Killinan End - Hurling’s Blue-bloods

“Four counties dominate hurling: Tipperary, Cork, Limerick, and Kilkenny. Occasionally Dublin may challenge the supremacy of the Big Four. Waterford, Clare, Galway, and Laois have outside chances. Actually, Kilkenny is the only county which has seriously disputed the monopoly of the Munster Big Three.” The words are from an editorial in a publication called ‘Sport’ and were written in November 1949.

For context, Tipperary had beaten Laois in the All-Ireland final a couple of months previously. Every All-Ireland title of the 1930s and ‘40s bar two had been shared by Cork, Limerick, Tipperary, and Kilkenny. The Big Four claim rang true. The outliers were Waterford’s maiden title in 1948 and a win ten years earlier by Dublin which is certainly consistent with the claim regarding Dublin’s “occasional challenge”.

The Dublin challenge in those days was, of course, a different proposition as the team was usually made up almost exclusively of country players domiciled in the capital. That composition of Dublin teams has changed though with limited impact on Dublin’s place in the pecking order suggested by the journalist Patrick Foley in late 1949.

Some seven decades later it is interesting to consider how much has changed at all. Limerick certainly has by the deeds of recent years reclaimed its Big Four place which had dimmed somewhat through the 1950s and ‘60s. Waterford, despite winning the All-Ireland title just a year earlier than this ranking was suggested, has just one title since. Galway and Clare have made their mark in recent decades and often seem capable of doing something. Laois, despite producing fine teams in the 1980s, have slipped from this type of conversation.

To the modern eye the glaring absence from the list of hurling’s top prospects in 1949 is Wexford. Remarkably, back in those years, Wexford was scarcely regarded as a hurling county at all. The memory of the Model County’s achievements in football between 1915-18 when four All-Ireland titles were won were still in recent living memory.

That football tradition had been refreshed as recently as 1945 when the Leinster Senior championship was won for the first time in twenty years. The surrounding excitement saw a then record semi-final attendance for Wexford’s subsequent narrow semi-final defeat to Cavan. By contrast the Senior hurlers were beaten in Wexford Park by sixteen points against Kilkenny in the Leinster quarter-final.

Football generally had enjoyed a novel 1949 with Meath becoming first time All-Ireland champions. Their semi-final meeting with Mayo was the first clash between the counties. Armagh took Cavan to the wire in the Ulster Final and won the All-Ireland Minor title, anticipating their Ulster Senior titles of the early ‘50s.

Hurling, in contrast, was looking predictable with a young and powerful Tipp team coming through. Yet, unknown to the hurling world, we were on the brink of one of the most significant breakthroughs in hurling history – perhaps its most significant and enduring. Yes, Tipperary and Cork would dominate the All-Ireland winners’ enclosure for several years with their thunderous encounters defining the hurling years between 1949 and 1954. But in 1950 the green shoots of a Wexford emergence took root.

Mind you, the National League provided little evidence with just one point garnered from four matches. But by the time the Leinster Final arrived Wexford were in flying form and packed Nowlan Park to the rafters for the first Wexford game to be broadcast live on the wireless. Accordingly, the Irish Press the day after said: “the game was Wexford’s everywhere and all the time, until the crucial closing minutes.” Not a scenario unfamiliar with Kilkenny in Leinster Finals. Wexford’s day in the sun would wait.

If Wexford’s secret was out, then they embraced their new altitude with enthusiasm. From a poor League campaign in 1950 they went all the way to the final in 1951 only to lose to Galway. The Westerners’ own next League title would also signal a breakthrough 24 years later when they beat Tipp in the final in Limerick. Galway were captained in 1951 by one ‘Inky’ Flaherty – in 1975 he was their manager.

Despite the defeat, Wexford were breaking glass ceilings. They exploded through it in the Leinster championship beating Laois in the final. An All-Ireland semi-final rematch with Galway qualified them for a first All-Ireland final in 33 years. All-Ireland Finals are unsentimental arenas, and this was not to end well for Wexford against a very powerful Tipperary team. It was a rare final in which Tipp did not wear Blue and Gold, instead donning Munster’s blue while their opponents were clad in Leinster green.

They took a bus to Dublin from Rearcross that year to see, if not support, one of their own. The soon-to-be-great Tim Flood who lined out for Wexford had a Rearcross mother, albeit from the ‘West Bank’ portion of that parish, which is claimed by County Limerick. They would’ve gone to support that Tipp team – including Tony Reddin, Tony Brennan, Pat Stakelum, Jack Hough, Phil Shanahan, and half of Borris-Ileigh - with confidence against any opposition. You wonder if they realised they were also reading the opening page of a new and colourful chapter in hurling’s history.