Southern Lights

Whitbread Prize-winning poet Bernard O’Donoghue from Cork pauses from his work at Wadham College, Oxford to tell Michael Moynihan his memories of Cork-Kerry Munster finals.

Q: Tell me a little more about the 1955 final you mentioned as your first; what's your abiding memory of it?

A: "1955, when I was nine, was the first heatwave summer of my lifetime, and we all got burnt by the sun in Killarney (sunburn was thought good for the health in that era: not that there was much danger from it). Travellers went around calling out 'Sixpence a bottle for water'. Jim Donovan, the Cork full-forward, scored a goal at the beginning of each half, but Kerry won 0-14 to 2-6. It was a great Kerry team of course Tadgie Lyne, Paudie Sheehy, John Dowling and the rest and they went on to beat the celebrated Dubs (Ollie Freaney, Heffo, Snitchy Ferguson) in the final."