The PM O'Sullivan Interview: A father’s hug simplified everything for Oliver Gough
Oliver Gough is the last man to win senior All-Ireland hurling titles with two different counties. Two with Wexford, one with his native Kilkenny. He won a Poc Fada too and became a scratch golfer. His father was a close confidante of Michael Collins. Oliver Gough has been waiting a long time to tell his story. He tells it now, from an oncology ward in Naas, even at an immensely difficult time due to illness.
Oliver Gough is not well at all. This unrecognised number comes up on my phone. Liz Foster-Murphy, his partner, is kind enough to ring, following up. The day before, I finally got the correct mobile. His voice was not strong on the line: “I’m in hospital, I’m afraid, and too tired to meet. Maybe give me a ring next week…”
Now the situation is explained. “Oliver’s not good,” Foster-Murphy confides. “There’ve been three bouts with cancer. But he does want to speak to you. He’s waiting a long time for someone from the press to contact him.
“Though his voice is only fair, due to the throat cancer last year.”
Hurling remains a wonder in so many ways. Normally the last thing anyone would want, gravely ill, is conversation with a stranger, a stranger with questions. But hurling remains hurling, an elimination of distance.
There is a story here, one in abeyance this long time. There are gaps to fill but the core point is straightforward: three senior All-Irelands with two different counties, Wexford and Kilkenny.
What better weekend for its telling than one where these counties meet in so tight a Leinster final? Liz Foster-Murphy is discreet but gently emphatic. There might not be long…
So a friend drives me to Naas General Hospital, through countryside plush and green and gorgeous, the necessary torment of life. Liz arrives down to the main entrance and takes me to the Oncology Ward.
Oliver Gough is sitting on the side of his bed, behind a curtain, immediately warm and helpful. He takes me back to a club match in 1955. That Sunday evening proved the hinge in his hurling career.
July 14, 1955 had seen Wexford and Kilkenny draw in a marvellous Leinster final. The replay got fixed for a fortnight’s time. The break weekend had Ferns St Aidan’s, with whom Oliver Gough was a 19-year-old midfielder, taking on St Martin’s. The young man astonished everyone with a masterclass.
Nicholas Furlong’s The Greatest Hurling Decade: Wexford and the Epic Teams of the ’50s (1993) catches the moment: “In a club game for his Ferns parish club, St Aidan’s, a little-known hurler, Oliver Gough, had, in one game, established such authority and mastery that he was selected for Wexford to play against the land of his fathers, Kilkenny.”
Gough brightens at the memory: “The St Martin’s midfield, Jim Morrissey and Ned Wheeler, was the Wexford midfield. I was on Wheeler, and they obviously felt it was a marker. So I was picked for the replay. Harry O’Connor of Enniscorthy, a great friend, dropped out and I dropped in”.
Gough lined out at right-half forward, marked by Johnny McGovern, one of the decade’s finest defenders. “The Kilkenny team in general didn’t know a whole lot about Oliver at the time,” McGovern reflects. “But I did, because his brother, Claude, had won a minor All-Ireland with me in 1950.
“Oliver had great hands and he was fierce fast, full of energy. He used to be bouncing around the place. I often thought he’d have done well to take up athletics.”
Gough bats away the compliment with smiling mildness: “I was a bit lost on Johnny, that first day. I was definitely a bit lost. But I made a difference, at the same time. I got the goal and the point, at a crucial stage.”
Wexford took the replay by three points. They proceeded to beat Limerick and vanquished Galway in the All-Ireland final. Decider day, Oliver Gough went on for the injured Ned Wheeler. Just gone 20 years of age, he had a Celtic Cross.
“An awful lot of it is being in the right place at the right time,” Gough summarises.
How many really good lads, players I hurled against, never got an All-Ireland? Joe Salmon of Galway never got one. Jobber McGrath of Westmeath never got one. Salmon was a beautiful stylist.
Did the All-Ireland’s source in a purple and gold jersey lessen its impact? Gough is candid about this dynamic: “The first day I hurled senior with Wexford, for that replay, Dad was home for the weekend from the Army. And he was there in the hall when I was going out in the morning to meet up with the team. He stopped me, and he gave me a hug, and he said: ‘Today’s a great day for me’.
“I said: ‘Why?’ He said: ‘I can’t lose.’ He made it as simple as that.”
That hug covered Oliver Gough’s origins and childhood. A child of the Irish Revolution, he was born in Graiguenamanagh on August 25, 1935. The town lies on Kilkenny’s side of the Barrow, right against Carlow. Wexford, a little south, holds close as a rumour.
His father, Michael Gough, hailed from Ballyouskill, part of Ballyragget Parish in North Kilkenny. He had been a member of the Old IRA. That extraordinary release of social energy during the 1920s involved progression to Commandant in the Free State Army. “I’m not sure if he was actually Michael Collins’ aide de camp,” the son recalls. “But they were very close. He felt heartbroken after Collins was assassinated.”
