31 May 2009 Seán Óg and Aisake lined out for the first time together as Cork hurlers in the Munster Championship when they lost narrowly to Tipperary. They played together again when Aisake scored two goals and a point against Offaly in the qualifiers and also in the defeat to Galway. ‘Aisake coming back and getting the chance to play together for a few seasons means an awful lot to me,’ Seán Óg explains. ‘I enjoy training with him, going to games with him and watching him get the enjoyment out of the game that I have had for so long. My brothers, my family, were always my greatest supporters.’
The Cooney Brothers
His adoring fans carry a triumphant Joe Cooney from the field at Semple Stadium after his brilliant individual performance for Galway against Kilkenny in the 1986 All-Ireland semi-final. © Ray McManus/SPORTSFILE
The road between Aughrim and Kilreekil is eerily quiet today. The landscape of east Galway has changed. One of Ireland’s new motorways has diverted heavy and light traffic off the old two-lane road that linked the two major centres of commercial activity in the midlands and west of Ireland, Athlone and Galway city. Now just the odd car, van or tractor breaks the stillness in the air over the N6. Just a few kilometres to the west lie the neighbouring villages of Bullaun and New Inn, home to the Sarsfields GAA club and some of the best hurlers that Galway has produced over the last three decades.
Jimmy Cooney, the eldest of the Cooney men from Bullaun and second eldest of the clan, farms about a mile from the old family home where Joe, the third youngest brother, has built his own house and now looks after the stock. Their mother Nora still lives next door in the house where she reared fourteen children with her late husband Mick. There are mementos all around to remind them of the glory days of Galway and Sarsfields hurling when the Cooney brothers were central to the successes. And out in the fields where it all began there are the sounds of a new generation of Cooneys preparing to play their part in the family story.
Thirty years ago in the autumn of 1980, on a never-to-be-forgotten September afternoon in Croke Park, Jimmy Cooney was the first member of the family to play in an All-Ireland final. Three years later the first lines of what would become the legend of Joe Cooney were written when he won an All-Ireland minor title. And in September 2009 the next instalment involving the latest generation began to be crafted when Joseph Junior was part of the All-Ireland-winning Galway minor team.
Bullaun hasn’t changed very much in those years. New houses have been built to accommodate an increased population and the national school has expanded with extra teachers employed to cater for higher numbers of pupils. But it retains the tranquillity of rural Ireland, with the hurling field – opened in 1984 when Jimmy and Joe Cooney played together in the Galway colours for the only time – still the hub of activity for the young people.
Mick Cooney played a big part in the creation and development of Sarsfields GAA club. When Mick was playing hurling, Bullaun had supported one team, St Enda’s, and New Inn another, St Killian’s. But in 1966 they came together and named the new amalgamated unit after Patrick Sarsfield who had fought in the Battle of Aughrim in nearby fields in 1691. Mick’s wife Nora was a Fahy from Craughwell. Her brothers all played football and hurling, Paddy representing Galway in both games.
In the early years Mick served as chairman, secretary, treasurer and team mentor. ‘He used to say he served in every position at the same time,’ laughs Joe. His sons and daughters all developed an avid interest in the game, an interest that was further fuelled when Jimmy began making an impact with Galway. Throughout the 1970s it seemed that every year the county was on the verge of a breakthrough. Jimmy was selected for the Galway under-21 team in 1977 and was also called into the senior squad that year. Injury restricted his hurling in 1978, but he was back on the Galway panel for the 1979 Championship.
That decade had begun with great hopes in Galway. They won the All-Ireland under-21 title in 1972 with a team that produced a number of players who would make the senior ranks, including Iggy Clarke, Frank Burke, P.J. Molloy and Joe McDonagh. They reached the All-Ireland senior final in 1975 after a famous semi-final victory over Cork, but were not strong enough for a great Kilkenny team. In 1976 they lost to Wexford after a replay in the semi-final. ‘When 1979 came around it was felt that we were ready to win an All-Ireland,’ remembers Jimmy. ‘In fact, it was very nearly the end of that team.’
Galway played in the four major finals in senior hurling in 1979 – the National League final, the Railway Cup final (representing Connacht), the Oireachtas final and the All-Ireland final and lost them all. They were well beaten by Kilkenny in the All-Ireland final. ‘People wondered that day, we all wondered, if it was possible for Galway to ever win a senior title,’ Jimmy says.
The players gathered before Christmas to discuss the state of play. Cyril Farrell had been appointed coach for the National League of 1979–80 and the Championship. ‘There were a lot of guys who had been around a long time,’ Jimmy explains. ‘You had lads like John Connolly who had given such service to Galway. They had given so much and we wondered could we go one more time. We all agreed to give it one more shot. We couldn’t let it go.’
Farrell introduced a heavy training programme. The players responded. ‘We worked very hard,’ says Jimmy. ‘You had to be at your peak just to keep going. But it was worth it.’ The turnaround was complete. The despair of 1979 was replaced by unbridled joy. They won the Railway Cup with only Joe Henry from Mayo breaking into the Galway-dominated team. And on 7 September 1980 the All-Ireland victory that had seemed so elusive was finally achieved, Galway’s first since 1923. ‘It is a day I will never forget and no one from Galway who experienced it will ever forget,’ Jimmy says happily.
Joe recalls the final against Limerick. ‘I know I was in the stands, but not all of the family could be there. There were so many of us we couldn’t get enough tickets. I was looking out onto Croke Park and all I wanted to do was to get a chance to walk on the pitch. I didn’t really dream that I would get a chance to play there. It was enough that my brother was playing. A lot of things happened after that, but the final of 1980 is a day none of us will ever forget.’
Conor Hayes, Niall McInerney and Jimmy in the Galway full back line faced the threat of Ollie O’Connor, Joe McKenna and Éamon Cregan. They were three great forwards, McKenna and Cregan having been part of the Limerick team that won the All-Ireland title in 1973. It was a huge tussle. Galway benefited from early goals scored by Bernie Forde and P.J. Molloy. ‘But we knew with the talent they had that Limerick would fight back. And they did. There was one huge moment when Conor [Hayes] intercepted a pass. If he had missed it Limerick had a certain goal and that could have changed everything. When Noel O’Donoghue [the referee from Dublin] blew the final whistle I couldn’t believe it,’ Jimmy says candidly.
‘The truth was that in our wildest dreams we didn’t think it was possible for Galway to win the All-Ireland. The people had followed us over the years and they had good times, but they didn’t think it would happen. And when it did and to see what it meant to them, it made everyone so happy.’