All-Ireland SHC final preview: Offaly v Cork

IT is amazing the way the wheel turns. Kinnitty had a huge influence on Offaly's success story in the 1980s – Ger Coughlan, Pat Delaney, Mark Corrigan and Johnny Flaherty were three of the star men as Offaly emerged with their first Leinster Senior Hurling Championship win in 1980, the first All-Ireland a year later.

Coughlan, Delaney and Corrigan were still in sensational form as they won a second All-Ireland in 1985 – While Johnny Flaherty's fantastic career was over, Mark Corrigan's younger brother Paddy was a valuable member of the attack at this stage and Liam Carroll, corner back in the 1984 All-Ireland final loss to Cork, played in the first round draw with Kilkenny that year.

The Kinnitty input was absolutely pivotal to Offaly's great run as they competed in 11 consecutive Leinster finals from 1980 to 1990, winning seven of them. It was a huge return from a big parish with a limited population, thanks to the large percentage of its land on mountains and under forestry.

One of Offaly's great hurling areas, Kinnitty dominated the Offaly Senior Hurling Championship as they won the Sean Robbins Cup in 1978, 1979 and a famous three in a row from 1983 to 1985. They were beaten in finals in 1972, 1976, 1977, 1980 and 1981 in a run of remarkable consistency – and some of the defeats were very much ones that got away. Kinnitty's first golden era had been back sixty years earlier when they won the championship in 1920, 1923 and 1930 – they would almost certainly have won in 1921 and '22 only for the War of Independence leading to the cessation of playing activity

Kinnitty had won a very important stand-alone title in 1967 – the formation and emergence of St Rynagh's in the middle of the 1960s and Kinnitty's resurgence did most to end dominance of the old order of Coolderry and Drumcullen and their contribution to the Offaly hurling success story can't be understated.

They provided an extra ingredient for Offaly teams, leaders, winners and men of character, yet the 1980s has represented the pinnacle of their success story. They had no player on the second great Offaly hurling team in the 1990s and while they have supplied county hurlers in the 2000s, they have none on the current squad that have made a terrific comeback bid and are now preparing for the All-Ireland senior hurling quarter-final against Cork.

Ger Coughlan is a great example of the type of individual that makes the GAA so strong all over the country. When he was young, he excelled on the playing fields and after that phase of his life ended, he became a manager and mentor of teams – he had been doing that while playing, guiding Kinnitty to the Minor Hurling Championship in 1980. He also did his time in club administration, serving as chairman just a couple of years ago.

He lives in the village, remains deeply devoted to his home club and parish and he explained why Kinnitty have enjoyed periods of remarkable success followed by years in the doldrums.

Coughlan spoke about their success in the 1920s, the presence of seven Kinnitty men on the Offaly team that won the 1923 All-Ireland Junior Hurling Championship and the existence of “phenomenal families” such as the Cordial's.

“There is a huge hurling history in Kinnitty and it always has been there,” he pointed out. The 1920s run was ended by a wave of emigration of some of their best hurlers and they were also “cleaned out” in the 1950s. “If we can get numbers, we have a club who can always get hurlers. Even now, still, we have some good hurlers. We have a few young lads coming now who are reasonably good. The problem is we haven't enough numbers. We have good lads but you have to have a certain amount of numbers and that is the thing that catches us big time.

“It caught us in the '50s in particular and nearly cleaned us out completely. We nearly hadn't a set of jerseys for a while but the minute we got numbers, we won. We won the 1967 title, we were junior before that. In 1965 they were beating St Carthage's by ten or eleven points at half time in the junior final and Carthage's came back and beat them. In '66, they beat Killeigh in the final and went senior the following year. That junior co-incided with the arrival of Johnny Flaherty, Eddie Moyles, Percy Moyles, two or three really good hurlers who came and our other lads were good enough. Before that, we just hadn't fifteen, we just had ten or twelve and all of a sudden two or three lads arrived who were good enough.