His mother, before marriage, was Rose O’Reilly. Likewise a native of North Kilkenny, she was born in Freshford but moved at an early age to Gorey in County Wexford. She became a primary schoolteacher and was teaching in Ullard, part of Graiguenamanagh Parish, in 1955. The family comprised an older sister, Cora, and an older brother, Claude.
“My brother, at one point, was going for the priesthood,” Gough recollects.
He was in St Peter’s [College, Wexford] and I followed him there as a boarder. To be a Diocesan priest, your family had to be living in the Diocese. So my mother decided on a move to Wexford, after we had moved from Graiguenamanagh to Goresbridge, when I was about 10.
This move to Craanford, County Wexford changed a young hurler’s career. Oliver Gough, as a Gorey Emmets player, hurled and kicked football minor for Wexford in 1952 and 1953. Adult hurling meant Ferns St Aidan’s. That fateful club evening in the summer of 1955 lay in the offing, when Oliver Gough would become part of Wexford’s hurling revolution.
The years spooled as a young man’s years do. He continued with Ferns before transferring, in the late 1950s, to Rathnure. Wexford won the 1956 senior final against Cork, with Gough an unused sub, in one of hurling’s finest contests. He travelled to America in 1957 and hurled brilliantly against Cork, scoring six points from play.
Memoirs of the time are generous about this man’s gifts. Billy Rackard’s No Hurling at the Dairy Door (1996) remarks: “A natural midfielder, Oliver Gough was worthy of a place on any team in the country. Due to the strength in every position of that Wexford team, a permanent place was not found for him. It was a tragedy to see a player of his talent seated on the subs bench.”
Kilkenny regained ascendancy in Leinster and ran up three titles-in-a-row, 1957 to 1959. By the time Wexford won 1960’s Leinster final, Oliver Gough had gone from the county. “I had moved to Dublin for work,” he clarifies. “And I started hurling with Móindearg, the Kilkenny-orientated club up there.”
This choice put him in another orbit. Early 1961 saw him hurl for ‘Kilkenny Exiles’ in a trial match. 1962 saw him on the Kilkenny panel, subbed on, against victorious Wexford, in the Leinster final. Work had brought him to Thomastown, a neighbouring town to Graiguenamanagh, right back to home ground.
“Fr [Tommy] Maher was a great coach, and a lovely man,” Gough relates. “He made me feel welcome. I found his approach very helpful. It was all about the ball, and doing things quickly.”
Was the change awkward? Gough is level and phlegmatic: “Hurling is the same game, wherever it’s played. A jersey is a jersey.”
The new curve found sap. 1963 saw Kilkenny defeat Waterford in the senior final. Oliver Gough was a second-half substitute at centre-forward for who else? Johnny McGovern. Gough remains the last man to win a senior All-Ireland with two counties.
“Fr Maher came to me before the All-Ireland final,” he remembers. “He said to me: ‘If it was up to me, I’d pick you first above nearly anyone. But there are two of the selectors not the same. I think the Wexford thing is counting a bit with them’. There it was…”
McGovern says of that season: “I was delighted to win an All-Ireland for Kilkenny with Oliver. I always found him a most likeable fella. When he was hurling with Thomastown, with Bennettsbridge being so close, we used to run into each other a lot. Oliver used call in for a chat, when he was on the road.
He is one nice man. I’m really sorry to hear Oliver hasn’t been well.
Proving his ball skills, Gough won 1964’s Poc Fada. But he slipped away from hurling in the same fashion as he had entered its rigours, a Houdini, a man able to unpick knots with this strange ease. A last swerve was afoot.
“We went to America in 1964, as All-Ireland winners,” Gough outlines. “Nicky Purcell was with us, as County Board Chairman. When we landed back, Nicky said to me: ‘I’ll be writing to you’. I said: ‘Nicky, maybe not. I’m going playing golf’.
“He said: ‘Ah, give it another year or two’. I said: ‘No, I’m finished with hurling now’. That was it.”
The other code became centre of his sporting life. “My father loved golfing,” Gough notes. “He was a member of the club in Borris. I used go with him, from about the age of 12. I picked up golf quite handy, as a young fella, once I knocked the hurling swing out of it.
“I was a scratch golfer first in 1970, and I was still scratch in 1985.”
Nominating a highlight, he does not hesitate: “Getting into the last 16 of the British Amateur Open, in 1970. Michael Bonallack beat me, and he won the title for the fifth time. He beat me on the 17th.”
Gough continues: “I had Bonallack on the rack, and I let him off. I had him well strung out… And suddenly I began to think: ‘Jeez, if I win this thing…’ And the minute that went into my head… “I bogeyed a few howlers. That’s golf.”
Nurses bustle round, bringing scrambled egg and toast. This time is the most difficult spell of Gough’s life. But he is philosophical and leaves me with a freedom: “I wish you all the very best with the piece, even if I’m not around to see it.”
