The fruits of a lifelong labour

How did Newtownshandrum, a parish of around 800 souls, that would throw up perhaps a total of 60 able-bodied men between the ages of 18 and 33, manage to win an All-Ireland club title? Diarmuid O’Flynn investigates.

THERE ARE over 2,000 clubs in the GAA, with nearly all boasting a far bigger pick and far greater resources, than the little North Cork club. Take that 60, remove those disinclined to hurling by attitude (every one counts big in a small community), then by aptitude, physical and mental, then by appetite for the kinds of sacrifice needed to maintain hurling fitness and form for a sustained period. What's left? How did they do it?

Without a Cork senior title to their name before 2000, where did they come from, what was the inspiration behind their phenomenal recent success?

The chattering classes say that Bernie O'Connor, 'The Baron', was the source.

Head into Newtown village from Charleville, past the National School where it all begins, past the one bar in the parish, then the impressive GAA facilities, the second pitch with its floodlights towering over all, continue a few hundred yards out the Milford road, Bernie's house and hurley workshop is on the left, big hedge in front.

Bernie, you're informed, was the man who took the bulk of this all-conquering side as youngsters, U12, formed them and forged them, instilled in them first the basics, skills before frills, introduced them to a style of play he had introduced to his native Meelin a decade earlier, an intelligent, pacy, short-passing, possession-based game to suit an intelligent, lightly-built, pacy team.

"To a lot of people it seems to be rocket science," he says, a bit bemused; "but it was simply a case of sitting down, looking at the players we had, and deciding, what is the best way for these fellas to play? That's what we did, and this is the style that suits us, though we get heavily criticised for it.

"In one of the U21 finals we won in Fermoy, Simon Morrissey was doing the video of the game, interviewed a fella afterwards, a Newtown fan from around Mitchelstown, and asked him, what did you think of that. 'By God', he said, 'I'm a long time watching Newtown, and they're not even hurling now! Sure you wouldn't call that hurling, what they were doing in there? A disgrace', he said, 'the way they were throwing the ball around'. Simon got a bit embarrassed and turned off the mike. Even though we were winning, it was a common criticism.

"An awful lot of people are happy just to do what's been done forever, this was the way it was played for the last hundred years, so this is the way it's got to be played today. I don't agree with that at all."

An innovator then, a thinking hurler, most of what brought this Newtown team to Croke Park on St Patrick's Day, that won them that coveted All-Ireland mantle, was imbued into the side by Bernie, carried on by current coach Ger Cunningham.

It wasn't just their hurling, it wasn't just the fact that Bernie happened to be the father of Ben, Jerry, and John, it was more than all that. Bernie it was who raised the bar for these lads, who made them look up, and keep looking up.

A county U-21 A title wasn't enough, even if there were many big scalps claimed along the way. They would win three, in succession, a feat in its own right as great as winning the All-Ireland title.

A first Cork county senior title for the club however, was seen even by some of the players as being beyond Newtown; what chance then an All-Ireland title?

"Winning an intermediate county with Newtown was realistic. Winning a senior county with Newtown wasn't," admitted captain John McCarthy, earlier this year. Until Bernie got inside their heads.

"The captain will back up this story," he smiles, taking a break from the hurley-making. "It was four years ago in Ballybunion, 8 o'clock on a Sunday morning, I had the lads out on the beach, climbing the banks, running up the steps, and eventually they came to me, complaining that they wouldn't be climbing steps in matches (McCarthy did, three times in the last season alone, to collect silverware!), that the training was too hard. I pulled them all together, told them, ye have two choices; ye can stay where ye are, treading water, or ye can walk out of Croke Park on St. Patrick's Day in four years time as All-Ireland champions. This was the fourth year. I get great mileage out of that one!"

So, Bernie, you're the man?

"No. I came here 25 years ago, there was an awful lot happened in the club beforehand that I wouldn't know anything about. Chris Morrissey is the life and soul of hurling in Newtown. You want to know anything about hurling in Newtown, ask Chris Morrissey, names and dates, who won what and when. I can hardly tell you when we won the intermediate, but nothing goes out of his head, he remembers everything."

Chris Morrissey then. Star (very often the Lone Star) of Newtown teams through the late 50's, the 60's, 70's, the whippet-thin but steel-strong Chris even played in 1980, won a Junior B North Cork title with the club, clinched their own three-in-a-row at that level, another outstanding achievement, given that it was Newtown's second team.

One of a family of 11, two brothers emigrated early on to England, where Maurice won a few London championships, but, from the 1930's to 1980, in an unbroken line, five of the Morrissey clan Mick, Jack, Ned, Paddy and Chris wore the green-and-gold with rare distinction.

In every championship that Newtown won during that period there was at least one Morrissey; from their first North Cork in 1936 (Novice), when Mick was involved, through 1946, when the first county junior A title was won (Mick, Jack and Ned), 1953 and the first intermediate (Mick, Jack, Ned and Paddy). Youngster Chris came on the adult scene in 1955, won a Novice North Cork in 56; by 1968 however, when Newtown again won county honours, at junior, the baton was being passed on, as Paddy and Chris were joined by Billy and Patsy, sons of Mick; later again came Simon, Dick, Christy, many more.

