Remembering Waterford GAA's darkest night 40 years on

Forty years on from the U21 hurlers' bus crash, those affected recount the three lives lost

The roadside memorial to Tony Forristal, Martin O'Grady and Jimmy Costello. The three were killed in an accident there in 1981.  

Forty years ago tomorrow, Bucks Fizz claimed the Eurovision contest in Dublin with their song “Making Your Mind Up”.

Just as the show was starting in the RDS, the Waterford U21 hurlers were finishing a meal in Tipperary town having played Clare in a challenge game there earlier that evening.

The group lingered for a while to watch the television broadcast but it wasn’t long before the minibuses had to leave, the east Waterford group including manager Tony Forristal heading back to the city.

Thirteen people reboarded that minibus, only 10 returned home. Sitting behind 39-year-old father-of-two Forristal at the front left of the bus in single seat one behind the other were Martin O’Grady and Jimmy Costello. Along with their manager, the 19-year-olds died instantly when the minibus collided with an unlit, abandoned lorry a few hundred yards on the Carrick-on-Suir side of Piltown village.

On the way to Tipperary, some of the players had commented about the poor state of the lorry, the owners of which were later fined £200. On a foggy night, the lighting on the road had also been poor.

The scars of that fateful night remain. For the Forristals. For the O’Grady family - “it’s a flame that never goes out,” says Martin’s brother Pat. “It was in a way a mini Stardust.” For the Costellos who gave their approval to this piece but politely declined to contribute.

The roadside memorial to Tony Forristal, Martin O'Grady and Jimmy Costello. The three were killed in an accident there in 1981.  

Behind O’Grady and Costello in a third single seat sat another player, Liam Daniels. He and six other players as well as team medic Danny Bowe were brought to Ardkeen hospital (the popular Bowe and another passenger and player, Ger Dowling, have passed away in the past 11 years).

Earlier this week with the anniversary in mind, Daniels spoke with Mike Costello, brother of Jimmy, who was also on the bus. They had never discussed the tragedy before.

“None of us involved would ever have spoken about it. I have often met members of the three families - Betty Forristal (Tony’s wife, sister of Pat McGrath). Pat O’Grady, the Costellos. We never spoke about the elephant in the room. In fairness to the hospital, they treated the visible injuries that night and that’s where it finished. There was no visit, no talk, no nothing. It was like it was a taboo subject.”

Survivor guilt has remained with Daniels. “There was always a lingering question that never went away - ‘why them and not me?’ If you look at where I was sitting in the bus, everyone in front of me lost their lives. I was lucky that I was asleep apparently when the crash happened, I was propelled out of the seat

“Some of the memories have come back. The blood-stained Waterford jerseys scattered over the road. From what I was told, I was found by the guards wandering up the road in the fog away from the scene having come to.”

The brother of Tommy O’Sullivan, who was also on the bus, was in the ambulance which arrived at the scene. Pat O’Grady had only returned home from a wedding. He couldn’t be convinced to stay any longer. “I was only in the house 30 minutes and then there was the knock on the door”.

Forristal was Pat’s “great mate”, one with whom he had won several Waterford SHC titles for Mount Sion. Martin was his baby brother, 14 years younger.

“He was a great lad. He appeared on the senior team with me the year before. He lived and breathed hurling. He was a great hurler, a great footballer too. He had great promise. With a bit of luck, he would have gone all the way because he had the talent.

Losing Forristal and O’Grady like they did was a monumental blow for Mount Sion - their funerals were organised back-to-back the following Tuesday along with Costello’s in Butlerstown. Less than six weeks after the accident, on the day Pope John Paul II was shot, Waterford’s U21s returned to Tipperary where the star-studded hosts beat them comprehensively in a Munster semi-final in Thurles.

The survivors were in no fit mental state for that game but when Mount Sion senior hurlers, who were being trained by Forristal, returned to action they didn’t lack motivation.

“We wanted to honour him and Martin,” says Jim Greene now. “Frankie Walsh took over from Tony and we went on and won the Munster club for the first time. It had that type of effect on everybody. It was just ‘shut up, put your head down and respect and honour the people’. We should have won an All-Ireland but were beaten by Brian Cody’s James Stephens in the final.”

Greene was corner-forward, Pat O’Grady right-half back and his brother George was in midfield in the team that beat South Liberties in the provincial final. “We had gone to play in Munster finals before without any success,” recounts Pat O’Grady. “We set our sights that year. The accident really brought us together.”

In August 1981, Greene along with several of Forristal’s work colleagues in the Waterford Glass factory’s GAA club formed the Tony Forristal U14 hurling tournament. Pulling organising support from east Waterford and south Kilkenny, they established a competition that became a rite of passage for young hurlers.

The famous Tipperary referee John Moloney asked to supervise one of the first games. “He togged out but he only had shoes, no boots,” smiles Greene. For several years after, senior inter-county referees took charge of matches.

Part of the tournament’s charm was its simplicity. Visiting players would stay with the clubs, the winners of the A competition treated to a trip to Tramore the following year - “the amusements being the big pull,” recalls Greene. There was never any admission fee to a game while there was no end of complementary food for parents.

Chairman of the tournament for 25 years, Greene bemoans how it has changed in recent times.

“I think they made a mess of it. We have no second, no third division. It was never about the strong teams, it was about kids. The teams would have stayed down for two nights and we’d bring them for a big dinner in the Ard Rí hotel, which is abandoned now. I remember one Sunday we had 18 counties at the time and there were three GAA presidents at the top table. Kids remember that. I’ve been around the country coaching and the first thing they talk about, boy, is the Tony Forristal tournament.

Tony Forristal

“The county board had no involvement in it, Croke Park gave us a few bob. They all wanted to butt into it but we kept them out. We had a list one time and I think we had 50 All-Stars who had played in it at one stage and that was only halfway through it.

It created something wonderful that kids around the country benefited from. If you can take anything good from the tragedy that was it.

The Mount Sion primary school named a competition after O’Grady and the player of the year trophy in the club is also titled in his honour.

“We’re on the third trophy now and I said when it comes to replacing it that it might be time to name it after somebody else,” says Pat O’Grady. “Martin has been remembered and that won’t be forgotten but time moves on and youngsters coming through would have to be told and retold. You don’t want to be holding on. The people who were directly involved are moving on but there can never be closure on it for us.”

Daniels speaks of a memorial mass in Butlerstown and a reception in Mount Sion 15 years ago.

“There is a legacy but if there was some bit of healing it was done there.” Through the families, a roadside plaque was erected where the three men lost their lives. “If you look for that little headstone, you will find it difficult because the road is now bypassed and is a cul de sac,” Daniels remarks.

“It would be nice to see the three men recognised somewhere more prominent. We’re very quick to put advertising billboards around pitches but what about those who didn’t come home from a game?

“The thousands of children who have come through the Tony Forristal tournament but how many realise who the man was? You got the vibe from him that he wanted to herald in a new era. It wasn’t east or west Waterford, city, town or village with him, he didn’t care where you were from or who your club was if you were good enough.

The tournament was an ingenious tribute to the man but Martin O’Grady and Jimmy Costello seem to have faded into obscurity.

As Walsh Park is due to be reconstructed by 2025, the opportunity to remember in the stadium those who perished on Waterford GAA’s saddest night will hopefully be taken.