Outside, the evening is afternoon bright. Frank drives us back home. Plush countryside again, that rich vein of land through Kildare and Carlow, a tillage Eden. We are not far from Kilkenny and we are near Barracore, left side of the motorway.
I am thinking of a story Oliver Gough told me about the late summer of 1947. During the mid-1940s, Mrs Gough had moved from Ullard to that new teaching post in Goresbridge. Claude Gough was hurling with Paulstown, the local club, when he won his minor All-Ireland.
“The move was important,” her younger son emphasises. “I attribute a lot of whatever success I had in hurling to the hours I gave in the ball alley in Goresbridge.
I used an alleycracker, beating it off the wall, over and over again. Eventually, I could hit it or kill it with the hurl, as I wanted. I gave hours in there, several years. Controlling a sliotar, after you got used to an alleycracker on the hurl, seemed simple.
Goresbridge held other quiet riches. The Hennessys farmed nearby at Barracore, tending one of the county’s best farms, beside the River Barrow. Pat ‘The Diamond’ Hayden, Kilkenny’s full-back at the time, worked there. The Diamond was famously amiable and pleasant with everyone, young and old alike. “I thought the world of him,” Gough states. “He was a pure gentleman.”
This farm was, in every sense, hurling country. “The Hennessys were tremendous supporters,” Johnny McGovern stresses. “They went to every Kilkenny match, minor and junior and senior. Didn’t matter… They were there.”
Expectation floated through that summer like pollen. Kilkenny had been beaten by Cork in 1946’s senior final, a victory that meant, for those rivals, a fifth title in the decade. Cork were accelerating into the future.
“The Hennessys used to have a huge threshing,” Gough recalls. “It went on for three weeks. We used to go out and hurl in the field every night, until dark.”
Down the years, Kilkenny has been full of eyes where youngsters gather to hurl. There are calm, severe judgements. Gough’s talent rang like a bell through those evenings. His life was about to change in the imperceptible way of childhood. “On the last Friday of the threshing, I was in Hennessy’s having my tea,” Gough smiles. “I used eat half my meals there and half in Holohan’s, down the road. I was like a begging donkey…
“Bill Hennessy, the boss, called me over. That Sunday, Cork were playing Kilkenny in the All-Ireland final. Bill handed me a 10 shilling note, the real red 10 shilling note. He said: ‘Now, put that in your hand, and bring it up home. Tell your Dad that I said he’s to bring you to Croke Park on Sunday, that I want you to be there’.
“That was it. And Dad did take me. I sat on his knee in the Hogan Stand.”
Seventy-two years later, we are in the land of the ill. Yet, Oliver Gough puts me sitting in Croke Park. There is hesitant September sunshine, a strong breeze. His team combat it during the first-half and emerge after half-time, beautifully-placed, two points ahead.
Cork return with intent. Now these teams are hurling mortal hard and young Gough is in Croke Park for the first time, clenched and hot and falling in love. Cork push ahead. A goal against the run of play. His team rally but the others have another goal, a point up, a minute to go.
I can see it all. Here is Kilkenny hurling’s harsh Eden, one-point championship victories, watermarked lives. Here is the grove where Kilkenny hurling named itself. A boy is clenched. Terry Leahy, the lost genius, initiates an attack. Bill Cahill gets fouled in an awkward spot, out left by the Cusack Stand. A boy scans across the pitch as Leahy, no worry, slots the free. I can see the Brylcreemed head dip in satisfaction.
Time is up. A boy is propping his face as the other lads attack from the puck-out. But Paddy Grace clears, a possession lost as Tom Mulcahy, Cork’s goalkeeper, gathers beside one post.
Out there, Terry Leahy knows what is going to happen. This goalkeeper, like all good goalkeepers, will clear to the opposite side, opening the field, looking for fresh space. Mulcahy pivots and strikes.
But good is bad, another’s Eden.
Leahy swoops to where the delivery falls. They say he was gunfighter-cool and gunfighter-reckless, that he called back to his marker Alan Lotty, the best hurler on that great Cork team: “Goodbye, Alan, this is it.”
The ball rips between the posts at the Railway End. Phil Purcell, refereeing, blows time with Mulcahy’s puck-out in the sky. Kilkenny are there, that single point.
Oliver Gough embraces his father, face sweaty and hot. He thinks of ‘The Diamond’, brought out centre-back marking Christy Ring, after Peter Prendergast got injured. He thinks of the Hennessys’ haggard, mice running around the threshing men’s feet. No one minds them.
He will be a hurler, somehow. He has decided. And he will meet Terry Leahy, 27 years later, in New York.
“Terry was a gentle person,” this man says. “Not gruff at all, like some of the older hurlers could be. He’d had to go to America for work, and loved meeting Kilkenny hurlers out there.”
Then Oliver Gough’s still piercing grey blue eyes, somehow amused, valiant in a Midlands hospital: “But don’t let anyone tell you any different about 1947, whatever age they are. I was there for it.
“Leahy half-slipped, hitting that last ball over.”
