Glory Days
Killinan End column
The slings and arrows of time and fortune are rarely as well exemplified as by the club championships. Cuala, All-Ireland hurling champions of 2016 & 17, won their first ever Dublin Senior Football championship last weekend. Only once before, in 1988, had the club even played in a final when they lost to Parnells.
Cuala’s win is all the more remarkable in that they downed not only the Dublin champions but also the Leinster champions, Kilmacud Crokes. Not just Dublin and Leinster Champions either but Cuala’s local rivals on the Southside of Dublin, and the winners of a remarkable eleven Dublin Senior titles since they won their first in 1992. Whether this is a sign of a new superpower in Dublin football remains to be seen but if not, it certainly shows the value of not letting an opportunity pass you by when it emerges.
The relegation of James Stephens in Kilkenny to the Intermediate grade for 2025 shows how even teams with a glittering record and plenty of playing resources can succumb to the gravitational pull of a lower grade if standards slip. Not since the mid ‘50s has the club had to operate outside the top grade. As Glen Rovers found out last year the club scene is unsentimental regarding previous achievements, though the Glen are making the quick return that will be expected of James Stephens next year.
When James Stephens ruled the hurling world back in the late 1970s and early ‘80s it was a funny kind of dominance. The club never threatened to become absolute overlords locally in the way that Ballyhale Shamrocks did but they were very successful nationally. In their first three forays outside the county only a one-point defeat to Camross stood between them and a possible three All-Ireland titles. The others were won against Blackrock (1976) and Mount Sion (1982) and what a team of stars they had including Brian Cody, Fan Larkin, the recently deceased Mick Crotty, Joe Hennessy, and Chunky O’Brien. Looking at those names you wonder why they did not win even more and how it must have seemed the day they are now enduring would never come.
Still, there is no great shame in the sense that it is a road well-travelled by many a club that had created waves in the club championship in the past. Wexford’s Intermediate hurling championship had a very salubrious pairing in last weekend’s semi-final when Rathnure played and beat Buffers Alley. Rathnure, the club of the Quigley’s and the Rackard’s, made the drop from Senior last year and look set to make a quick return. Buffers Alley, famous for the Doran’s of course, won the Intermediate back in 2013 and will have to plot the same route again next year. Of course, they are as susceptible to a non-Senior grade as anyone having been Intermediate champions in the Model County back in 1965 before they had won even the first of their Senior titles. They won all twelve of their County Senior titles between 1968 & 1992. Similarly, Oulart-The Ballagh won all their thirteen Senior titles between 1994 & 2016 before they too had to make the drop to Intermediate which they won in 2022.
Perhaps the biggest drop of all teams that once were national leaders is that of Kiltormer of Galway. This is the club of Conor Hayes, Galway captain in 1987/88, and were All-Ireland club champions in 1992. They hail from a rural East Galway parish which includes the areas of Kiltormer, Clontuskert and Laurencetown. There is history in this club with any mention of the early GAA hurling organisation referencing the ‘Kiltormer Rules’ – one of the early versions suggested.
As with so many clubs, especially those rural, Kiltormer’s success came in a spurt. All five of the club’s County Senior titles were won between 1976 – just year after winning the Intermediate title - and 1991. Some of the early attempts at the All-Ireland club title were disastrous including a loss against the Roscommon champions and a quarter-final exit to St Gabriel’s of London. The latter defeat came as late as 1990, but better was to come just a couple of years later when the club became involved in a great semi-final saga with Munster Champions Cashel.
The first game was in Leahy Park, Cashel, and showed little signs of what was to come with Kiltormer racing into a 1-6 to 0-1 lead in what John McIntyre described in the Connacht Tribune as “one of the greatest club matches I have ever seen.” Cashel somehow hauled themselves back into it and were level at the end. Duggan Park, Ballinasloe, was the venue for the replay and Cashel again worked wonders coming from five points down in extra-time to salvage another day out.
This time however their luck ran out, but not before they got the unusual distinction of playing in Croke Park in an All-Ireland club semi-final on St Patrick’s Day. A late Kiltormer goal was the difference, and they went on to beat Birr in the final in Thurles. Time has marched on without mercy. Kiltormer will operate at Junior level next year, maybe the inevitable fate of such a rural club from time to time. The likes of Rathnure, Buffers’ Alley, and James Stephens, might well reflect that things could be a lot worse.