Remembering '98 - It's 25 years to the day since Offaly won the 1998 All-Ireland

Offaly last tasted All-Ireland success 25 years ago on September 13, 1998, but the victory was somewhat iconic. An ageing Offaly team described by their manager Babs Keating as 'sheep in a heap' staged a mid-season mutiny after their Leinster final defeat to Kilkenny. Babs was dispatched and Michael Bond stepped into the breach.

Then came the early whistle against Clare in the All-Ireland semi-final, the sit-down protest and replays, which has gone down as one of the most extraordinary GAA moments of all-time. The replay win set up a rematch of the Leinster final against Kilkenny in the All-Ireland decider. Brian Whelehan hit 1-6 and the rest is history. 

That 1998 All-Ireland is the only Offaly senior title victory in my living memory. As a seven-year-old boy in Edenderry at the time, my experience of hurling was a peripheral one; from the perspective of a non-hurling stronghold, and the sort of Skittle-fuelled oblivion that generally clouds the minds of most seven-year-olds. 

Nevertheless, as a sports fan, that iconic Offaly jersey ended up on my back and the Sunday Game on the television. The commentary was the soundtrack to Sunday afternoons. It was the same summer France won the World Cup and I ran around the garden in a t-shirt emblazoned with the France '98 mascot, a blue and red cartoon cockerel, pretending to be Zinedine Zidane one minute and Johnny Dooley the next. 

Such was the aura around the golden generation of Offaly hurling in the 1990s, small ball fever even caught on in Edenderry, and the hype around the All-Ireland certainly gripped the town in 1998 with local man Cillian Farrell on the senior panel. That was probably the reason it captured kids like me; someone from your town who went to your school involved with such success. It was infectious.

I remember the exodus from the town that Sunday; cars draped in flags and laden down with hope heading for the Dublin road. The rest of us headed to the pubs of the town with our families. For many in Edenderry, it was Byrne's Bar, and that pub pilgrimage was replicated across the county. 

As a child, you're fairly oblivious to the details of the game, only looking up upon raucous cheering or the groans of aul lads at a near-miss or Kilkenny score. The bustle of the crowds reduced the commentary to mere background babbling, attentions piqued if the urgency increased in Ger Canning's voice, the screen barely visible over all the heads. But the hysteria was tangible, even to a small child, probably especially so. 

I was probably out the back of Byrne's pub playing with cousins and friends when the final whistle sounded and a hum of jubilant cheering rang out from the bar, a sound intermittently made louder by the opening of the door as someone escaped the crucible to catch a breath outside. While I was unaware of the significance of an All-Ireland final win, you never forget that buzz. Grown men were hugging each other and clinking glasses and waxing lyrical about Pilkington and the Dooleys, and Whelehan; 'Jaysus Whelehan, wasn't he pure class today.'

We, as children, lapped up the atmosphere, and made it in many ways; standing at the bottom of Gilroy Avenue and the Arden Road and Castle Street, waving Offaly flags and signalling passers-by to beep their horns. The sale of hurls went through the roof and we were mesmerised by news reports showing the team bus parting crowds of supporters in Tullamore like the Red Sea. 

I remember little of the sit-down protest or the back and forth between Michael Bond and Ger Loughnane after the semi-final saga with Clare. I simply revelled in the fact that my county was on top of the world,  and as I saw it, up there with France and the World Cup final. They had Zizou but we have Yabba Dabba Dooley, and that was infinitely more impressive in my mind.

You can't help but look back at that time with great fondness. As youngsters it was the innocence of waving flags and tying woven bands in the Offaly colours around our heads, while adults sank celebratory pints and shook hands and shed tears for a week solid. It was pure joy, and that's what was universal about it. 

Having now gone 25 years without a similar feeling, long since grown out of the famous '98 jersey and seing Offaly hurling fall through the grades, it's easy to get pessimistic. But there's something of 98' we have left and that's the spirit that whipped us all up into a frenzy, and most importantly, many of the men who were on the pitch doing the hurling that day are now on sidelines or in meeting rooms passing on their knowledge.

Many of the current Offaly panel are my age, in their mid to late 20s, and like me, can just about recall the scenes on the television or in Croke Park, or the Liam MacCarthy arriving into an assembly hall of a Monday morning, and that's a distinct advantage. Many of the 1998 players are working away with their clubs or even in the county board trying to instill that belief and those structures to lift us once again. They are the standard-bearers because they are the last Offaly men to reach that promised land - always believing we can get back there.

There's a lot to be said for inspiration and belief like that. There's a full circle to be made there somewhere that can get the wheels in motion for a new generation. It's the type of link that played a part in Clare's 2013 success with a Banner hero of the same era, Davy Fitzgerald, on the line as manager for that famous victory. A Leaving Cert student at the time, Shane O'Donnell, who would have grown up with the image of Davy stopping Offaly and Cork and the Cats between the Clare posts, was the hero of the piece. That's not all coincidence. 

We are now blooding players that have no memory of Offaly success like the one expressed here. While they are learning from the heroes who claimed All-Ireland success, their tangible connection to their era is waning. Hubert Rigney lifting Liam MacCarthy aloft will become just a grainy clip on Reeling in the Years to them, and that disconnect is something we can't afford to allow happen if the tradition is to live on. Managers and coaches, and as fans too, don't let them forget they play for a great hurling county.

Two decades of hurt has brought us to the bottom of the pit. The way out is long and hard, but like the journey to Croker on that most faithful of All-Ireland Sundays in 1998, it's one laden with hope, and it's one worth making. 

#UíbhFhailíAbu - A version of this article was first published by the Offaly Express in 2018