KILLINAN END - Enjoying the good times
One of the great aspects of the current Limerick hurling team is how it has endured, and indeed its true longevity is a story yet to be told.
Had Limerick not won the titles of 2020 & 2021, the men in green would still no doubt be recalled as one of hurling's exceptional teams. However, the county's supporters and hurling’s followers in general would have been denied so much. Those years were when the county won its titles in an empty stadium followed by an only half-full Croke Park a year later would have left the county with this slightly anti-climactic feeling. Imagine having watched so many other counties enjoy their time in the sundown the years with unbridled enthusiasm and excitement, to then have to do so in the shadows. How easily we can take it all for granted.
The potential success of Cork is another aspect of GAA life that we have all probably taken for granted from time to time. Looking back now on the 1980s and 1990s it is genuinely hard to believe that only twice did the county reach a hurling and football final in the same year. Those finals of 1990 and 1999 are far rarer than they may have seemed with the time. In those decades, certainly post-Mick O’Dwyer’s Kerry, it seemed that Cork had the potential to reach the All-Ireland final in either sport any year. History, as ever, sees things through a wider lens. Before 1990 you had to go back to 1956 for Cork to have a double date. In that year, the hurlers and footballers from the Rebel County approached their finals from very different perspectives. The hurlers had won three in a row 1952-54 and then were “caught” by Clare in the Munster championship in ’55. The footballers in contrast were only ever occasional visitors to the top table, with only a single All-Ireland title won since 1911. Of course, it was ever thus in Cork with the footballers’ expectations always more limited.
Nonetheless, the footballers put in a fine campaign which included a replayed Munster Final win over Kerry in Killarney. This was the bones of a Kerry team that had won a famous All-Ireland final against Dublin in 1955 and featured a young Mick O'Connell then in the fledging period of what would become perhaps the most storied career in Gaelic Football. Cork met an unusual challenge in the All-Ireland semi-final. Kildare had been one of the sport’s poster-boys back in the 1920s and ‘30s but had fallen on hard times. Indeed, a Leinster Final win over Wexford in ’56 was the county’s only provincial title between 1935 and the revival of 1998 under Mick O’Dwyer. Young men who had grown up to expect success found it remarkably elusive as they courted middle age. Perhaps it was this expectation that created a rather foul mood in that Cork-Kildare semi-final where even the final whistle was not enough to bring an end to the punch-ups.
The county’ hurlers carried the burden of expectation very well. A tight tense one point win over Tipperary was followed by a remarkable comeback in the Munster Final against Limerick. Suddenly all the stars were aligned as Cork stood on the threshold of a remarkable double achievement. One can but imagine the excitement on Leeside when even the consistent success of Cork’s hurlers was freshened up but the prospect of an historic double. What could possibly go wrong? Like Limerick’s hurlers in 2020/21 however forces outside of those teams’ control cast a shadow.
Polio had been a problem in Ireland at various stages in the late ‘40s and early 50s but some context is useful. In 1954 there had been 82 cases across the country. During the summer months of 1956 there were 90 cases in Cork city alone before the rest of that large county is even considered. Young children in Cork were subject to an unofficial curfew, and it was advised that they should not travel to the Cork-Kildare game in Dublin. Health officials in Dublin put pressure on the Minister for Health with the prospect of thousands of Corkonians descending on the capital for the All-Ireland finals. The potential damage this could do by exposing the children of the people of Dublin to such danger was not worth any game of football it was claimed.
In the end the agreed solution was to defer both All-Ireland finals by a few weeks - the hurling being played on 23 September and the football final getting a rare outing in October. Cork’s summer of woe on the health front was followed by disappointing days in Croke Park with two defeats. As early as the following May, in a departure that may well be revisited soon again, Dr Saunders - Medical Officer - spoke of the “unjustifiable hysteria” that had gripped Cork city during 1956. Health treatments may not have been as advanced back in those days, but hindsight was still 20/20 vision.