KILLINAN END - Ennis’ storied history

Even with the new championship system back in full swing, visits to Cusack Park in Ennis still remain rare. It is a ground that whips up quite a frenzy on match day which belies the colourful and sometimes troubled history of the ground. When the ground was acquired and opened initially it was at a time when pitch acquisition and the associated fund-raising was common in a GAA which was still, organisationally, in its fledgling phase. The early GAA struggled for facilities, and you do not have to locate very old men even in this day to hear recollection of the ad-hoc pitch provided by a friendly local landowner.

It was in essence no different for County grounds in earlier days and in its own way more challenging given the need to, at the very least, create a secure location where all hell might not break loose in the middle of a match, and where an entrance fee to the game could be actually enforced by a perimeter wall. It was 1936 by the time Cusack Park was officially opened – the same year that the shiny and new Fitzgerald Stadium opened in Killarney. The latter was considered of such grandeur that it hosted the All-Ireland hurling final of 1937 because of delays to construction work on the new Cusack Stand in Croke Park. In the same way that Centenary Year of the GAA seemed to motivate much organisational activity across clubs and counties, the jubilee year of 1934 also seems to have engendered confidence in the GAA of a robust and investable future.

Despite the newness of Cusack Park, its peripheral location did it few favours with just four visits from neighbours Limerick in 1940s and ‘50s representing the only Senior championship hurling at the ground. The arrival of Galway into Munster in the early ‘60s gave Ennis a lift as suddenly it was an obvious neutral location for Galway-Limerick games and was a neighbouring county to Clare. Tipp made a first championship visit to the ground to play Galway in 1961. It was a year of rarities for Tipp which included a League trip to Carlow, and an All-Ireland Final against Dublin for the first time since the Triple Crown year of 1930. Tipp became only the second All-Ireland Final winner ever not to score a goal in the final but managed to hit Galway for seven in Ennis. Limerick and Galway travelled to Ennis over the following years honouring home and away agreements with their hosts as well as playing each other. Tipp’s next trip did not happen until 1985.

Tipp had gone close against Cork in the Centenary Munster Final but still only nine of that 1984 Munster Final team started the next championship game a year later. Even more remarkable to think that of the team that got over Clare in that 1985 Munster semi-final only seven started the year after against Clare in Ennis again. And of that 1986 team that gave away a sizeable lead to lose that game only four survived to the Munster Final replay of 1987 in Killarney. Someday someone will theorise convincingly that the Tipp teams of the ‘Famine’ years were among the greatest hurlers to grace any field. How they remained so competitive despite such chopping and changing defies any other explanation.

That 1985 match with Clare was dour and finished level. A fortnight later Tipp won the replay by eleven points in Thurles, reflecting the margin when the teams had met in the now largely forgotten Ford Cup semi-final. This was a second – and last - iteration of the Centenary Cup that was played a year earlier. Tipp’s 1986 trip to Ennis featured Kilruane’s Tony Sheppard only championship appearance in goal, rewarding a fine career with a great club team. He was also unluckily blown for over-carrying with the resultant penalty goaled. Other debutants were his club-mate Séamus Gibson. John McGrath of Borris-Ileigh, and Noel Sheehy at centre-back. Colm Bonnar debuted at corner-back and one of the subs which came on was another Kilruane man by the name of Eamon O’Shea. It was a result which was universally criticised in Tipp, after a nine-point lead was frittered away, with all the progress of the previous few years apparently thrown to the winds. Of course, that argument assumed that the progress was a function of continuity. But it was in spite of continuity. The Clare ambush in Ennis was waiting to happen.

If it has not been a happy hunting ground on occasion for Tipp, it has caused problems for the Clare County board too. Various attempts have been made to look at alternatives. The pitch was so poor in the mid-70s that Clare decamped to Tulla for National League games. Between 1976 and 1980 the county played fourteen league games in Tulla losing just two – to Wexford and Tipp. A loan-scheme fundraiser akin to Tipp’s efforts ahead of the renovations to Semple Stadium in the early 1980s was under-taken. It was enhanced by the high profile of the Clare hurling team which won the 1977 and ’78 National Leagues and went hard on winning the Munster Final too. Another grand opening of Cusack Park took place in 1980.

One of the venues more folkloric events was surely the 1962 Harty Cup final when Ennis CBS, with nine players from the local parish including from 8-15, beat a St Flannan’s team with seven North Tipp men starting. As time ebbs on its significance is less to a newer generation but it kept the street corners buzzing around Ennis for many a day. May they continue to chatter for many a day. It is good that championship hurling is now finally a regular in a town which holds the game in such regard.