Crafty O’Connor ready for the Gunfire

IF the men who made the first hurleys were to see the speed and expertise with which Bernie O’Connor shapes and prepares a hurley today, they would be gob-smacked.

In seconds, literally, fingers often coming within millimetres of the lethal blade of the powerful band-saw, the rough template is cut to the O’Connor shape; switch of work-station, over to the power-planer, sides ripped down, smoothed, then rounded off before being tossed onto the next station for sanding.

It is all a far cry from the hard labour of the early days, “fellas tearing at them with bits of glass, the whole lot,” laughs Bernie.