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The Irish word for hunger is ocras. In Irish you don’t say, I am hungry, you say: . Hunger is upon me. Our ancient language helping us remember that hunger, real hunger, is all consuming.
At 5.36pm on Saturday 27 October in the year of Our Lord (now known as Derek McGrath) 2024, the parish of Doon’s all-consuming hunger was sated. And, for the first time, we, Doon, were Limerick County senior hurling club champions.
Watching it live at half four on Monday morning in Melbourne, I couldn’t let out that roar of relief that the occasion deserved. Like in those old war movies where they give the hero something to bite down on as they cauterise his wound, I also, bit down.
And then the explosion of joy on the final whistle. Pat Ryan and Barry Murphy, winners of multiple All-Irelands, overwhelmed by it all. The links between past and present. The last player to touch the ball was Doon’s wing forward Eddie Stokes; the first spectator to congratulate him was his father, John. Stalwart of so many teams, including 1989 and 2000 when we lost county finals.
The emotion creased across the faces of players of that and previous eras – Darragh O’Donovan’s father, James, the legend that is Jeddie Thompson and Gerdie McGrath. So many times, we left the Gaelic Grounds and headed silently and sullenly home on the Ballysimon road. Are we ever going to do it? And then, we just did.
You couldn’t really hear or see Daragh O’Donovan’s speech afterwards as he was dough-nutted by players and onlookers but then a bit like the famous scene in the movie Alien, something silvery that we have never seen before emerged aloft in Darragh’s gloved hand, the John Daly Cup.
Perched on Limerick’s eastern edge, we have always felt a little on the outside, ethnic Tipperary, and distant from Limerick’s hurling heartlands – a feeling exacerbated by the fact that for all our underage success we’d never won a Big One.
One of my favourite reactions was on RTÉ Radio when Des Cahill said, “and history is made in Limerick” as he went to Martin Kiely at the Gaelic Grounds. Martin, whose brother and nephew played for Doon, did not give the usual dutiful account of the game. He launched into a summary that was a bit like Bjørge Lillelien’s famous commentary after Norway beat England in a 1981 World Cup qualifier. Kiely mentioned former Doon teams, trainers (Joe Keough) and players (Willie Moore). He threw in a bit of poetry and, a first on the national broadcaster, gave a shout out to the townland of Croughmorka.
When Kiely finished, RTÉ went back to discussing rugby and the provinces in the URC. TG4 give great coverage to the club game in the GAA, as do the various local stations and this newspaper both in written and podcast form – even TJ gave us some credit; but realistically if the split season is to continue, the GAA really needs to look at ways of promoting the club game nationally.
Newbridge in Derry, Feakle in Clare and so on are as much part of our national sporting culture as the Lions or Ospreys. This is not to blame RTÉ. The promotional push must come from the GAA. The warmth and authenticity of the club game, compared to the often cold and artificial nature of professional sport, means that there are real stories not PR puff pieces that are there to be written up.
One night last week, the Doon senior team were doing a weights session – there may have been a different set of weights being used this week – and a number of club volunteers, known to me, were lugging bags of used clothes (a cash for clobber scheme donated by members) from one dressing room to another shed. One of the players spotted this, seemed to ignore it and went in to join his teammates. Quickly, the door reopened and the whole team, county stars and all, came out and the bags were moved in no time. The weights could wait.
At the weekend, Munster play an All Blacks XV. It winds up Australians (and Johnny Sexton) no end where they hear New Zealanders spouting about the humility of All Blacks sweeping out the dressing room. In GAA clubs, and local clubs in all codes around the country, volunteers just do it; humility, faux or otherwise, does not come into it. And when they do it, they don’t feel the need to tell you about it.
The Saw Doctors song says to win just once would be enough. We’ll see about that. In many ways though, winning a county title for Doon will not change anything. Looking at the club’s Twitter feed in the week before the county final it was full of initiatives that other clubs of similar size will know well – local lotto, chair yoga in the hall, fundraisers, under-8 blitzes, camogie success, the endless work of the club officers, Declan and Mike, and a picture from the local primary school wishing the senior team well.
The contribution of the local schools, and particularly Brother Dormer, to the club’s success has been vital and longstanding. Doon won a Harty before it was the Harty, as far back as 1929. The teachers of today, primary and secondary, continue that tradition. Maybe, given the links between school and club, it is no surprise that it took a teacher, Derek McGrath, to help us get over the line.
Sunday was also a good time to take stock of hurling in Limerick. The outstanding Adam English, Shane O’Brien from Kilmallock and, gratefully, a fit again Peter Casey, will add to Limerick’s forward power in 2025. In the longer term, the emergence of Monaleen, Mungret and Newcastlewest shows that larger urban areas are likely the future of Limerick hurling. We need to embrace but also plan for that change.
Again, that is for another time, for now we are basking in the win. For once we got the balance right, using hunger as a tactic and not a distraction. And from looking at the celebrations afterwards, the Doon and Oola lads have retained their sense of fun and madness.
Founded as a club in 1888, at last we can say that no one beats Doon 126 years in a row and gets away with it.
Last time I was at home, I was in the club house. There are a series of pictures of past teams and events. One of them is the building of the dressing rooms and the laying out of our new pitches in 1994. Looking at them, you catch yourself in the throat when you see John Joe Fahey, my English teacher (yes, John Joe, still too many adverbs), Tipp man but Doon at heart. Paddy English, father of Richie, shovel in hand helping his beloved club. They are sadly gone and missed but others in those pictures, led by club President Johnny Butler, were there on Sunday.
We’ll never forget the day we became county champions but equally we’ll always remember those who literally and over a lifetime laid the foundations.
Doon, County Champions.