Honouring the memory of hurling giant Rackard

He was a Moses for the Yellowbellies when they were lost in the wilderness

Back in 1996, in the middle of the dizzying round of appearances by the Liam MacCarthy Cup all over Wexford, one detour had to be made. Team manager Liam Griffin and captain Martin Storey were on their way home from one appointment when Griffin decided to break away from their official schedule.

“I said to Martin, ‘we’re going in here’,” says Liam Griffin, who then led Storey into a cemetery.

“I knew we wouldn’t always be contenders but I made sure we went in and put the cup on Nicky Rackard’s tombstone.

“‘If it wasn’t for this man we wouldn’t be here,’ I told Martin, and that was why we went in to say a prayer at his grave. I felt he’d been forgotten a little bit, and I wanted to make sure he’d be remembered in 1996.”

Rackard was the man who revived hurling in Wexford. The pickings had been slim in the half-century before he burst onto the scene in the early 50s, leading a glamorous team to two All-Ireland titles. He was a Moses for the Yellowbellies when they were lost in the wilderness.

“The county was a barren wasteland for hurling when Rackard came along,” says Griffin. “We’d been to an All-Ireland final in 1918 and had won the All-Ireland in 1910, and that was it. Christy Ring was a fantastic hurler but he would have been born into fields of corn as far as hurling went. That doesn’t take from his greatness, but Rackard was born in barren fields, and he led Wexford out of them.”

Hardly a surprise, given the soil he sprang from. Rackard lived in the same house as Kelly, the Boy from Killane, the hero of 1798.

“That song about Kelly exaggerates his height,” says Griffin. “Seven feet with some inches to spare — but Rackard was like that. He was six foot three but in real terms he was seven feet tall to us. I’m close to a lot of the men who played with him, and he led from the front. They would say it was impossible not to stand with him. His speech at half-time in the 1956 National League final, when Wexford were being beaten by 15 points, had them ready to die for the jersey, and they went out and won the game. He carried the county on his back and the other players rose to become great players with him — including his two brothers, Bobby and Billy.”

Rackard’s influence spread far beyond the county: “You can talk about Clare in the 90s, and Wexford in 1996, but Rackard was a stratosphere ahead of that. He broke up the normal order and did so with a great team, they changed the style of hurling by bringing in high catching, and people responded — 30,000 at an Oireachtas final, 50,000 at a Railway Cup game.

“That has never been credited to my mind, how he helped draw those huge crowds to hurling.”

There would be enough in Rackard’s on-field leadership to place him in the pantheon, but his status isn’t just based on hammering home 21-yard frees. He found alcoholism a more difficult opponent than any full-back, but he overcame that as well.

“He’s more than a hurling figure, he’s an iconic figure in that he was an ordinary person and an extraordinary person at the same time,” says Griffin.

“He was full of the frailties we all have, but he conquered those the same way he conquered hurling. I think if he could come back, he’d probably say that conquering his frailties was his greatest achievement. Hurling might have been part of the reason he had those frailties, because adulation can be difficult for people.”

As an All-Ireland-winning manager, Griffin knows the dangers of over-celebration. “I was worried about what would happen to our lads in 1996 because I’d seen plenty of players get in trouble through gobshites buying them drink and making fools of them.

“When Nickey had a drink problem it was terrible, but he conquered it. He reconciled with his family and he went the length and breadth of the country helping alcoholics after that. I think that was his greatest achievement — that he conquered demons in his life that many people can’t conquer and managed to get balance back in his life. And then, sadly, in his early 50s, he died.”

Now the county remembers. A statute of Rackard sculpted by artist Mark Richards will be unveiled today in Selskar Square in Wexford Town. Griffin is hoping it’ll inspire future generations of hurlers in the county.

“It’s fantastic that the statue is going up in the middle of the town, where youngsters can walk past and ask their parents about Nickey and develop an interest in him and in hurling. It’s fantastic that it’s front and centre. Nickey Rackard is owed that.”

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