Cork-Limerick: a Munster 'rivalry' veering towards benign respect than rabid antipathy

With recent under age success in both counties, the fuel for consistent rivalry and acrimony is there 

BENIGN?: Cork's Aidan Walsh and Shane Kingston take a tumbleo in a clash with Limerick's Richie English and Dan Morrissey in a 2019 Championship clash at the Gaelic Grounds. 

That Cork and Limerick are ancient and eternal foes is beyond dispute. They’ve been locking horns in the Munster championship since the very beginning and along with Tipperary have annexed 118 of the 134 Munster titles on offer since 1888.

For all its merits, however, the rivalry is missing something. A bit of drama, a bit of controversy even a bit of poison. It’s perhaps easier to define what it is by saying what it isn’t - it isn’t Cork and Tipp.

That’s one that has it all. In Ring, Doyle, JBM, and Nicky it has its icons, five Munster final clashes in five years from 1950 to 1954 blessed it with the necessary familiarity to breed contempt while occasions like the 1941 Munster final, when Tipp beat All-Ireland champions Cork in a delayed final thanks to a foot and mouth outbreak, provide plenty of fuel for controversy.

Were we surveying the hurling landscape in 1940, however, we might have felt very different about the nature of the relationship between Cork and Limerick. Cork and Tipp may be the old firm now but up until then, Limerick were very much part of the aristocracy. Between 1893 and 1940 Cork met Limerick in ten Munster finals with Cork winning six to Limerick’s four. The only more common clash was Cork and Tipp who played one another on eleven occasions while Limerick met Tipp in nine deciders.

But it’s in the sixty years that followed that things changed utterly. Cork and Limerick clashed in only nine finals compared to the 22 occasions that Cork clashed swords with Tipp. As Limerick lost their way, their rivalry with Cork became diluted, and whatever genuine animosity that might have existed in the pre-War days has all but evaporated from the collective consciousness.

Since then, it has been a rivalry that has bubbled more than boiled despite the fact that all of the ingredients are there for something special.

The counties share a significant border with one another, the cities vie for supremacy in the battle to reduce the hegemony of Dublin and to house the Munster Rugby franchise, yet the competition between the two teams on the hurling field has veered more to the side of benign respect than rabid antipathy.

That’s not to say that it isn’t capable of being ferocious, just that other rivalries in the province have delivered more eternal moments. Limerick Clare gave us Ciarán Carey and the charge of the light brigade, Tipp and Limerick have given us Richie Bennis, Babs and three-game sagas, Cork and Waterford gave us a decade of unadulterated flamboyance, while Cork and Clare gave us Thurles ’78, Croke Park 2013 and plenty in between.

Cork and Limerick have ebbed and flowed but many of their seismic meetings have been weakened by either team not capitalising on them.

For example, in 1974 Cork dismantled reigning All-Ireland champions Limerick in the National League final by 6-15 to 1-12 but then lost to Waterford in the first round of the championship, opening the door for the Treaty men retain their Munster crown before Kilkenny did what Kilkenny do that September.

In 1980 it took a replay for Cork to defeat Limerick in another league final. League is not the championship, however, and though the result was reversed in that year’s Munster final, Galway rained on Limerick’s parade in the All-Ireland final.

In 1996, Limerick humiliated Cork in Páirc Uí Chaoimh, hammering them by 3-18 to 1-8, but lost to Wexford afterwards.

There was a brief whiff of cordite in 2006 when Diarmuid O’Sullivan, in Cork’s quest for three-in-a-row, was accosted by Limerick men as he attempted to smuggle a sliotar in his shorts while travelling up the field to take a penalty. Mario Rosenstock got some mileage out of it on Gift Grub, but Brian Cody was busy making sure that nobody else would really matter in the hurling world for a few years.

The rivalry looked ready to ignite when the two sides traded Munster titles in 2013 and 2014 but neither team made the most of their opportunity.

There’s something even slightly off when we compare the two most iconic players from the counties’ histories. Ring took over from where Mackey left off and further pushed the boundaries of greatness. But while the careers of both icons overlapped, the image that is ingrained in our memory is the one of Mackey the umpire uttering something salty to an injured Ring.

Perhaps the most important ingredient that the rivalry between Cork and Limerick has lacked since 1940 though, has been consistency in its competitiveness; and that’s the greatest fuel of all when it comes to ensuring that there’s a longevity to acrimony.

That no longer looks like that it’s going to be a problem, however. In fact, this is a duel that seems destined to deliver over the next few years. Nicky Quaid has also provided us with the moment of compelling drama, there are plenty of icons in the making and the games have been close with Limerick leading by 6-101 to 5-99 since their meeting down the Páirc in 2018.

Throw in Cork’s recent renaissance at under-age level that followed hot on the heels of Limerick becoming the benchmark when it comes to transitioning underage talent into ferociously good All- Ireland winning senior inter-county hurlers and we have the potential for a rivalry for the ages.

Just like it used to be.