What did the Brits ever do for us? Well, they gave us counties.
It’s an arbitrary line of administration that puts one part of the R655 in Cork and the other in Tipperary; but it’s a line with deep meaning, all the more so ahead of Sunday’s All-Ireland final.
Michael Horgan is from Mitchelstown, where his family first began a butcher’s business in 1921. While his wife Maura has lived on the Cork side of the border for just over 40 years – the couple now run a delicatessen supplies business – she will always be “from Cashel”.
“I was working in the bank in Rathgar [Dublin] for four or five years,” she says.
“My mother was ill and I asked for a transfer down the country and I got Mitchelstown. The first week I was there, December 1974, a guy in the digs with me was heading to a party at the golf club and he asked if I wanted to come.
“Luigi there [pointing at her husband] was at the party and he went up and asked if I was with him. When he was told that I wasn’t, he asked me to dance.
“That was the end of that, or the beginning,” Maura says, laughing. “We married in 1976.”
The Tipperary flag flies as high as the Cork one at Horgan’s headquarters. Maura hopes to be the one happy Tipp person at the table that the family have taken at Cork’s post-match banquet at the Clayton Hotel on Burlington Road this Sunday. But, beyond the tribal loyalties, she is a pragmatic person, too.
“We have a son in London but the other two are living next to us and you don’t like seeing your children or grandchildren sad. After Tipp, Cork are obviously my second-favourite team; I’d like to see Patrick Horgan win a medal,” she admits.
Michael and Maura Horgan pictured at their business premises in Mitchelstown Co Cork. \ Odhran Ducie
Tribal loyalties
Paudie O’Toole is the chairperson of Éire Óg, based in Ovens, not far outside Cork city. A retired Garda sergeant, he loves that “some of the most beautiful scenery in the world is an hour away in west Cork” and that the city is near.
However, while he is a fan of Cork as a place, he will never be a fan of the county’s hurling team.
A native of Clonmel, he says that he has three links to the place – a WhatsApp group for the CBS class of 1970, rip.ie and Tipperary GAA.
“I’d go off to Thurles to see a match,” he says, “and when I get up just above Watergrasshill, I can see the Galtees, the Comeraghs and the Knockmealdowns.
“Then, if I go a bit further on towards Cahir, I can see the top of Slievenamon. It’s just like a pilgrimage.
“I’d meet several lads that I knew and they’d be saying, ‘Well, young O’Too-will,’ – I’m not young but I’m younger than them!”
Let’s head to Clonmel which, like every other hamlet, village and town in Tipperary, is festooned in blue and gold now but it is unusual in that football – of the Gaelic and association varieties – has as much sway as hurling.
Work brought Kevin Leahy from there to London 36 years ago but for the past two decades he has commuted, ensuring that he’s “inside in the field on a Friday night”, helping out with St Mary’s teams.
“There was a lot of potential there in the 1980s but it was let slip,” he says.
“We won the south Tipp senior in 1981 for the only time but were beaten in three senior finals after that – 1982, 1985 and 1988.
“In 1985, we won the south U12, U14, U16, minor and U21 and threw away the senior.
“It looked like we were going to go on and dominate but it never quite happened. One of the things that I felt held us back was that we had no countyman.
“We’re probably back at a similar point now, but Séamus Kennedy making the breakthrough was huge. It showed young lads around the town that they could make it and you’ve Peter McGarry in there now, too.”
Sean Keane, Finn Duggan, John O’ Sullivan, Marley Wilson, Noah Keane and Darragh Hennessey
Young players from St Mary's Hurling club in Conmel showing their support for the Tipperary hurlers. \ Donal O' Leary
Anita Babak and Anna Morrissey proudly wearing the Cork colours at Newtownshandrum GAA club in Cork ahead of the All-Ireland Hurling Final. \ Donal O' Leary
County colours
The colours proudly fly everywhere, in both counties. That heightened sense of involvement that comes from having a player on the panel is illustrated perfectly by Newtownshandrum.
Before 1999, the club had never had a player feature in the senior championship for Cork but since then, the Rebels panel has barely been without a Newtown man – currently, they have Tim O’Mahony and Cormac O’Brien.
“It’s super for the juveniles here,” says Alan G O’Brien.
