Larry Ryan: Eternal optimism of the Tipperary mind
With Forward Mulcahy, Tipp Mate John Denis Hodgins By Watched O'dwyer Tussles Team Noel
“Tipp are back and how they are needed.”
That was the headline in the after Tipperary won the 1979 National Hurling League semi-final. Tipp went on to beat Galway in the final though it was only the league and they weren’t back yet. In Munster, inside in Limerick, JBM’s ground pull rolled insolently over the line and the great famine went on.
But aren’t Tipp always needed? After alleged attempts to get things going in recent weeks, you could nearly say championship truly begins this weekend, with the Tipp hurlers out.
What special ingredient does the Blue and Gold bring to summer? The misguided will tell you arrogance. The narrow-minded will insist it is the giddy prospect of seeing them bet out the gate. The truth is optimism. Certainly in Tipp we always fear the worst. But even if there is a danger we could be down for another 10 years, hope never dies. Eimear Ryan declared this intrinsic part of the condition this week, eternal optimism.
A championship weekend cannot dawn without belief in blue and golden wrists. There is always a chance the net could dance.
A tremendous book launched last night in Tipp town, on the eve of championship proper. by Tommy Treacy is not a chronicle of Tipp’s glories. How would you condense that into one volume? But a remembrance of fallow years. “The Life and Times of a Tipperary Hurling Supporter 1974-1986.”
Tommy went into Limerick, aged 10, in his father’s black Volkswagen Beetle to see his first Munster Championship match in July, 1974. “Little did I think that I would have to wait until 1984 before I saw a Tipp team led by Bobby Ryan parade behind the Moycarkey Pipe Band on a Munster Final day.” That day in Thurles only brought more bitter disappointment, courtesy of Seanie O’Leary’s goal, as the wait went on and on.
The book transports us back to grass banks and concrete rows; to bottles of tay and tubs of ices, to grass scorched brown and rich patches top of the left thick with daisies. To pulling twice and two or three times before the ball came in. To peaked caps and to Con the day after in the Press. When the only pre-match dummies were three-card tricks outside.
On weeks like these, creameries and marts and pubs hummed one chorus: “What do you think?”
“The whole world might be falling apart, but the man knew instinctively that the question was about Tipp’s chances on the following Sunday... even if World War III was looming.”
To the Prayers of the Faithful on Sunday morning. Fr O’Neill offering that everyone travelling would have a safe day and that “the Tipp full-back line would hang in there”.
Tommy even offers us a parable that counters the prevailing image of the Premier matchgoer as tightfisted with anything in tin foil.
“During half-time something happened that I had never seen before. Two Tipp men produced a whole cooked chicken out of a bag. It was broken and offered to all who sat nearby. We all got a piece... including some Cork supporters who happened to be sitting in the Tipp section of the stand.”
In that beautiful scene in Thurles, Tommy captures an enduring spirit that stayed alive through this dramatic losing streak. And he touches on Corkness too.
“Everyone was happy as they ate chicken on that warm July day in the Cathedral Town. We were happy because we were hurling well and we knew at that moment in time that we had a chance... and that is all we wanted. The Cork folk who shared in this feast were happy too... simply because they were Cork!”
A reminder too, however prospects look, that Tipp will always come well prepared. “I can recall the fact that one of the lads also produced a salt cellar from his pocket…”
Treacy’s recall of distant days is vivid, even if, for a decade, he only has one beating every year to pull from the memory banks.
The post-mortems melt into one. A Monday pub falling into silence. Tipp beaten again and gone for another year. Great hay-saving weather, but no one talking of hay. Donncha Ó Dúlaing’s on the wireless. The prosecution of yesterday’s loss has rested, for now. Someone goes across the road for the Press. “Con, in his column, never cut the losing team.” Houlihan’s dramatic account is read aloud. It recalls Tipp were only the width of a post from victory. It was 1976, Séamus Power off the butt of a Cork upright, Seanie O’Leary again with the point to win it.
Spirits lift. Good underage hurlers are discussed. Seeds of optimism that won’t be needed for 12 months are sown.
Treacy still reaps that harvest every year.
“An optimism that in the not-too-distant future, we will once again experience a perfect summer hurling wise, where the hay will be successfully saved and Cork and all the other hurling powers, (including the present all-conquering Limerick team), will be bet, as we once again bring Liam McCarthy back to the Homes of Tipperary.
“The optimism I feel is similar to the optimism I felt as a ten-year-old boy back in 1974, as I stood between the two front seats of that black Volkswagen Beetle as it faced towards Limerick City, listening to Fr. Tom McCarthy and my father DJ, setting the scene.
“I may be 50 years older, but apart from my age and grey hair, nothing has changed... I am still optimistic about Tipperary hurling, and I always will be.”
Championship weekends mightn’t dominate conversation like they used to. Round robins offer twists and turns rather than sudden, cruel ends of the road. Limerick’s hegemony means everyone’s prospects are as uncertain as the hay.
But Treacy holds in great esteem the Tipp teams between 1974 and 1986, who kept optimism alive, despite everything.
"They were, in my opinion, some of the greatest giants, because they kept the show on the road in spite of suffering crushing defeat after crushing defeat after crushing defeat. They never gave up hope; they always regrouped and had another go.”
So Sunday, what do you think?
The Life And Times Of A Tipperary Hurling Supportér 1974-1986 by Tommy Treacy is out now.