Kildare Senior Hurling Final 29 Nov., 1964, Athy and Eir Og

The game of hurling has over the years had a limited degree of success in Athy. The first Senior County Final in which the Athy club played was against Clane in 1909. Athy’s footballing club members had to wait until 1924 to contest their first senior football County Final. The immediate post-Civil War period was a barren period for many clubs as players emigrated in the face of mass unemployment and sometimes blatant discrimination against those who had taken the anti-treaty side. Matters improved insofar as Athy’s hurlers were concerned in the latter years of the 1920s. The 1928 Senior Hurling Final was contested by Johnstown Bridge and Athy and a year later Athy lost by 1 point in the 1929 final against McDonagh. The 1930s was the Athy Gaelic Football Club’s most successful decade with the club winning county football finals in 1933, 1934 and 1937. The Club’s hurlers won the Hurling Senior Final in 1936 defeating Broadford on the score of 6-1 to 3-1. Broadford was to exact revenge when winning against Athy in the 1961 final. Two years previously Athy lost the County Hurling Final to McDonaghs by a losing margin of 2 goals and 5 points, yet were declared the county champions after lodging an objection. Three years after losing the 1961 County Final to Broadford the Athy hurlers played yet again, this time losing to Éire Óg on a score of 5-9 to 2-6. The members of that 1964 team showed how dependent the game of hurling in Athy was on players whose skills were nurtured and developed in the traditional hurling counties. The team’s composition also showed the importance of local industry and commerce in bringing together players whose hurling skills were so important in keeping alive the ancient Irish game in a county not readily regarded as a hurling county. The team which togged out in the County Senior Hurling Final in Newbridge on 29th November 1964 included four native Athy players. In goal was the legendary Dan Foley, while on the half back line was John Dooley, whose father was the principal mover in the revival of hurling in Athy in the 1950s. Ted Wynne, better known as a footballer, lined out on the half forward line and in front of him was Hugh McDonnell. The team substitutes included Jim Malone, Tommy Kirwan and Teddy Kelly who made up the remainder of the Athy/South Kildare natives. The other team members came from as far afield as Cork, Galway, Limerick, Tipperary and nearby Kilkenny and Laois. In the full back line were Tom Heskins from Cork, an employee of Minch Nortons, Willie Coogan from Kilkenny, a barman in Purcells and Liam O’Connor from Limerick. The half back line included, in addition to the earlier mentioned John Dooley, Gus O’Shea from Cork who was a local bank official and Claud Goff from Kilkenny, manager of Bachelor’s pea factory. The mid-field pairing were two Gardai Mick Cullinane from Kilkenny and Padraig Harte from Galway. Ted Wynne in the half forwards was partnered with John Breen, a bank official from Cork and Tipperary man Stephen Nash, a fitter in Bord na Mona. The full forwards were Mick Dempsey of Laois, a barman in Paddy Lambes with Billy Wilkinson of Kilkenny who worked in the sugar company and Athy’s Hugh McDonnell. Apart from the earlier mentioned substitutes there was also Tom Harte from Galway and Thomas O’Connor from Limerick. The team was trained by the team captain Claud Goff, whose brother Oliver won All Ireland medals with both Kilkenny and Wexford. The Athy team were defeated and it was often claimed that this defeat was due to the absence of their best player, Tom O’Donnell, a bank official who normally played centrefield. He failed to turn up for the final without telling his team mates or the team mentors beforehand. It turned out that Tom was that same day playing in the Tipperary County Senior Football final. This was the Athy club’s last appearance in a County Senior Hurling Final, although it won intermediate, minor and junior championship finals in the 1980s and 1990s. Nowadays it appears that the hurling club is separate from the football club which to a neutral observer seems a most extraordinary state of affairs. Now that Athy Gaelic Football Club is about to embark on a major development scheme which would give the club an extra playing pitch and a juvenile pitch, perhaps it is time for the hurlers and the footballers to come together as one Gaelic Athletic Association club for the town of Athy. During the recent football match against Clare I saw several players falling over while trying to pick up a ground ball. I was reminded of that classy footballer Kieran O’Malley who played for Kildare from 1957 to 1962. He was the first player whom I witnessed chipping a ground ball into his hands without stooping over it. It’s a skill that could usefully be learned by today’s players.