How the Clash showed ’em who’s bas
IT’S 22 years since the release of one of the few Irish feature films in which hurling looms large as part of the plot. Michael Moynihan spoke to Liam Heffernan, star of Clash Of The Ash, about his preparation for the role of Phil, teenage tearaway, star hurler and unlikely role model for a small sect of Dubliners...
IT’S NOT a long list. If you take away the opening sequences of The Wind That Shakes The Barley, then you remove about one-third of the total number of hurling sequences to be found on film. The other big one is Rooney, of course, with its Kilkenny and Waterford line-ups from the 1957 All-Ireland hurling final, while some robust boozing hurlers including a young Joe Lynch in Young Cassidy (1965), just about complete the set. And even the latter seem more interested in routing peelers out of the pub than playing the ball properly.
