One year on

IRISHMEN and Irishwomen: In the name of God and of the dead generations from which she receives her old tradition of nationhood, Ireland, through us, summons her children to her flag and strikes for her freedom.

Having organised and trained her manhood through her secret revolutionary organisation... she strikes in full confidence of victory."

It was a late year for Easter, a major war going on in Europe but a relatively quiet time in dear old Dublin when, out of left field, that peace was shattered. A band of revolutionaries took over the GPO and Padraig Pearse, their leader, hollered to the bemused bystanders. It was a day that would go down in history, those lines just the opening paragraph of a Proclamation of Independence rich in idealistic rhetoric. At the bottom of the document, seven names "signed on behalf of the provisional government, Thomas J Clarke, Sean MacDiarmada, Thomas McDonagh, PH Pearse, Eamonn Ceannt, James Connolly, Joseph Plunkett."

All were doomed, all died by firing squad just weeks later, their revolution as short-lived as most of themselves, but the repercussions still reverberate down the decades. That was Easter Monday, April 25, 1916.

Fast-forward to Friday, November 29 2002, lazy end-of-season period in the GAA, a hotel in Cork city. "We the Cork senior hurling panel for 2002 wish to advise that we have concluded our discussion process with the executive of the county board. We regret to say that we cannot report any substantial progress has been made and furthermore we cannot foresee any progress. We have decided as a result to withdraw our services immediately from the Cork senior hurling panel. It's been an enormous decision for each of us to make personally and one we all regret having to make".

Another proclamation, another revolution, another seven big names Joe Deane, Donal Óg Cusack, Fergal Ryan, Diarmuid O'Sullivan, Alan Browne, Mark Landers and Sean Óg O hAilpín.

Pale comparison, I hear you say, but in this media-driven age, the latter statement sent as many shock-waves through an unsuspecting Irish public as Pearse's lofty prose had done nearly ninety years earlier. Certainly a hell of a lot faster.

We all know what prompted the first revolution, heard all the ballads, but what prompted the second? What led a tortured Joe Deane to announce that "given the situation in which we find ourselves, we are left with no alternatives"?

It hadn't been a good year for Cork hurling. Since bursting through to win a totally unexpected All-Ireland in 1999, a very promising young side had been going rapidly downhill. What had happened to all that talent, all that potential?

Listening to all the talk, suffering the barbs of many a frustrated supporter, no-one was more frustrated than the players themselves. They weren't puzzled, they weren't mystified. Festering through that period was a strong sense of injustice, a feeling that not alone was their talent not being maximised, their efforts not appreciated, but that they were being exploited, used and abused, taken for granted.

"It was there for a number of years, simmering all the time", Alan Browne explains; "it wasn't any single issue, there were a number of issues that had to be sorted out for once and for all, but eventually one or two events just brought it to the boil, it got to the stage where fellas just weren't going to accept the way things were anymore."

Understandably, Browne is loathe to go over that old ground again "it's sorted out now, there's harmony in the camp, so I'd prefer not to drag it all up again.

"Mick Dolan was appointed as the liaison officer between the players and the County Board and that procedure is working out very well. If there are any problems now we go through Mick, get it sorted out quietly, rather than going public."

Mention of Mick Dolan is very pertinent here. While there were many high-profile individuals on both sides, there were people working behind the scenes who were probably just as important.

At the original players' meeting, in the background, there was the shaven-headed figure of Diarmuid Falvey, Cloyne native, a solicitor based on the South Mall. He is credited by many of those players with being critical to their strategy, guiding and advising them on every move. For the County Board there was incoming Board chairman Jim Forbes and the lesser-known Mick Dolan, a long-time officer and a man for whom the word 'affable' could have been coined. With the players in such militant humour, the Fermoy-man was the ideal candidate to pour oil on troubled waters.

"Ah, I'd be a terrible chancer!", he laughs, at that suggestion. "Things did get a little bit hot under the collar, and I became sort of a go-between. At the bottom of it all, it was just a series of misunderstandings, that was all, very simple things that the players needed to keep them happy.

