I didn’t go out to ‘do’ Kirby in 1996, says Dunne

FORMER Wexford hurler Liam Dunne has ridiculed suggestions that he deliberately injured Gary Kirby in the 1996 All-Ireland SHC final.

Dunne in his recently published book “I Crossed The Line,” said that both players pulled on the ball. However, Kirby alleged in a television interview on TG4 that he was struck by someone “pulling below the ball.”

On the morning after the All-Ireland final, at the traditional post-match function in the Burlington Hotel, Dunne says he shook hands with Limerick players Mike Nash and Dave Clarke and that “they didn’t speak much.” “Then Gary Kirby came into view and just as I was about to go over, I saw he had a big bandage on his finger and his hand was in a sling. That just turned me off and I didn’t bother approaching him.

“Of course that was when all the

innuendos started, the rumours that we had agreed in training that I would break his hand so he wouldn’t be able to take frees, the theory that I deliberately pulled on his finger as the second ball came our way. That’s all I heard, ‘ah ye, you’re the man who broke Kirby’s fingers in ‘96 to stop him taking frees.’ Word got back to me that Gary was telling people he knew it was going to happen, but as far as I was concerned, Limerick beat themselves that day. I haven’t a clue if he broke his fingers or not. If he did, I certainly didn’t set out to break them. The two of us pulled on a ball at the same time and as far as I am concerned, if he struck correctly he would have got no contact from me.”

Dunne recalls a meeting with Kirby, in the Anner Hotel in Thurles a few years later. “We talked for about ten minutes, chatted about hurling in general and shook hands before leaving. There was no awkwardness. But then in 2003 I was told of an episode in the TV series Laochra Gael, where he had plenty to say about me. It was in that broadcast he told the world that Wexford had a pre-match plan to go out and do him. He (Kirby) says: ‘as I pulled, my hand met a hurl and broke a bone in my finger. If I was pulling on the ball, it meant that the ball was a hurley length from my hand, so whoever hit me was pulling low below the ball. You lose games, but we all have to go to work the following morning and you don’t do things like that.’”

After that, he realised how “sore” Kirby was about what had happened. He was annoyed at the “insistence” by Limerick players that they had “thrown” the ‘96 final away. He continues: “Thrown it away, who are they trying to cod? We were on the wrong end of a 0-5 to 0-1 scoreline and reduced to 14 men for about 35 minutes. Yet, we cut the free count down to almost zero and they say they threw it away. What about the 1994 final when they had it in the bag but let Offaly take it from them. Maybe Limerick threw that one away. They certainly didn’t in 1996. I was damned angry when it all flared up again from 2000 onwards when I got my first red card. I hope this sets the record straight. I didn’t go out to ‘do’ Gary Kirby.”