“They see Tim and he might be pucking around with Darragh Fitzgibbon; Damien Cahalane is friends with them and he’s here sometimes too.
“When we were younger, we didn’t have that but then Pat Mulcahy was on the panel and Ben came on in 1999 and Jerry after that.
“Paul Morrissey and James Bowles and John Paul King were on the fringes of it and the next man then was Cathal Naughton. We had Jamie Coughlan after that, then Tim and Cormac.”
When Tim O’Mahony won a Fitzgibbon Cup medal with Mary Immaculate College of Limerick 2017, his coach was Jamie Wall and the Kilbrittain native’s current posting is with St Mary’s in Clonmel.
A third cousin of Kennedy’s – and a friend from their days as students in Mary I – Wall was persuaded to get involved last year and that has extended this year.
“To do a job, I want to have a connection to a place,” he says.
“My grandfather Jim was from Clonmel and the family name comes from that part of south Tipp. Jim would have grown up with his first cousin Séamus, who is Séamus Kennedy’s grandfather, so two generations later, you have the same names.
“There’s a really good group there, they’d have had under-age success and they’re in the second grade in Tipp, which is really competitive – there’s 16 teams in the grade and 12 of them probably, rightly, think they can win it.”
Before that, there’s something else to win but Wall says that the slagging is being held, for now.
“I think everyone’s a bit tentative,” he says, “it’s best to do your singing afterwards.
“Obviously, I hope for the best for Séamus and Peter on a personal level but I’ll be supporting Cork.
“If they do it, I’ll be keeping the head down and being magnanimous and I’m hopeful that my hosts will be the same if Tipp get the result.”
Wishing good luck to an opposing player but not the team was easy for Paudie O’Toole – until his son Ronan was selected on the Cork football panel.
“In 2007, we had Ciarán Sheehan on the Cork minor squad and they were in the All-Ireland against Tipp,” he says.
I remember saying to him, ‘Look, I hope you come on and score 4-8, win man of the match – and Tipp win by a point. I can’t give you any more than that.’
“When Ronan was playing for Cork, it was different; like a Kerryman once said to me – as close as your shirt is to your back, your vest is closer.
“It wasn’t Cork and Tipperary anymore, it was Tipperary and my son.”
Emily Ryan, Katie Hogan and Anna Mulcahy. \ Donal O’Leary
Anita Babak, Katie Hogan, Sadie Kiernan, Abbie McCarthy, Anna Morrissey, baby Evie McCarthy, Anna Mulcahy and Emily Ryan showing their support for the Cork hurling team at Newtownshandrum GAA club. \ Donal O’Leary
This is of course the first time that Cork and Tipp have met in the senior hurling final, with the Munster ‘old firm’ having a chance to claim the crown that belonged to Limerick for so much of the recent past.
With Ballyagran about a mile and a half down the road, that rivalry was keenly felt by those in Newtownshandrum – and while having flags and bunting on show has been a regular July event in recent years, there is a difference.
“The colour has changed,” says Alan, “because it was green and white flags non-stop.
“A lot of the people here, they’d be married to Limerick people.
“The children might support both and there was a sea of green and white the last while but now it’s all red and white.”
It is of course almost all red and white around Ovens, but Paudie O’Toole ensures that the blue and gold stands out.
“I was walking up Jones’s Road the day of the semi-final and I met a first cousin of mine, from Rearcross in north Tipp.
“Here’s your first cousin, who you knew as a child, and now he has this gaggle, children and grandchildren, stretching out the family tree.
“Then of course, what do you have in common with your first cousin from Rearcross? His parents are dead, my parents too, Lord have mercy on them all, but we still have that bond of Tipperary hurling.”
And as long as Tipperary hurling exists, there will be a rivalry with Cork.
“I can remember Babs Keating bringing the cup to the CBS and we got a half-day,” Paudie says.
“There weren’t a lot of half-days in the 1970s but even when I was stationed in Cavan I used to come down to the matches – with a few Cavan lads and the only player south of Dublin they knew of was JBM.
“Limerick might have an oul’ skirmish with you – and they might beat you the odd time.
“Waterford never beat you, nor Clare, the poor cratúrs. It took Kilkenny so long to beat Tipperary, you were nearly saying it was about time for them.
“Really, there was only one enemy. And still is.”
