The PM O'Sullivan interview: 'He started talking to his hand: ‘Would you ever steady up? I’m here drinking with the Kilkenny captain’.'
Those days" Referee John Moloney, Tipperary, prepares to toss the coin in front of Limerick captain Sean Foley, left, and Kilkenny captain Nickey Orr before the 1974 All-Ireland SHC final
Nickey Orr became a connoisseur of beginnings.
He was not a hurler marked out from youth. But he rose via nature’s surest push, character gripping hands with determination. This man remains one of Kilkenny hurling’s touchstones. 31 men have captained the county to its 36 senior titles. 21 of them are still with us. Nickey Orr is 1974’s figurehead, when Limerick were emphatically beaten. He was Kilkenny’s full back between 1973 and 1976, before knee injury intervened.
Likewise a touchstone with The Fenians. Founded in 1968, they represent Johnstown Parish. The Fenians fell like a comet into the local scene, contesting eight senior finals over the ten seasons between 1969 and 1978.
Five victories decked the place’s winter boughs.
“I thought I was done with newspapers,” Orr says, greeting me warmly at the door to his house. Orr lives with his wife, Mary, in Ballycuddihy, part of Johnstown’s rural hinterland, beneath Spa Hill in North Kilkenny.
Born on February 23, 1947, he is a hale, affable and incisive man, immensely popular wherever he goes. Hurling endures as polestar. He still travels to all the matches and believes his crowd will triumph this weekend.
“Just have a feeling about it,” Orr nods. “Kilkenny might be getting fresher at the right time, as Limerick maybe run into a touch of tiredness. They are a terrific team but Clare and Galway put them right down the stretch.”
The Orrs have a daughter, Trish, who lives nearby. True life never cuts a straight line. She offers another perspective, one formed by recent years. “Since my mother became ill, I have seen another side of Dad,” Trish emphasizes. “He was always, when I was growing up, such a strong man, in the best sense. And I believe he was sturdy out as a hurler, even though I don’t remember his playing days. I know other people are in the same boat. You never know what cross is hanging on anyone’s door. But now, with Mam’s dementia, another side of him is there. No one could be kinder or gentler.
“He never complains. He just says to me: ‘She is still my Mary. And she will always be my Mary.’ Dementia is a terrible illness, but you can still be grateful for certain parts of it. I can see now that they really were meant to be together.”
Mary Orr is a Johnstown native, same as her husband. He speaks as much about club as county, clarifying origins: “The U21 grade was massive for Johnstown and led directly to The Fenians. We weren’t great underage and we were winning nothing. But we were hurling every evening.
“We got to the U21 north final in 1967. Bennettsbridge beat us, and hammered Ballyhale in the county final. Clara beat us in the next year’s U21 north final, and also won the county final. So we weren’t that far away.”
He elaborates: “Nine of us came up together, in that group. We didn’t actually win anything, not even a north title, but something clicked. Other than that, we had no real experience of underage hurling.
“I got two trials for the Kilkenny minors. And they discovered I never made [St] Kieran’s College! Ah, I don’t mean it in a bad way. I wasn’t good enough for it. And I will tell you why. Lads on the city teams were used to colleges hurling and everything like that. They had been polished. We were too green, going in.”
Glimmers at U21 tightened into glow: “But I did get on Kilkenny’s U21 panel in 1968. I was a sub. Cork beat us well in the All-Ireland final. I played a few matches with them during the year. To make it better again, I played with Wexford. We went down there one evening to play a challenge.
“We arrived and one of the Wexford cars was missing. So they wanted two players, and myself and another lad got chosen. I was put in corner back until halftime, when the car came, and I was taken off.
“The Wexford manager said to me: 'We hate taking you off, because you were going well. Probably better than our lad will.' So I was a Wexford hurler before I was a Kilkenny hurler!”
The club tiller stayed a guide. As Orr details: “We won junior in 1968. The club had just been formed. Then we played in the 1969 senior final, got well beaten by The Village [James Stephens]. Won the 1970 county final against The Village. We were off and running. That was [Pat] Henderson’s point when we were all together recently for the 50 year reunion. Covid held us up until this year. Henderson gave a speech afterwards, and it was the best speech I ever heard. He said: ‘If we hadn’t to win in ’70, there might never have been The Fenians.’ Pat was correct.”
******************
Back then, Orr ended up a bit player for a couple of league campaigns. Even so, he established himself on Kilkenny’s championship panel for successive senior finals in 1971 and 1972. Needless loss to Tipperary preceded dramatic recovery and victory against Cork. He had a Celtic Cross but not on the field.
Being The Fenians’ full back counted. Yet Nickey Orr has no problem being wry. Those days, Pa Dillon was the position’s incumbent. During early 1973, Dillon was pondering staying or going.
Beginnings can be a fragile affair. As Orr recalls: “I was named to play at full back against Tipperary. Windgap were opening their pitch. But Mick O’Neill [County board chairman] said to me: “We’re going to give Pa a game.” So I moved out corner back, on [Michael] ‘Babs’ Keating. Thought I was going to get a bit of a roasting.
“We were hurling away, and I wasn’t minding it. I went out for this ball and cleared it well down the field, and Keating didn’t challenge me for it terrible hard. Next ball, same story.
