Aristocrats are rising
Killinan End column
With the county senior hurling championship reaching the last four, Loughmore/Castleiney - as the most recent winners of the teams still standing - might be the ones with the greatest expectations. While the outcomes last weekend severely dented the ambitions of the North a certain freshness has been injected into the competition with the progress of Moycarkey/Borris to the last four.
This is a club which can trace its DNA back to the very origins of Tipperary hurling teams and has had its golden eras down the years. The 1930s was especially kind to the club with four county titles won. Perhaps Kiladangan might, unwittingly, be lucky opposition for the Mid team as well. Some 90 years ago Moycarkey/Borris were cock of the walk in Tipperary, masters of all they surveyed. In 1934 they won a third successive County Senior title beating a combination team of Kilbarron and Kiladangan which had made waves in the North.
The might of Moycarkey, including Phil Purcell and Paddy ‘Sweeper’ Ryan – the former an All-Ireland winner in 1930, the latter would do so in 1937 and ‘45 – proved a little too much for a North team which included Martin Kennedy. Sweeper Ryan must have been a happy man indeed in 1937 as Moycarkey again won the County title to add to his All-Ireland medal won in Killarney. For Moycarkey/Borris though the glory years beginning to ebb away. They won the 1940 County championship beating Cashel in the final but would have to wait four decades for the Dan Breen cup to darken their doors again.
That was worth waiting for. In the early 1980s Moycarkey/Borris was just two pucks of a ball from being a four-in-a-row Dan Breen winning team. The fray was entered for the 1982 Mid Final against familiar opponents, Loughmore/Castleiney, with an air of some confidence. Len Gaynor was now coaching the team – a man whose fingerprints were all over County Final day in these years. The previous year had seen a 3-10 to 2-9 divisional final win over the same opposition. This had landed a first Mid Senior title in ten years, with the Minors winning the Mid title on the same day. Heady days indeed. In the county semi-final they lost by just a point to a very good Borris-Ileigh team which subsequently dethroned the champions Roscrea in the final.
A year later, Roscrea were back in a County Final for an astonishing twelfth time in sixteen years. What a record of consistency that was. They would do one more waltz with their great rivals, Kilruane, three years later but in 1982 they faced novel opposition. Moycarkey/Borris had a glorious but sepia-tinted history in the competition. Roscrea were the colour boys, the Reds, a burst of modernity. The clash of cultures led to a stalemate before Moycarkey won the replay with by seven points.
Many a county championship winning team after a long hiatus from the winners’ enclosure has celebrated like it’s 1999 and taken eyes off the ball. Not Moycarkey who brought all that old glory to the provincial championship beating Patrickswell by a point after a mighty struggle in Nenagh. Some sixteen years after winning an All-Ireland Under-21 medal, John Flanagan added a Munster Club championship. A long trip to Loughgiel in Antrim for an All-Ireland semi-final against the local Shamrocks – an unimaginable decision on a venue for an All-Ireland semi-final these days – brought a defeat which was considered a surprise. Loughgiel Shamrocks’ subsequent final win over St Rynagh’s put a different complexion on that semi-final, however. Four of the Loughgiel panel would start the All-Ireland Senior Final against Tipp seven years later.
After an incredibly long stint of non-stop hurling the Tipp champions made it back to the county semi-final of 1983 and came up just short against Borris-Ileigh who were constantly wrestling with Roscrea and Kilruane in those years. Another one-point defeat was Moycarkey’s fate. Even in the Mid final they came up short in Loughmore/Castleiney’s first divisional senior title. Getting that particular green and red genie back in the bottle has been a challenge for all clubs since. Moycarkey’s flame had dimmed briefly but the candle still burned.
Centenary Year was a special year. So had been the GAA’s jubilee year of 1934 when the Dan Breen Cup wintered in the homes of Littleton, Horse & Jockey, Two-Mile-Borris, and of course Moycarkey. Bonfires would light up the parish again in October ’84. But it was not straightforward. The Mid final was lost to Drom & Inch in a replay for that club’s second divisional title and first since 1974. These were democratic times in the Mid. Since Moyne-Templetuohy’s first Mid senior title in 1970, six clubs had their day in the sun. Moycarkey, however, led the way in sealing the deal at County level. That they did in some style in the Centenary County final when Lorrha were beaten by five points. There will have been limited expectations of them among the teams entering the last four this year, but they will welcome the draw which avoids their Mid rivals. Not unlike their next opponent historical pedigree and race memory is there in spades. It may count for something.