What did the Brits ever do for us? Well, they gave us counties.
It’s an arbitrary line of administration that puts one part of the R655 in Cork and the other in Tipperary; but it’s a line with deep meaning, all the more so ahead of Sunday’s All-Ireland final.
Michael Horgan is from Mitchelstown, where his family first began a butcher’s business in 1921. While his wife Maura has lived on the Cork side of the border for just over 40 years – the couple now run a delicatessen supplies business – she will always be “from Cashel”.
“I was working in the bank in Rathgar [Dublin] for four or five years,” she says.
“My mother was ill and I asked for a transfer down the country and I got Mitchelstown. The first week I was there, December 1974, a guy in the digs with me was heading to a party at the golf club and he asked if I wanted to come.
“Luigi there [pointing at her husband] was at the party and he went up and asked if I was with him. When he was told that I wasn’t, he asked me to dance.
“That was the end of that, or the beginning,” Maura says, laughing. “We married in 1976.”
The Tipperary flag flies as high as the Cork one at Horgan’s headquarters. Maura hopes to be the one happy Tipp person at the table that the family have taken at Cork’s post-match banquet at the Clayton Hotel on Burlington Road this Sunday. But, beyond the tribal loyalties, she is a pragmatic person, too.
“We have a son in London but the other two are living next to us and you don’t like seeing your children or grandchildren sad. After Tipp, Cork are obviously my second-favourite team; I’d like to see Patrick Horgan win a medal,” she admits.
Michael and Maura Horgan pictured at their business premises in Mitchelstown Co Cork. \ Odhran Ducie
Tribal loyalties
Paudie O’Toole is the chairperson of Éire Óg, based in Ovens, not far outside Cork city. A retired Garda sergeant, he loves that “some of the most beautiful scenery in the world is an hour away in west Cork” and that the city is near.
However, while he is a fan of Cork as a place, he will never be a fan of the county’s hurling team.
A native of Clonmel, he says that he has three links to the place – a WhatsApp group for the CBS class of 1970, rip.ie and Tipperary GAA.
“I’d go off to Thurles to see a match,” he says, “and when I get up just above Watergrasshill, I can see the Galtees, the Comeraghs and the Knockmealdowns.
“Then, if I go a bit further on towards Cahir, I can see the top of Slievenamon. It’s just like a pilgrimage.
“I’d meet several lads that I knew and they’d be saying, ‘Well, young O’Too-will,’ – I’m not young but I’m younger than them!”
Let’s head to Clonmel which, like every other hamlet, village and town in Tipperary, is festooned in blue and gold now but it is unusual in that football – of the Gaelic and association varieties – has as much sway as hurling.
Work brought Kevin Leahy from there to London 36 years ago but for the past two decades he has commuted, ensuring that he’s “inside in the field on a Friday night”, helping out with St Mary’s teams.
“There was a lot of potential there in the 1980s but it was let slip,” he says.
“We won the south Tipp senior in 1981 for the only time but were beaten in three senior finals after that – 1982, 1985 and 1988.
“In 1985, we won the south U12, U14, U16, minor and U21 and threw away the senior.
“It looked like we were going to go on and dominate but it never quite happened. One of the things that I felt held us back was that we had no countyman.
“We’re probably back at a similar point now, but Séamus Kennedy making the breakthrough was huge. It showed young lads around the town that they could make it and you’ve Peter McGarry in there now, too.”
Sean Keane, Finn Duggan, John O’ Sullivan, Marley Wilson, Noah Keane and Darragh Hennessey
Young players from St Mary's Hurling club in Conmel showing their support for the Tipperary hurlers. \ Donal O' Leary
Anita Babak and Anna Morrissey proudly wearing the Cork colours at Newtownshandrum GAA club in Cork ahead of the All-Ireland Hurling Final. \ Donal O' Leary
County colours
The colours proudly fly everywhere, in both counties. That heightened sense of involvement that comes from having a player on the panel is illustrated perfectly by Newtownshandrum.
Before 1999, the club had never had a player feature in the senior championship for Cork but since then, the Rebels panel has barely been without a Newtown man – currently, they have Tim O’Mahony and Cormac O’Brien.
“It’s super for the juveniles here,” says Alan G O’Brien.
