Flanagan cousins take different routes to each other's company
FAMILY OCCASION: Paul Flanagan of Clare in action against Séamus Flanagan of Limerick. Pic: Ray McManus/Sportsfile
One week after cousins Ian Galvin and Jake Morris traded championship blows for the fourth time in six seasons, another set involving a Clareman duel in Limerick on Saturday evening when Flanagans, Paul and Seamus, collide.
After their Munster round-robin and final clashes last year, it’ll be the third SHC encounter for the pair, having marked each other for a period of the epic Munster final when Seamus was crowned man of the match. Both later earned All-Star nominations.
Sons of former Limerick forward Johnny (Seamus) and Eamonn (Paul), the Flanagan cousins weren’t living in each other’s pockets growing up, 30-year-old Paul being almost five years older than Seamus. What might have come easier for Seamus, who made his senior championship debut at 21, didn’t for Paul who had to wait until he was 28.
So when he faced Seamus last year, it meant a lot to Paul. Two strands of their Feohanagh clan crossing over on one of hurling’s greatest occasions. “I’m a little bit older than Seamus,” said Paul about the family connection at the end of last year. “It was definitely something that I really appreciated. It was something in the back of my head, ‘Jeez, I wonder would that ever happen’, or ‘would I ever get a crack at that?’. And look, we were marking each other briefly in the Munster final.
“For my parents, myself and my dad, for them I think it's very special. They were at Seamus and Laurie’s second day of their wedding (last September) and to meet him at the All-Stars was very special.
“For my uncle Johnny, he played in the 1980 All-Ireland final and he was down in Ballyea during the summer. He was happy for me and I was happy for them, in some strange way. But there’s that family link obviously and from that point of view it’s special, yeah.”
Accomplished men on the field, the cousins have mirrored their success off it. A teacher in Ard Scoil Rís, Paul has his own performance business having completed a masters degree in mental health, mental skills and performance psychology in UL. A Gaeilgoir, he is the GAA’s ambassador for the Irish language this year.
Seamus, meanwhile, is a radiographer in University Hospital, Limerick, having graduated from UCD two years ago. He too has his own side product and website in the form of “not hect!c” headwear range.
"He's put a lot into that too and he's just full of confidence in himself. It's not cockiness, he's just a strong character who knows his own mind, who knows what he wants to do and where he wants to go,” his Feohanagh-Castlemahon club-mate Martin Downes told sportsjoe.ie last year.
That belief was evident in an interview Flanagan gave in January 2019, four months after the first senior All-Ireland under John Kiely. “You can’t outwork us because we’re going to outwork anyone that we play. You can plan all you want for us, mark us, drop a sweeper, drop two sweepers, but once we work harder than you, we’re going to beat you, we’re going to get those hooks, get those blocks, get those scores and I don’t know how you can plan against that.”
Flanagan would lose his starting place that year and Kilkenny would prove him wrong, but that bounding assuredness has returned to his game these last three seasons, which he has marked with an All-Ireland and All-Star nomination in each, as well as winning his first personal award in 2021.
Paul’s period of reflection was a lot longer than 2019 but a break after that season afforded him the space to recalibrate following terms of being left out of teams and injury.
“I remember talking to Brendan Bugler about this back in the day. We got chatting one evening after training and he was saying, ‘You know, I came to this very late. I was 27, 28 before I really started moving’. It stuck with me and he said ‘stick with it. Don’t get too disappointed by it’, which I probably should have taken more heed of at the time because I was getting very disappointed.”
He was disappointed the last time the cousins faced off but should they square up this evening, you get the impression the novelty of marking Seamus will have worn off for Paul.
“It’s a funny one in hurling. I find the game goes so quickly and you have too much to worry about, (but) I definitely noticed it at the time, and obviously Seamus had a great Munster final, but it probably moved so quickly that not a whole pile happened after that. It is very special for us as a family to have that."
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