“We live in hope and that is the way we will be. We have a certain amount of hurlers and all of a sudden we are waiting for the arrival of a few lads who will make that bit extra and pull us through. We will never have a panel of 25, it doesn't look like we will have.”

The answer to the question about their 1970s/1980s – Kinnitty were very close to Leinster club glory in the 1980s - success is a fairly obvious one and he only needed a small prompt before admitting: “We had generational talents and it just happened that a whole lot arrived together. We were in the 1976 county final and we were fierce young and got hammered by Banagher (St Rynagh's). Coolderry beat us by two points in 1977 and then we started winning. We threw away another couple, we should have won seven or eight at that time.”

Kinnitty have done very well to retain their senior status in the last couple of years, performing with great heart and producing some shocks and big displays. Is there light at the end of the tunnel?

He remembered historian Paul Rouse researching about why so many Protestants were playing hurling in the 1920s. Kinnitty had Church of Ireland men on every championship winning team and Rouse came out to Kinnitty to speak to a 1920s star Tom Mitchell about it.

“Tom was a Protestant and wing forward on the team. Paul asked him how he could reconcile that Kinnitty had Protestants playing so much hurling in an era of so much turbulence and change in the 1920s as Independence was on and the old order changed - there were two Armstrong's playing as well in that decade.

“He says, Paul, there is only one religion in Kinnitty and that is hurling. It is a religion and when you have that in it, I have no doubt, we will be there. We are going to find it difficult for a while.”

The problem is in Kinnitty National School where there are only five or six boys in sixth class most times – there is a very small school in Roscomroe as well. That has seen them forced to amalgamate with Lusmagh at underage level and last year, those combined areas couldn't even field a minor hurling team – Kinnitty players had to get special permission to hurl with Na Fianna.

“We still produced three lads off that team, the three lads who were up to date (last year in minor). We had four lads who helped Killeigh (Na Fianna) out and three of them four are going to be good enough to play a part in senior this year. That is incredible. We are able to hold onto them if we have the hurlers and there will be hurling in Kinnitty. It won't be easy and we might find it hard to stay senior hurling but we are immensely proud of our senior team with the numbers we have and what we have lost to emigration, We lost James Rigney, Paddy Delaney, Keith Bergin, a whole lot of lads. Most clubs have that but are able to take it because they have the numbers.”

Family sizes are a big factors with most parents now having only two or three children, boys and girls. “If we had one family who had six boys, we would put that woman up on a pedestal because we know if we had that, they would be a hurling family and we would get three senior hurlers out of that,” he quipped.

He cited Walsh Island and the Connor's (brothers Murt, Willie, Richie, Matt, Seamus and Sean) along with the Mulhall's (Eamon, Mick, Tom and Liam) as the way big families used to benefit clubs in the 1970s and 1980s – they backboned their great senior football six in a row run from 1978 to 1983.

Coughlan has been delighted to witness the Offaly hurling re-emergence in the past few years. One of the very few matches he has missed in recent years was the 2020 Christy Ring Cup semi-final penalties defeat to Down and that was because of Covid restrictions. Since then, Offaly have embarked on a terrific journey, winning the Christy Ring and Joe McDonagh Cups and now qualifying for the All-Ireland quarter-final.

He pointed out that it is a “similar journey” to the one they embarked on in the league in the 1970s – Offaly beat Wicklow by 0-3 to 0-1 in an especially notorious 1976 match, yet Damien Martin, Padraig Horan, Joachim Kelly, Eugene Coughlan, Pat Delaney, Pat Carroll and Brendan Keeshan all won Leinster and All-Ireland medals over 1980-1981.

Coughlan wasn't playing that day, joking: “I wouldn't associate myself with that. That is a great one altogether. There were a few lads who came after. (Johnny) Flaherty was in America, and myself, Mark Corrigan, (Liam) Currums, about four lads came. We'd be together and we'd say, ye are the Wicklow crowd and Flaherty would be jumping, we won the All-Ireland for ye, ye were no good. Wicklow nearly beat ye. This craic would start.”

