Michael Quinlivan: Bloody Sunday commemoration left me speechless

Premier County star reveals how he was motivated by ceremony for 14 victims

Michael Quinlivan at Páirc Uí Chaoimh. Photo by Eóin Noonan/Sportsfile

Tipperary football star Michael Quinlivan has spoken about how affected he was by the Bloody Sunday commemoration in Croke Park the night before he helped guide the county to a first Munster title in 85 years.

With his mother and father, Quinlivan sat down for the ceremony shown on RTÉ prior to the Leinster final between Dublin and Meath. The tributes paid to the 14 victims including Tipperary corner-back Mick Hogan stirred the 27-year-old hours before he kicked five points in the famous win over Cork.

“I sat at home with my parents watching the remembrance ceremony in Dublin and there wasn’t a word out of the three of us for I’d say 20 minutes,” he told the Irish Examiner. 

“My mother just got up and left. You started to realise that this is a little bit bigger than that. When you see the jersey hanging on the wall inside the dressing room it does mean something.”

The emotion of the weekend never swept Tipperary away, though, and Quinlivan pointed to the experience of losing the Munster final to Kerry four years ago as a primary reason for that.

“The experience of being in a Munster final in 2016 helped us a lot because it was such a big occasion. We hadn’t beaten Cork in so long and when we did in the semi-final it really was an emotional day. But in the final against Kerry we found after five or 10 minutes we fell flat on our face because we spent so much time bigging ourselves up for it.

“Bloody Sunday was a huge day for Tipperary football but a huge day for the GAA and thankfully the GAA looked after that and all we worried about was our football. You try to keep it in the back of your mind. But we just had to be business-like. Maybe we did have that bit of emotion in the beginning because we started like a house on fire. But it’s a 70-minute match and you can’t rely on emotion for the whole game to bring you through.”

But for the pandemic, Quinlivan would not have been available to Tipperary this year as he had planned on travelling. Midfielder Liam Casey had similar ideas while Colin O’Riordan would have been in the middle of an AFL season with the Sydney Swans had the Championship taken placed as scheduled this past summer.

Quinlivan played down their significance in the provincial triumph and their 100% record since the restart. 

“We’ve started finding ways to win games. We hadn’t been beaten in a challenge match at all coming into the league and it’s a hard thing to put your finger on because you don’t want to big yourself up because we just kept winning games.

“I don’t think it was as much about us coming back. The lads who were home were incredible. Like Conor (Sweeney), I couldn’t be happier for him because he epitomises everything that’s good about Tipperary football. He does everything right and he’s such a likeable person. I love rowing in behind him, I’m so glad it’s him that was able to lift the cup because he deserves it so much.

“I was there in 2012 and there is not many of us still left from that team. (Philip) Austin has been on the road a long time, Brian Fox… those lads deserve that, they really do. It’s very satisfying the way it has turned out, given the weekend that was in it, given everything that goes along with it that we were able to give a bit of joy to the people of Tipperary.”

One sour note for Quinlivan on Sunday was his injured fellow Clonmel Commercials man Jack Kennedy not being able to attend the game due to the Covid-related restrictions on numbers. 

“I felt so sorry for Jack Kennedy. He has been enormous for all year, always to the fore and the fact he couldn’t be here today while his two brothers (Colman and Conal) were playing was really tough on him.

“To have nine of us (Commercials) involved in the panel with Charlie (McGeever) as a selector is really big. Funnily, eight of us came off one U21 team so we’re all around the one age. I know there would have been a lot of our club people at the game if they were allowed but I hope they’re happy.”

Quinlivan dedicated the win to those Tipperary footballers who preceded him. 

“Most of all this is a validation for all of those footballers who played for Tipperary down through the years. A lot of them I looked up to, the likes of Paul Fitzgerald, Peter Acheson, Ciaran McDonald, George Hannigan. This is as much for them as it is for the newer generation.

“We’ve had some bad years, we probably didn’t kick on after 2016 and this was our chance, really. The way the draw fell, there was no hiding place. You had to go and win your games and get to a Munster final. We won by three points and we probably could have won by more.”

On Sunday week, Quinlivan believes Tipperary can put in a stronger performance than they did against Mayo four years ago. 

“Hopefully, we are more mature now than we were in 2016, that this isn’t the end of the road for us either. We have an All-Ireland semi-final against Mayo in two weeks and we know them very well. We have played them twice over the last four years.

“We’ll enjoy this, you’re not going to be able to go to Thurles, which is a pity because I know there’s a lot of Tipperary football people out there overjoyed to see this happen but we’ll get back training and go again and hopefully there’s an All-Ireland final in us yet.”