The days that will forever colour their hurling lives
Gary Kirby: Every era you’ll get people saying it was the golden era. All I can say is that for us, yes, for that team it definitely was, that was our pinnacle. It seemed to capture the imagination of the people too, the colour really came into it around then. I remember coming out on the field in the All-Ireland final of ’94, the colour! To see almost the whole place in green and white and you’re wondering — where did all these come from? All the flags, the banners. You were driving around Limerick and every house, every housing estate, seemed to be festooned with green and white. The following year you had the same thing in Clare. Everywhere you went you met saffron and blue banners and bunting and flags. The colour really came into it that time.
Seánie McMahon: Television was a factor also. Up to then you had only the All-Ireland final shown live, maybe a semi-final. In ’95 I remember they started showing more games, though they were deferred, but from ’96 on they were fully live and that just increased the whole buzz. Then you had the different teams starting to come through, new combinations, and that all added to it. New counties came, the bunting and the banners started to become popular. There wasn’t a house in Clare in ’95 I’d say that didn’t have a flag of some sort and that was even in houses that would never before have had anything to do with hurling.