“I said to Keating afterwards: “I’m going well tonight.” He says: “Stay going well, young Orr, because I don’t want to be going in on that man there.” Keating was after doing Pa, in a league match, with a box.”
Orr does not duck the moral: “He was happy enough to stay out on me. Lads said to me afterwards: ‘You hurled well.’ I said: “Well, maybe I did. But I don’t think Keating was in full gear!’ I got lucky.”
Which or whether, Nickey Orr stepped in as Kilkenny full back for 1973. Limerick deservedly beat them in that year’s senior final by seven points. The day spilled and rarely thrilled.
“I was probably nervous going up in ’73,” he reflects. “Because we were short so many. Jim Treacy was gone from beside me. Phil Cullen came in. Éamonn Morrissey had emigrated to Australia. Then [Liam] ‘Chunky’ [O’Brien] got an awful belt in the face at the throw in.
“Pat Delaney was sick. And [Kieran] Purcell had his appendix out, and only came on at half time. Keher was after breaking his collar bone. It was a fierce depleted team, compared to ’74. That team was way cooler going up.”
Nickey Orr stays thoughtful and measured, brushing away loose talk: “I wouldn’t like too much speculation about what might have happened in 1973. If we had managed to win in ’73 with about two thirds of our best team, how would we have got on the following year?
“We’d have said all the right things to each other. Of course. But at the back of our minds would have been what happened, if we had won: ‘Sure we beat these lads last year with only half a team, and sure we will beat them well now with our proper team.’ That stuff would have played right into Limerick’s hands.”
He takes a broader view: “There was never a massive rivalry between Kilkenny and Limerick. The counties never met that much in the championship, and they are a good bit away from each other. Before 1973, they hadn’t met in the championship since 1940.”
One of hurling’s central figures, Fr Tommy Maher, provided sound counsel. Orr stresses gratitude: “Fr Maher was our coach. He always warned me: 'Don’t go out. Because if you go out, and clear this great ball, there’ll be this big cheer. But if [Tony] Doran or someone sticks one in the net, there’ll be a far bigger cheer. You have a great man behind you. So guard him. That’s all you have to do. Make sure your man doesn’t get the ball. Just let it into [Noel] Skehan.’ That’s the way Fr Maher put it.”
Five decades only sharpened this advice: “I remember giving out at the time about Fr Maher not letting me go to be more of a hurler, a bit more expansive. But then you could have got the bullet. Your man gets two goals and you are gone, and probably for good. When you go back and look at it now, Fr Maher was right.
“Skehan was brilliant in the goal. Once you stopped Doran or [Ned] Rea going in on top of him, he was going to deal with the ball. Skehan had a marvellous eye, great hands.”
The promised land lay 12 months ahead. Yet modesty left this hurler taking nothing for granted: “We played Limerick in the league, below in Limerick. It was my turn to get it, I suppose, but I certainly wasn’t pushing. Mick O’Neill said: ‘Who’s captain?’ And [Pat] Henderson said: ‘Nickey Orr is captain.’ That was it. I was captain then.
“We won the same day, in Limerick. I’d like to have seen Henderson getting it, and winning it too. But he put me in.”
No slip up against Limerick, this time round. Leaders by four points at halftime, Kilkenny outscored them by 0-12 to 0-4 in the second half. Yet Orr highlights not the glory but his unease at their homecoming: “Kind of a nightmare. We came off the train, up to The Parade. The Smithwicks lorry was there. The lorry would stop for a second and there were young lads getting up on the wheel, trying to get in. And getting off and back down, and the lorry pulling away.
“It was shocking dangerous. I don’t know why it was allowed. Then again, the safety regulations weren’t as they are now. No way could you do that next Monday. If that wheel had to go over any of those young lads…”
Then he smiles: “It was nine o’clock by the time we got out to Johnstown on the Tuesday night. We went down first to Langton’s. Ned Langton, Éamonn’s father, was there. He said to me I was the first man to bring the MacCarthy Cup into the place. Anyway, Ned bought me a whiskey, which I didn’t want. I was never a whiskey drinker. But he got one for the two of us, and he had his hand out, holding his glass, and it was shaking. And he started talking to his hand: ‘For god’s sake, would you ever steady up? I’m here drinking with the Kilkenny captain.’ I just had to laugh.”
A connoisseur of beginnings, rich and strange. For a finish, Nickey Orr relishes another story against himself: “I was coming on the scene more fully with the county. Must have been the league in ’73. I headed off one weekend into town. Went to Shem Lawlor’s pub on John Street. Ordered a pint and sat down at the bar.” He continues: “Got talking to the man beside me. Obviously hurling came up. He says to me: ‘What do you think of this Nickey Orr lad? Will he make it at full back?’ I says: ‘God, you wouldn’t know. He hardly will.’ The barman winked at me, because he must have known what I looked like.
“We kept chatting away, and Nickey Orr wasn’t getting any bit better as a hurler. I went off to the gents. When I came back, yer man was gone. The barman says: ‘I told him who you are. He nearly died. Well… He effed off like a rocket.’
“And maybe, in fairness, he could have turned out right.”
