New trophies are something ‘special’

Michael Moynihan

When it came to producing trophies for those competitions, there was another obvious choice.

“The GAA got onto us,” says Gerald McCarthy, “Pat Daly, Head of Games for the GAA, asked us to provide two trophies for the new competitions.”

McCarthy won five All-Ireland senior hurling medals with Cork, including 1966, when he captained the side, but in his professional life he owns a thriving trophy business.

He’s produced two fine cups for the hurling competitions, and anyone struck by a similarity between them and a certain football cup isn’t mistaken.

“They wanted a specific kind of design for the trophies,” says McCarthy, “They were looking for something modelled along the lines of the Sam Maguire, though obviously with a few differences. The trophies are made of sterling silver with mahogany bases.

“An awful lot of work went into them but it’s worthwhile because they look special and they’re very valuable. In technical terms they’re bowl-shaped cups, they’re approximately 12 pounds in weight and 16 inches in height and diameter. They’re not identical, obviously, there’s a slight difference in terms of the handles and so on to differentiate between them.”

The Christy Ring Cup is being played for this weekend before the Cork-Clare All-Ireland hurling semi-final, when Down take on Westmeath in Croke Park.

Both finalists had high-scoring semi-final victories: Down beat Carlow 4-23 to 1-11, while Westmeath ran up 7-14 to Kildare’s 1-12 in their semi-final.

The Nicky Rackard Cup final between Louth and London will be played on August 21 as a curtain-raise to the Galway-Kilkenny All-Ireland hurling semi-final. Louth beat Tyrone 3-10 to 1-8 in their semi-final last Saturday, while in the other semi-final on Sunday London defeated Donegal 3-13 to 0-10 in a contentious game.

Donegal had threatened to withdraw from the tie earlier in the week and had two men, including player-manager Darren McDermott, sent off in the game against London.