Settling bets as punters play the name game

THE phone calls to the Irish Examiner come thick and fast in the weeks before and after the Munster Finals.

The dreaded words “will you settle a bet” usually precede the question that seems to puzzle bar lounges of Ireland throughout June and July - namely what are the names of the Munster senior trophies in hurling and football.

The answer is that they are nameless and have been since their presentation by the Provincial Council in 1928.

Ironically the hurling trophy presented to Seán Óg Ó hAilpín on Sunday was set to honour Waterford legend Dan Fraher.

“A decision was taken to call the hurling trophy after Fraher, who died in 1929,” respected Munster Council historian Jim Cronin recalled.

“But for some reason or another, nobody is quite sure why, it was never implemented. And that is how it stayed until the present day.”

Most of the other trophies presented by the Munster Council boast corporate names - long before the age of Guinness and Bank of Ireland sponsorship.

The Intermediate Hurling Cup is The Sweet Afton Cup (“Tipperary hurler and Munster Council member Jerry Shelly was a travelling salesman for the brand of cigarettes,” explained Cronin), while the Minor Hurling Cup is known affectionately as the TWA, having been presented by the now defunct American airline, the first to fly transatlantic to Shannon.

Both U-21 trophies are known as Corn na Cásca, having been presented by the Munster Council in 1966 to commemorate the jubilee of the 1916 Rising. The Munster MFC trophy, the Tadhg Crowley Cup, is one of the few in the province to commemorate an individual.

“Four or five years ago we were approached about selling the naming rights to the trophies for the senior championships. The feeling by some was the purity of the trophies would be somehow devalued or damaged by having them named,” Munster Council chairman Sean Fogarty explained yesterday.