Clare's day in the sun is well earned
Killinan End
THE late journalist David Guiney - a Cork man - told a story of attending the 1966 All-Ireland hurling final. He was struggling to contain his own enthusiasm as Cork closed in on a first All-Ireland title since 1954. Though the 1930s had been a slack enough decade for Cork with just the one unsuccessful final appearance after their famous 1931 success, what followed created a monster. Between 1941 and ’54 the county won eight All-Ireland titles and looked to be an eternal threat. Then it all dried up, first slowly, and then dramatically. By 1966 hope had been all but lost.
That windy September day when Kilkenny were surprised had that strong emotional context. Yet, Guiney’s neighbour in Croke Park was so unmoved by proceedings as to have people wondering why he wasted a ticket by attending a game of apparently little consequence to him. When the final whistle went, however, the mask slipped and revealed a screaming Cork fanatic who proclaimed that never again would Cork wait a dozen years for an All-Ireland title. Like most claims made in times of high emotion, it did not age well.
When Patrick Horgan was born in May 1988 the backdrop for the county was not unlike that of the 1940s and ‘50s. Of the previous 19 Munster hurling championships only six had not found their way to Leeside. While the remarkable plenty at Minor and Under-21 level enjoyed in the late 1960s and ‘70s had slowed, the year of Horgan’s birth would see Cork winning another Under-21 title. No great cause for panic. However, as with all crises, the moment comes – in Hemingway’s famous phrase – gradually then suddenly. In other words, the signs are often not seen or acknowledged until the crash happens. Whatever misfortune or misjudgment befell Cork around the time Patrick Horgan came into the world, the decline had set in.
The year after Horgan’s birth, 1989, Glen Rovers won the County Senior title. Like Cork in 1966 the club had bridged an intolerable gap. They had waited some 13 years since 1976 for the club’s 25th County title. Never again, maybe the man in Croke Park might have said, would ‘the Glen’ wait as long for a County title. Patrick Horgan was not born lucky anyway. By the next time the club would take the Seán Óg Murphy cup to Blackpool in 2015, Horgan was 27 years old and naturally a key figure in the whole success. Whatever Cork won or lost on Sunday it would be hard to not see the game through the prism of Patrick Horgan’s career. How many players have entered an All-Ireland Final at the age of 36 seeking a first All-Ireland medal? When Stephen Cluxton won a first medal at 29, just three months short of his 30th birthday he was relatively unremarkable. In 1974 Cluxton’s illustrious predecessor, Paddy Cullen, was the same age. What made them remarkable was the creation of an illustrious career and reputation after such a late start.
Horgan, perhaps due to the back door and now the round robin, managed to create a gilt-edged reputation without sustained success in the form of cups and medals. His championship debut came against Tipp in the dying minutes of the 2008 Munster semi-final in Páirc Uí Chaoimh, on the day when Eoin Kelly’s brilliant goal propelled Tipp to a win and paved the way for a decade of some glory. It was in many ways the flip side of the barren landscape that awaited Patrick Horgan.
Just a year later one of his key opponents of last Sunday, John Conlon, crossed swords with that same Tipp cohort in the Gaelic Grounds. It seems an age away now since goals from Lar Corbett, Séamus Callanan, and John O’Brien were enough to overcome Clare. Three weeks earlier Patrick Horgan had made his first Munster championship start against Tipp in Thurles. Maybe some long roads have no turning?
Conlon always had, for what it was worth on the day, the cushion of an All-Ireland medal from 2013. He might have expected to get back to a final a bit quicker than he did but when all is said and done about the current Clare crop it can be said that they have contributed to establishing deep roots for Clare Senior hurling. There was an element of truth in Anthony Daly’s claim about Clare being seen as the ‘whipping boys’ much of the time, but no more.
Clare’s great achievement post-95 is the creation of a new winning tradition. Yes, they have not won Munster since the mayhem of the 1998 replay but in the new world they have beaten Cork in two finals a decade apart, and now have beaten them twice in the same championship. Inferiority is no longer complex. After toppling Limerick there was an expectation around Cork which Sunday’s display did not vindicate. Despite the tight margin the better team won. Clare ate up the breaking ball and Tony Kelly sprinkled the magic dust. This is a team which has lost to Limerick many times in recent years, lost its first round match last year in Ennis to Tipp, lost twice to a middling Kilkenny team in All-Ireland semi-finals. Yet they kept coming back and kept getting up. Their day in the sun is well-earned.