It may have been a Tipperary man who first popularised the use of “famine” to describe a dearth of hurling success, but few Cork people listening to Borris-Ileigh’s Richard Stakelum as he lifted the Munster Senior Hurling Cup in 1987 would ever thought it would one day apply to them.
At that stage, Cork led the All-Ireland roll of honour with 26 titles, three ahead of Kilkenny and four ahead of Tipperary. The idea that the Rebels would experience a 16-year barren stretch was unfathomable to most on Leeside. The Rebels have remained consistent in Munster, but they have endured a long wait for an All-Ireland that stretches back to 2005.
From the 1890s up to that point in 1987, Cork had won at least one All-Ireland every decade. With the peerless Christy Ring to the fore, they won five titles in the 1940s followed by three in the 1950s.
The dry period between Cork’s All-Ireland wins in 1903 to 1919 stands out as a particular disappointment. However, that was ancient history by 1987. For Cork fans born in the 1920s, the halcyon days of the 1940s and the first half of the 1950s surely looked like they would never end. Until they did.
RM Block
“Those were the days,” as Mary Hopkin sang over a decade later. Cork’s failure to reach All-Ireland finals for a decade following the 1956 loss to Wexford meant fans were desperate for success when a young team finally made it back to Croke Park in 1966.
That 1966 team offers the closest example in living memory of what the current Cork team are facing into this Sunday when they take on the Premier County in the All-Ireland final. The current crop of Rebel hurlers will be seeking to prove that famines – even 20-year famines, in their case – do eventually end.
But unlike this year’s team, who go into Sunday’s final as most people’s favourites, the Cork team that entered Croke Park for the 1966 decider were rank outsiders and featured several under-21 players.
Among them were the three McCarthys, who were all unrelated. Gerald and Charlie hurled with St Finbarr’s, while Justin hurled with Passage. This week, all three looked back on a day that earned them and their teammates a particular place in Cork hurling lore.
Coming up against a seasoned Kilkenny outfit who had beaten Waterford just three years earlier to win the All-Ireland, that young Cork side ran out 3-09 to 1-10 winners. Colm Sheehan from Éire Óg netted two goals and John O’Halloran from Blackrock bagged a third .
The three McCarthys also played their part. Justin, who was 21, lined out at midfield, contributing two-second half points. Gerald, also 21, captained the team from left half-forward and Charlie (20) lined out at right corner-forward. Each chipped in with a point.
Justin recalls that while Cork had gone over a decade without an All-Ireland, it was no great burden to the team.
“I think we were conscious that it had been 12 years,” he said. “We had all grown up seeing Cork winning in 1952, ‘53 and ‘54, and of course the loss to Wexford in ‘56. I suppose that gave us all an urgency to want to play for Cork and a lot of lads on the panel had experienced the lean years.
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“We knew it was important to Cork, but a lot of us were very young. There was a blend of youth with Gerald and Charlie and Seanie Barry and myself, and there were older fellows on the team like Peter Doolan and Paddy Fitzgerald and Tom O’Donoghue and Denis Murphy.
“None of us had ever played in an All-Ireland final before, but we were quite confident – we had beaten Clare after a replay and then Limerick and Waterford in the Munster championship, and we were well geared up and we were quite confident going in that we could beat them.
“Gerald and myself were rooming together and I remember that morning, as we were going to Mass, he said to me, ‘we have a good chance’. I said, ’we have, and we’ll have that cup in this room this evening’. We had no fear.”
Similarly, Gerald McCarthy acknowledged that they were all conscious of Cork’s 12-year barren run.
He said: “There’s always an expectation in Cork – the fans nearly demand success. But in fairness, it wasn’t being overdone by people. We didn’t have fellows coming up to us on the street and saying ‘it’s 12 years’ or that sort of thing. We were a young team and people recognised that.
“Okay, there was a bit of pressure, but I think when you are young, you can deal with it better. We had played Kilkenny in the league semi-final in Croke Park earlier that year, but we didn’t have a semi-final after winning Munster, so it was our first championship match in Croke Park.
“So, we didn’t have any real experience of Croke Park, certainly not a crowd that size. We were a good mix of young and experience, but I think the younger players just took it on. When you are young, you don’t take in the whole impact of it and can deal with it better than an old stager.
“I remember as we were going in from Lucan to Croke Park on the bus, The Beatles had a hit with Yellow Submarine and somebody started singing ‘We All Live in a Red Submarine’. It just clicked and everyone fell in with it and it just broke the tension, so we handled that well.”
Charlie MacCarthy says it helped Cork that Kilkenny were such favourites to win.
“We went into the game without any one really giving us a chance,” he said. “It’s a bit like Sunday with Tipp, nobody is giving them a chance. I was only a young fellow, just turned 20 and the attitude was, ‘we have nothing to lose, we’ll go up there and give it our best shot’.
“And in fairness, everybody got stuck in and stuck in early. We really didn’t give Kilkenny a chance to settle down – our backs were very good, very tight and we got our goals at the right time and it settled us. We kept plugging away and things turned out right for us in the end.”
Gerald acknowledges that Cork are going into Sunday’s game as favourites but says players can react in different ways to being favourites and the pressure it may bring. “The pressure can affect your head, but everyone is different and you have to learn to deal with it somehow.”
Charlie thinks it will be a tight game, but feels that Cork might shade it, especially as they are driven by the pain of losing last year’s All-Ireland final to Clare.
“I think it will be close enough,” he said. ”The Tipp lads are after improving since the League final and the round-robin game and they battled back well against Kilkenny in the semi-final, so it will be close. But I have a slight fancy for Cork and think they will shade it.”
As for Justin, his advice to the current wearers of the jersey is forget about history and simply go out and hurl. He agrees that the desire to make amends for last year’s narrow loss to Clare could help drive them on
“Yes, they have a chance now to redeem themselves for last year. That’s a good motivation but forget about 20 years – you can think about that afterwards when you win. It’s all on the day and you just have to be single-minded and go out with the belief you are good enough to win it.”
