Nenagh to the fore in Ireland’s Hockey awakening

By Thomas Conway

When the Ireland women’s hockey team blazed a trail to the World Cup final in 2018, it triggered a great awakening.

Across the country, children, most of them girls, suddenly saw the spectacle which the team had produced, and they started to crave it. Anyone with any kind of sporting interest, no matter how passive, was instantly sucked into the story. With George Hamilton narrating, the Irish team swept through the group stages, gradually securing more and more attention until eventually, it dawned on people that this was one of the country’s greatest sporting stories in recent memory. A group of part-time players, relative outsiders, completely upsetting the odds and landing themselves in a World Cup final. They lost the decider to the Netherlands, but that didn’t matter. Their heroic status had already been secured.

Arguably, hockey is now in the midst of a golden era. The game is rapidly spreading, across new geographic areas and new demographics. As far as entry requirements go, income level, social status, or post-code are all irrelevant. You simply need to want to play the game. Nenagh Hockey Club embodies that philosophy. As one of the architects of the new club, Olivia Burke is well aware of the pre-existing impressions of the sport, but she is also witnessing first-hand how those impressions are changing. As she explains, hockey is an ancient game, with an innate connection to hurling. In recent years it has evolved dramatically, in every possible sense.

“Hockey is played everywhere now,” she explained.

“And that’s because people like it. It’s an attractive sport, it’s physical, it’s exciting, and there’s a great social element to it - for girls in particular. Hockey is an old sport as well, it has been played for a long, long time.

“I think it’s something like 3,000 years old, they reckon. So, no more than hurling, a lot of these stick and ball sports have evolved over the years, and hockey is no different. It has evolved a lot. Even in the last twenty to thirty years, it has evolved an awful lot.”

Revival

In Ireland, the game has expanded. New clubs are popping up around the country, new training initiatives and development programs are constantly being launched. The success of the women’s team has helped to supercharge that process. From a Nenagh perspective, the sport has been embedded in the town’s sporting culture since the 1890s.

The popularity of the sport would ebb and flow over the course of the next century, but during the 1990s, a senior women’s team was established to compete in the Munster and All-Ireland leagues. That group helped to construct the current pitch, located in Nenagh College, and achieved some considerable success at competitive level as well. In a beautiful, full-circle evolution, many of that crop of players are now coaching the new generation, as Olivia explains.

“A lot of the people that would have been involved with the Nenagh senior ladies’ team back in the nineties and are now involved in coaching this current generation of kids, which is nice. And it is just brilliant to see. A lot of those ladies rock up, and they are just full of enthusiasm, full of love for the sport. They’re reliving their youth, they’re teaching the kids, their own kids are playing.”

The club might only be in its infancy, but it is already attracting huge numbers. At present, Nenagh has a competitive under-16 girls’ team, along with two under-14 outfits and a multitude of different children’s sides from under-12 down. The aspiration, of course, is for Nenagh to be able to form a senior team in the near future.

That goal is altogether achievable, Olivia feels, if the current underage teams maintain their upward trajectory. Learning and harnessing the skills of the game isn’t necessarily easy, but with the right coaching and guidance, that process becomes much easier. Hockey isn’t just about lacing an inflated golf ball around an astro-turf pitch. It demands razor-sharp instincts and near inexhaustible agility. Player’s twist and turn with whirlwind speed. And now the game is starting to take place above the surface, which is good news for hurlers and camogie players.

“Hockey is a very technical sport, in terms of the skillset it requires,” Olivia explains.

“For example, one of the things people often don’t realise is that you can only use one side of the hockey stick to hit the ball. And because you can’t use two sides of the stick, you have to move your body around, so that means that body positioning and agility are so important.

“Generally, you have to play quite low down, with a low centre of gravity, but nowadays you can rise the ball, so the game has become more aerial. And obviously if you’re a hurler or a camogie player, this is class, because you’re already used to playing with the ball in the air.”

Doorway to the future

The revival of Nenagh Hockey Club feels like both a window to the past and a doorway to the future. Stroll down to Nenagh College on a Saturday morning or a weekday evening and you’ll witness a new generation of players embracing the game and just having fun.

On the side-lines you’ll find coaches and mentors who, as Olivia noted, are quite literally “reliving” the memories of their youth. Colin Stanley is one of those. The father of three enjoyed a successful career playing with Dublin club Corinthians in the Leinster Senior League. Injury and work eventually directed him away from the sport, but he has now rediscovered it in an entirely different capacity.