“They see Tim and he might be pucking around with Darragh Fitzgibbon; Damien Cahalane is friends with them and he’s here sometimes too.
“When we were younger, we didn’t have that but then Pat Mulcahy was on the panel and Ben came on in 1999 and Jerry after that.
“Paul Morrissey and James Bowles and John Paul King were on the fringes of it and the next man then was Cathal Naughton. We had Jamie Coughlan after that, then Tim and Cormac.”
When Tim O’Mahony won a Fitzgibbon Cup medal with Mary Immaculate College of Limerick 2017, his coach was Jamie Wall and the Kilbrittain native’s current posting is with St Mary’s in Clonmel.
A third cousin of Kennedy’s – and a friend from their days as students in Mary I – Wall was persuaded to get involved last year and that has extended this year.
“To do a job, I want to have a connection to a place,” he says.
“My grandfather Jim was from Clonmel and the family name comes from that part of south Tipp. Jim would have grown up with his first cousin Séamus, who is Séamus Kennedy’s grandfather, so two generations later, you have the same names.
“There’s a really good group there, they’d have had under-age success and they’re in the second grade in Tipp, which is really competitive – there’s 16 teams in the grade and 12 of them probably, rightly, think they can win it.”
Before that, there’s something else to win but Wall says that the slagging is being held, for now.
“I think everyone’s a bit tentative,” he says, “it’s best to do your singing afterwards.
“Obviously, I hope for the best for Séamus and Peter on a personal level but I’ll be supporting Cork.
“If they do it, I’ll be keeping the head down and being magnanimous and I’m hopeful that my hosts will be the same if Tipp get the result.”
Wishing good luck to an opposing player but not the team was easy for Paudie O’Toole – until his son Ronan was selected on the Cork football panel.
“In 2007, we had Ciarán Sheehan on the Cork minor squad and they were in the All-Ireland against Tipp,” he says.
I remember saying to him, ‘Look, I hope you come on and score 4-8, win man of the match – and Tipp win by a point. I can’t give you any more than that.’
“When Ronan was playing for Cork, it was different; like a Kerryman once said to me – as close as your shirt is to your back, your vest is closer.
“It wasn’t Cork and Tipperary anymore, it was Tipperary and my son.”
Emily Ryan, Katie Hogan and Anna Mulcahy. \ Donal O’Leary
Anita Babak, Katie Hogan, Sadie Kiernan, Abbie McCarthy, Anna Morrissey, baby Evie McCarthy, Anna Mulcahy and Emily Ryan showing their support for the Cork hurling team at Newtownshandrum GAA club. \ Donal O’Leary
This is of course the first time that Cork and Tipp have met in the senior hurling final, with the Munster ‘old firm’ having a chance to claim the crown that belonged to Limerick for so much of the recent past.
With Ballyagran about a mile and a half down the road, that rivalry was keenly felt by those in Newtownshandrum – and while having flags and bunting on show has been a regular July event in recent years, there is a difference.
“The colour has changed,” says Alan, “because it was green and white flags non-stop.
“A lot of the people here, they’d be married to Limerick people.
“The children might support both and there was a sea of green and white the last while but now it’s all red and white.”
It is of course almost all red and white around Ovens, but Paudie O’Toole ensures that the blue and gold stands out.
“I was walking up Jones’s Road the day of the semi-final and I met a first cousin of mine, from Rearcross in north Tipp.
“Here’s your first cousin, who you knew as a child, and now he has this gaggle, children and grandchildren, stretching out the family tree.
“Then of course, what do you have in common with your first cousin from Rearcross? His parents are dead, my parents too, Lord have mercy on them all, but we still have that bond of Tipperary hurling.”
And as long as Tipperary hurling exists, there will be a rivalry with Cork.
“I can remember Babs Keating bringing the cup to the CBS and we got a half-day,” Paudie says.
“There weren’t a lot of half-days in the 1970s but even when I was stationed in Cavan I used to come down to the matches – with a few Cavan lads and the only player south of Dublin they knew of was JBM.
“Limerick might have an oul’ skirmish with you – and they might beat you the odd time.
“Waterford never beat you, nor Clare, the poor cratúrs. It took Kilkenny so long to beat Tipperary, you were nearly saying it was about time for them.
“Really, there was only one enemy. And still is.”
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