"We had to supply them with various gym facilities around the county, sort out the gear situation a bit earlier in the season. Small things, where a small bit of common sense went a long way to sorting things out.

"As it happened, I had the time to spare, so I was appointed to the liaison committee. Alan Browne and Joe Deane represented the players, myself, John Allen (selector) and treasurer Pearse Murphy represented the board.

"We had the final meeting with them in the Silversprings Hotel, shook hands on it all round, hurlers and footballers, and I'd say this in all honesty, we stuck to every promise we made that night.

"We searched out things that would improve the lot of everyone involved, including the backroom boys, problems sussed out at source and sorted rather than allowed fester on. We had small problems later but we got over that. The whole thing probably cost the board a bit more than in previous years, but it was well worth it, and I couldn't have dealt with two better men than Alan and Joe.

"Donal O'Grady (team manager) played a very important role in all this too, he was a very commanding figure right through all these efforts."

Mind you, Mick was left with one legacy he could have down without "boots! Don't ever talk to me about boots. It's many the night I woke from a nightmare about boots, Nike, Puma, Adidas, because no matter what size you were looking for, they were either too small or too big! But we got it done, and eventually we had a happy camp because there was always someone from the board who could say to the lads look, that will be there, that will be looked after, all their needs big or small."

If Padraig Pearse, poet, scholar, teacher, was an unlikely leader of an armed uprising, Joe Deane, quiet, shy, reserved, unassuming, would have been deemed the guy least likely to be sitting centre-stage on that fateful evening.

The Cork hurlers generally had been slow to embrace the GPA (Gaelic Players Association), and were pigeon-holed in the same box as their notoriously-traditional county board.

Twelve months on, it all appears to have been worthwhile. There was fallout of course, always is in any war big or small, unfortunate fallout from the players' point of view with popular manager Bertie Og Murphy, not one of their targets, feeling compelled to resign. But whatever was within the power of the county board to give, within GAA guidelines, was given. The result? A happier bunch of players went on to regain the Munster title, lost the All-Ireland final by a single score after a titanic effort.

"Obviously things are a lot healthier than this time last year," Deane reflects. "That was probably the lowest point ever in Cork hurling, so definitely we've taken a step in the right direction, reaching the All-Ireland final brought a huge amount of interest back into Cork hurling. This year, the players couldn't have asked for anything more from the County Board or the management; everything was top class, all the preparations, everything we asked for, accommodation, facilities, physio, first class."

That new robust good health was even seen on the club scene. "Newtown winning the Munster club championship, that was a fantastic achievement, gave Cork hurling an extra boost. With no Cork club having won it since 1987, that was a title badly needed as well and I'd say every club in Cork was shouting mad for Newtown to win that."

Unity was everything. "In the end it came down to making one big decision, we followed through on that, and it all worked out for the best. Sticking together was the key to it. There was no point going into this with only three or four fellas pushing it, you'd risk being rubbished by your own team-mates, by everyone around the county and country. So we decided that everyone would have to be fully behind us if we were to go with it. That turned out to be the main strength of it."

FOR COUNTY chairman Jim Forbes, another easy-going kind of an individual, one most unlikely to find himself having to deal with a revolution of any sort, it was a period in Cork hurling best forgotten. "I must confess, I didn't see it coming, I thought it would all be resolved before it got to the stage it did. When that happened, it was all resolved very quickly."

Would they have acted differently, in hindsight? Would they have moved earlier to resolve the conflict? "Naturally enough we would have acted differently, but hindsight is a great thing. It's up to us all to make sure it doesn't happen again, that everything the players need is in place. That's the major lesson I learned from it. Our players are very, very important people, they put in a huge effort and without them there would be no games. We all put in a major effort, everyone involved in the GAA, the players, the management team, those in administration.

"There's a huge effort involved, across the board, and all on a voluntary basis, everyone is doing their utmost to make sure the county is successful at all grades but also that everything runs smoothly within the county. Looking back, it was a traumatic time for everybody but I think we all came out of it very well, and the success of the senior hurling team is testament to that. It's done and dusted now, move on, it's about time it was consigned to the history books."

There to rest, alongside Pearse and Plunkett, MacDonagh and MacDiarmada.