Colin knows first-hand the benefits that hockey can offer children. He notes that it can be particularly worthwhile for kids who, for whatever reason, have fallen out of love with other mainstream sports, but he also emphasises the point that Nenagh Hockey Club is home to a multitude of different athletes and individuals. It is truly eclectic, as every club should be.

“I’ve never considered hockey as an elitist sport,” he said.

“If you look at some of the members in Nenagh, some of those coaching and playing with us, it’s people from every walk of life, from every background, from every sporting code.

“We’ve got camogie and hurling players; we’ve got rugby players and soccer players who are just looking for something else to keep their eye in. We’ve got folks who are travelling from Roscrea and from Limerick. And they’re doing it because they like the sport and they want access to it.”

Colin feels that, on an overall level, hockey remains slightly underappreciated in terms of the benefits which it can deliver. But it is breaking new ground. It is percolating down into communities which might never previously have known the sport, and children are loving it.

“A lot of people coached me over the years and put a lot of time and effort into developing my hockey, and it’s really nice for me to be able to give something back. Obviously, I’m biased but I think it’s a brilliant sport, I think it’s an underrated and under recognised sport, and I just think that as long as the girls and the lads are coming up and enjoying it and walking off the pitch with a smile on their face, then I’ll keep doing it, because I just love it.”

Broader tapestry

Nenagh is part of a much broader tapestry of clubs which now colour the sporting landscape of North Munster. In recent years, new clubs have also emerged in Limerick and Ennis, reflecting the increased appetite for the game amongst children and adults.

Michael Houghton, the current President of Munster Hockey, helped to nurture many of these new projects. He believes that Nenagh is one of the most organised and ambitious clubs in the province. He also notes the fact that Nenagh also has a boy’s dimension, which is heartening, given that the sport has traditionally been dominated by females.

“From a Munster point of view, it’s fantastic to see Nenagh doing well,” he said.

“We now have a network of clubs - we have clubs in Limerick, we have Nenagh, we have another one in Ennis, and the more clubs you have, the more opportunities there are for competitive games, and that obviously helps players to develop. The other thing about Nenagh is that it has a boys’ team, which is fantastic, because the majority of hockey players are female, but the game is growing among males. Boys, and men, want to play the sport as well. They want to be a part of it.”

Originally from New Zealand, Michael speaks about hockey in Ireland with ambition and enthusiasm. He comes from a country in which rugby is a religion, and cricket is the secondary creed. As a child, Michael grew up playing hockey in all kinds of makeshift arenas, from school halls to tennis courts to freshly cut rugby pitches. The correct facilities rarely existed, but he and his peers found a way to play. Nowadays, Michael is determined to ensure that children are given access to proper hockey infrastructure and high-quality equipment. Olivia Burke shares that vision.

At present, Nenagh train on a 4G astro-turf surface in Nenagh College. The club are sincerely grateful to the school for permitting them to use their facilities, but competitive hockey is played on a 2G surface, a slightly shorter and more compact carpet which is similar to a tennis court. Hence, Nenagh are forced to play their home games in the Ursuline College in Thurles. It is inconvenient, and the arrangement can only go on for so long. Olivia is unambiguous. She wants to see a hockey pitch constructed in Nenagh in the near future. At present, the club is thriving, but it will only flourish if the correct facilities are there.

“Some people say long-term, I say three years,” she said.

“Getting a pitch to call home and allow us to upskill our players on, that is key to the success of the club going forward. To be able to compete at Munster level and beyond, we need a proper 2G pitch. Because the ball travels differently on a 2G pitch compared to a 4G one. And look, we have a great relationship with Nenagh College. They’ve really been fantastic, but we need a proper pitch to be a proper club.”

The sky is the limit for Nenagh Hockey Club. There are future Olympians running around the astro-turf in Nenagh College on certain weekday evenings. There are kids who are developing a lifelong passion for a game which has for so long existed on the periphery of the Irish sporting spectrum.

The success of the Irish women’s team is not reflected by medals or silverware. It is reflected in grassroots clubs like Nenagh, which are now blooming into fully fledged hockey institutions with aspirations of competing at the highest level. Nenagh has a proud history of hockey, and for the first time in two decades, it also has a future. Speaking to Olivia, Colin, and Michael, you get the sense that the future is in good hands.