Stickwork of the master

IT BEGAN with a call from an inter-county hurler, a prominent star.

It was a surprising call, because he had never called before.

“You must talk to this man,” he said, “You must talk to him. I can’t really explain why, but you’ll know when you meet him.”

Jimmy Ryan is his name, he went on, and he makes and repairs hurleys, just outside Newport in north Tipperary. But he does more than that, he said, a lot more than that; I’ll clear the way, you talk to him, because people should know about this man.

Thus I found myself heading for Oakhampton, Newport, following clear and exact instructions from the man himself.

We were greeted by Jimmy, a slender, handsome man with a shock of silver hair and a warm, welcoming smile that came from deep, from the soul.

There was myself with the microrecorder, and Dan Linehan with his battery of cameras, lenses and flashes. A lot of people who aren’t used to such intrusions in their lives are fazed by such circumstances. Jimmy was not.

It wasn’t because he had always craved such a moment, it was because he had never considered it, nor did he consider it now. Quite simply, it was happening, and that was that — one way or the other, he wasn’t bothered.

He led us to his shed, a little idyll, erected in the last year with every element of it built by himself. And there they were — hurleys, all shapes, all sizes, in various states of repair and disrepair; oak planks with hurleys already marked out for cutting; and templates, hanging on the wall, all marked up.

“Eoin Kelly,” pronounced one, “34.5 inches, 21ozs.” Stephen Lucey is hanging in there, as is Ollie Moran and Pat Tobin, along with a host of other inter-county names. Mark Foley has five hurleys awaiting collection, Conor O’Mahony likewise; Niall Moran has a hurley with several serious cracks hooped while we’re chatting, the cracks all healed in the deal.

We start to talk, small talk, general stuff. How did you get into hurley repairs? “It started around 1957, I had three bits of different hurleys and I had to splice them together to make one hurley to go and play a championship match. I spliced them, overlapped them, then wrapped a little bit of aluminium around them. It worked anyway, but that’s an awkward one to do.”

The most awkward? “I’ve changed handles many times, made long hurleys short, made short hurleys long — that’s much harder.”

Made short hurleys long? “My father taught woodwork and he always told us — measure twice, cut once, because once the cut is made, that’s that.”

But that is not quite true?

“Well, you can extend a hurley. You get a piece off an offcut, then a long splice down, about five or six inches and re-shape it. A drop of superglue can work wonders then. Drop it into the vice and you can work away on it within minutes. Loctite, that’s what I use, just a few drops. It is very handy because there is no mixing. That gives an instant hold, I usually put a few light screws in then, drill first, countersink it but not all the way.”

Detail is what distinguishes Jimmy in his repair of hurleys. Every hurley is personalised to suit the wielder, which is why Pat Tobin’s stick is 33”, with a slim handle, Ollie Moran’s is longer, heavier, with a much thicker handle to suit his blacksmith’s hands. Then there are the big knobs on the end of Jimmy’s hurleys, angled in such a way that every part of the hand is holding ash, just as it should be.

“Clem Smith (former Limerick hurler) started the big knobs,” he explains; “A wet evening in Limerick, the hurley flew out of his hand — if it had hit the lad in front of him, he said, it could have done serious damage.

“And by the way, Clem is making a comeback for Ahane, he was here with me last Sunday. He is a real character, I think Limerick need a couple of players like himself and Mike Houlihan (another noted former Limerick star, another hard hurler).”

Mike is training Kilmallock this year, and early in the year he couldn’t use the club pitch for training, so he marked out a field on his farm, put up temporary posts, brought the lads out there. “Ah yeah, fair play to him — they were the lads that started hurling, fellas using their own fields, out in the haggards. You’d hate to see hurling without characters like that. Stephen Lucey is one of those, some craic! He is an amazing man. When he was studying (medicine) he could lock himself away for six or seven hours at a time, got all his exams. And he’s still studying.

“He’s going to go places, that man, and the thing is, everybody likes him. He’s my doctor now — I’m his hurley doctor and he’s my medical doctor!”

As we were talking inside his shed, Jimmy was doing a bit of work, demonstrating for Dan how he still makes the hoops the old-fashioned way, riveting and clinching.

“The tinker’s stroke, that’s what it’s called,” he said, as he tap-tapped at the rivet. “That’s the stroke they’d use when they were making a bucket; nice and gentle, work around one side, leave the other angle for hammering on, to get a grip on it. That rivet now is made and will never come apart. A little rub of a file, maybe an extra pinch — some of the heads are a bit stubby and you can get caught with them.”

Outside the window there was a constant chatter from the hosts of finches fluttering about, some almost so bold as to make their way inside. Soon, their presence is explained.

“Feeding the birds, that takes a lot of my time up. I keep wet bread outside the window for them at all times. I had a crow here, trained him to eat from my hand, a magpie that eats with the cats in the morning, from the same bowl.

“I’ve had them all, jackdaws, magpies, blackbirds, crows, robins, finches, the whole lot.”

And outside we go, a few bits of the wet bread thrown onto the roof of the old shed, the one he used to use (“I’ve had everyone from kids to grannies come down the path, looking for hurleys”), and instantly we are surrounded by his feathered family — a modern-day Francis of Assisi.

He’s a holy man, Jimmy Ryan, not ostentatious holier-than-thou, but true holy, in the original sense, God-loving rather than God-fearing. “All round me I see his miracles,” he smiles, a smile almost permanently on his face.

“Every morning I pray for God’s blessing for the day ahead.

“Every evening I thank him for it.”

Are you afraid of death, I asked him? “No,” he says, “Not a bit, because I know there’s a hereafter.” No point in fear anyway, I said, one thing we’ve all got to do, we’ve all got to die. “Wrong,” he said; “We’ve all got to live, that’s what a priest said to me one time, back from Brazil. He was right, wasn’t he?”

Tomorrow, barring a draw, one of either Tipperary or Limerick will be out of the Munster championship. Next week, it’s likely that a few players from that team will be in Oakhampton, in his little home-built shed, bringing their broken hurleys, bearing their scars, baring their scars. Just like last year.

“Eoin Kelly was here before the Tipp/Limerick match on the Friday night — I did his hurley, he wasn’t happy with the handle. We took off the grip, stripped it down, built it up again ‘til he was happy with it — what did he do? He scored 14 points on the Sunday! The Limerick lads were saying to me, I was able to do his hurley right, and I couldn’t do theirs! Eoin was back to me afterwards, the following week, he said to me: ‘Jimmy, are you disappointed Limerick lost?’ It’s an awful situation to be in, divided loyalties, I’m sort of a halfway house here. I said, ‘Eoin, I’d have been disappointed for ye as well if ye’d lost.’ I know how much they put in, how much it means to them.”

Jimmy Ryan doesn’t just fix broken hurleys. He fixes broken dreams and broken hearts.