Ahead of their time: The UCC hurlers who were the first to wear helmets

'Donal Clifford who was a spectacular player and Ray Cummins and Seamus Looney, John Kelly from Tipperary and Paddy Doherty from Limerick and Mick Crotty from Kilkenny (all wore helmets), so the gospel spread easily

Micheál Murphy (left) wearing an American football helmet for UCC in the Fitzgibbon Cup in March 1968. After sustaining a serious head injury while playing for UCC in 1964, Murphy first wore a motorcycle helmet for protective headgear in the 1966 Cork senior hurling championship. In 1969, he donned a Canadian ice hockey helmet.

It's almost 60 years since Desmond Walsh last lived in his native Foxford but home is never too far away from Ottawa.

Last month, he read a piece on rte.ie about the evolution of the helmet in hurling. He was referenced as the person who played an integral role at the outset of the phenomenon when he sent his old UCC college mate Micheál Murphy a Canadian ice hockey helmet, in 1968.

Walsh, who settled in Ontario after studying in Western University before going on to work for Canada’s Communications Security Establishment, subsequently lost touch with Murphy. But the Mayo man set about tracking down his old college mate, and through another UCC man, Cummins Sports’ owner Kevin Cummins, they have been reunited.

This year marks the 55th anniversary of the Cork senior county final when Murphy donned a motorcycle helmet when coming on as a substitute for UCC against Avondhu. As John D Hickey’s report of that October afternoon went: “A ripple of slight bemusement echoes around the attendance of 12,504 in the old Cork Athletic Grounds midway through the second half of the 1966 Cork county hurling final as a UCC substitute runs on. Not only is Micheál Murphy wearing the college’s famed black and red jersey but upon his head is a motorcycle helmet.”

To continue playing the game he loved, Blackrock man Murphy simply had to. Two years earlier, he suffered a cracked skull from a blow that had major ramifications on his future studies.

“I got hit playing a first round championship match in Riverstown with UCC v Imokilly just as the final whistle blew,” he recalls of a game in which he scored 1-3. “I don’t know who or why. The match ended in a draw and I like to think it was a gesture of frustration by an opponent that just caught me on my temple. There are other stories about it.

“I don’t even know if the word ‘concussion’ was used at the time. I remember falling and then getting to the dressing room. Problems arose during the night and I eventually ended up in St Finbarr’s under a Dr Donovan who released me after three weeks’ observation with an injunction to ‘take it easy’ with the studies.

“I was a fairly driven guy at the time. I was studying hard for exams. The match was in May and we had exams in August. I took it easy so instead of 12 or 13 hours a day studying I did 10, which I thought was reasonable. This led to a series of epileptic ‘petit mal’ seizures and major concentration problems conflicting with study ambitions.

“And it took a while to ease up. I worked hard the following year and it didn’t go well. I accepted a lesser degree leading to a BSc and then an MSc and PhD at UCC instead of in the USA (at CalTech I had hoped). And then teaching at CrawfordTech (CMTI) and RTC and CIT and settling here in Cork.”

Murphy continued to train with the team in the Mardyke but he would cringe when he heard the clash of ash near him. And so he turned to the motorcycle helmet which featured in the county final. He also used an American football helmet for a spell before Walsh sent over the ice hockey headguard.

“I can’t remember if Des got me the American football helmet but when he was in Canada he sent me the ice hockey one. I wore it in the 1968 semi-final between UCC and the Glen.

“Helmets in ice hockey were only a recent invention at the time and there was a big controversy about it (they became mandatory in 1979).

The American football helmet looked terrible but of all the helmets I wore it was the most comfortable because it was very balanced around the head.

UCC put forward two motions to Cork annual convention in January 1967 relating to the use of helmets but with hurling being considered ‘a man’s game’ their campaign fell on deaf ears.

Murphy and Walsh later sourced 18 ice hockey helmets, six being worn by the team in the 1969 Fitzgibbon Cup semi-final and final against UCG and UCD respectively.

“UCC don’t get enough credit because they essentially bought the first set of helmets. I was secretary of the club at the time. We were lucky in that on that team were some particularly good players like Donal Clifford who was a spectacular player and Ray Cummins and Seamus Looney, John Kelly from Tipperary and Paddy Doherty from Limerick and Mick Crotty from Kilkenny, so the gospel spread easily.

“Fellas like Jimmy Doyle helped to spread the word too because he sold them in his shop. I’ve a set of photograph clippings where in one Donal Clifford with a helmet on is chasing Jimmy Doyle and in the next Jimmy Doyle with a bandage on his head is chasing Donal Clifford. And the next thing Jimmy is selling them.”

Tipperary great Jimmy Doyle became an agent for 'protective headgear'

Eleven years on from helmets being compulsory in all age grades and levels of hurling, Murphy is proud to see the game being a more accessible sport now because of safety protocols.

“My greatest pleasure now is seeing kids all wearing helmets. I like to think that maybe not all of them would be playing the game now without the protection that the helmets give.

They’re a great help, a great reassurance to parents that they are safe and secure.