He referred to the players who played in the Christy Ring Cup semi-final loss to Down and are still playing – Ciaran Burke, Ben Conneely, Eoghan Cahill, David Nally, Oisin Kelly and Brian Duignan all played in Newry that day.

“Even beyond them I'd have great regard for the lads who played through that period. Some of the lads played for years, the likes of Jason Sampson and (David) King from Coolderry. I do think of them two lads now and they are gone. I feel for them lads now because they gave great service and they were good lads. Them are the lads we can't forget in days like this.”

Coughlan added: “I think they are great lads. I've went to nearly all their matches, before they came up. I went to Kerry and everywhere because I enjoyed watching them play. Within what they were before the young lads came, they were giving everything every day. They were very very limited. We won the McDonagh final against Laois and Laois were definitely a better team than us but by Jaysus, our lads. I don't know what it was, it was the Offaly thing.

“Laois were a better team and you'd say how did they leave that behind but there was an Offaly thing in it. There is an Offaly roar and there is this Offaly thing.”

He traces that back to the great Offaly football team that won the All-Ireland Senior Football Championship in 1971 and 1972, the character displayed by heroes such as Paddy McCormack, Eugene Mulligan many more.

Kinnitty is not noted for any affinity to football but a young Ger Coughlan was brought to all those games by his father and it had a huge influence on him – born in 1956, it is impossible not to be affected when he speaks about the impact they had on his formative years.

“They started that going for us. My father brought me to every match, league matches and everything. All south Offaly, all Kinnitty went to all those matches. We were absolutely phenomenal football supporters then. We had no football team worth anything in our lives but I'd say we were the biggest supporters in south Offaly.”

What did it do to you Ger?

“Huge. After the matches in Croke Park or wherever else, Willie Bryan, Eugene Mulligan, Mick O'Rourke, Tony McTague would be in that hotel in Dublin they used to go to and my father would bring me in just to see them live afterwards. You might get to say hello. Tony McTague you see was born in Kinnitty (his father was a Cork man who came to Kinnitty to work as a garda before moving to Ferbane), he spent three or four years here so we had that interest.

“A huge crowd from Kinnitty would go to all Offaly football matches at that time, a phenomenal crowd. We went to Roscommon, I remember seeing them in Athlone. The sight of Paddy McCormack, the memory of watching him and the way he played. The sight of Mulligan getting a ball and he tearing up the field. Nicholas Clavin. They were heroes and the way they played it, they fought to the last.”

He can still remember not giving Offaly a chance at half time of the 1971 All-Ireland final win over Galway but they turning the tide in the second half – with rain falling, the crowd moved back up under cover in the Cusack Stand but they remained out in the elements and he still smiles as he recounts and water falling off the net when Murt Connor hit it for the decisive goal.

“I still have the vision and memory of Murt Connor kicking the ball into the back of the net and the cloud of water that came up. They were just phenomenal and the heart they had, they were never say died,” he said referring to the loss of Sean Cooney and Eugene Mulligan in the 1972 All-Ireland final replay win over Kerry with Nick Clavin injured and having to move to full forward.

“They still won it against a Kerry team in a replay. That Offaly factor is huge for us and it will be huge on Sunday. If we can get a sniff of a chance, the crowd senses it straight away and gets in behind them and then they are worth three or four points to a team every day.”

He knows that the vast Offaly support will be travelling more in hope than confidence but concluded: “I hope they can stay with them right through the match, regardless. That has to be said and it needs to be said. They are young and they are coming. Most of them are 21 years of age and it is just phenomenal what they have done and where they are. The number of lads we got off the one team (2024 All-Ireland U20) is great great and they are a joy to watch, and down two of our best players. Down (Donal) Shirley who was the best backs man we had last year and Charlie Mitchell, the best forward they had. They are great and it is great times for us.”