That representation continues to the current day, keeper Paul and forward Mike are grandsons of Dick, Patsy is team manager, young Christy, a member of the 1996 intermediate-winning side, following his father in the job of club chairman, presiding now over the major grounds development.

On and off the field, there is no denying the Morrissey influence on the Newtownshandrum success story, its growth, its development, no denying especially the influence of Chris. Non-drinker, non-smoker, his devotion to Newtown doesn't supersede devotion to family, it encompasses it. A successful building contractor, his home backs onto the GAA grounds; physically, mentally, emotionally, always close at hand.

So Chris, you're the man.

"No, not me. Bernie played a huge part in this; you can have all the talent in the world, but talent can destroy a team as well, they can command a lot off the field, more than they're entitled to, and that can be dangerous. Bernie never allowed that to happen, he kept them under control from a very early age. They got into the habit of winning, and they liked the feeling. We've had good teams before, but the one thing we have now we didn't have then, discipline. Bernie gave them that."

So Bernie is the patriarch? Not exactly.

"When I came on the scene here, there was a certain amount achieved, but there were people before me playing in Newtown when there was nothing. You look back and you see all the fellas who missed out on the Croke Park experience, winning an All-Ireland, fellas who did so much for this club over the years, and you feel happy that you lived to see this day.

"It's a fantastic thing for the people of Newtown, having achieved what we've achieved, though I'm well aware that sport is a great leveller; next week you could go out in the Cork championship and you could be back down on your knees again, everyone will be out to get us.

"For the older fellas in this club though, it must have been fantastic. There are only two members of the 1936 team still alive, the team that won the first championship for Newtown Mick O'Connell and Mick Bennett. Mick O'Connell was in Croke Park; I'd love to know what he was thinking, knowing where he started from."

Actually, Mick was not in Croke Park, not for the game anyway. "We went up alright, but with the crowd that was gathered, trying to get in, we thought it better to leave, watch it on television."

He's still a hardy man, Mick, still got all his wits about him, perfect hearing, phenomenal recall. He would love to have seen that game in the flesh but with the crush outside the ground because of the error of not having sufficient turnstiles open, Mick reckoned that at 87, he was better off elsewhere. Disappointed to miss it in person, but still, it was a special day.

"Oh I never thought anything like that could happen. I remember people around here used to talk about Ballyhea having been in an All-Ireland final, 1896, but I never thought I'd see the day, never."

ALL-IRELAND club champions, national TV, parades, speeches, open-top buses, bonfires blazing, the whole parish joined by hundreds, thousands, in celebration. Far cry from 1936. Mick's first year on the team, wing-forward, Newtown's first North Cork title, the Novice championship, things were all a little different.

"Forty years we'd been trying to win that championship, without success. Even Dromina (other half of the parish) won it before we did, 1927 I think that was. By 1936, fellas here were so sick of being beaten that the best of them, Paddy Sheehan, the Culhanes, all of those fellas, packed up and went back to Milford; five or six of us young fellas, were drafted in, and wasn't it a funny thing, that was the year we won it!"

The memory brings a smile, then a laugh. "Mind you, Milford won the junior county that year, with those lads."

As for celebrations? "There was none. Newtown had become so used to getting beat, they used to come home here on the back of the lorry, singing; Jim Burke used to say, you'd never know whether they'd won or lost, they were always singing! I got a medal alright, but I lost it in England."

London, where, like so many other good Newtown hurlers, Mick ended up for most of his working life. "January 1938 to 1976, 36 years. I came home then." He's been home since, very much at home lately.

The names of all the great players of the past roll easily off the tongue. "Paddy Sheehan was a fine player, fine athletic bloke; Paddo Morrissey was about the best of his time, though Chris was a fine player also. John Twomey as well, I heard a lot about John, but at that time, in the 1960's, I'd have been only coming over and back from England. There was The Small Man, Anton Noonan, cool as you like, he'd take a free from anywhere, put a fag in his mouth, pop it over, no nerves, he had the cheek of the devil. We had the Herlihys, the Coughlans, all of them, they all played their part.

However Mick is in no doubt. Team and individual, the best is here, today. "No question about that, better than any team I ever saw. And though I'd put John Buckley with them, when he was a youngster, the O'Connors, really, are the best players."

Often, when the good times roll, there's a tendency to forget those who kept the flame alive, those who lit the first spark. Contrary to initial appearances, this All-Ireland title for Newtownshandrum was no flash-in-the-pan, wasn't an overnight success. It was 70, 90, 100 years in the making. Those who broke the ground, cleared the rocks and boulders, ploughed, harrowed, sowed the first seed, those who followed, who endured the hardships but built on what they'd been given. Those who went to Croke Park are not the pioneers, they are the followers; they are the reapers, now the sowers.

All are entitled to share in the bounty.