Decade of glory - 10 years after cancer Noel McGrath counts every blessing
Tipperary hurler Noel McGrath with his GWA Hurling Personality of the Year award at his home club of Loughmore-Castleiney GAA club, ahead of the Gaelic Writers Association Awards, proudly supported by the Dalata Hotel Group, which were held at the Clayton Hotel in Ballsbridge, Dublin. Photo by Brendan Moran/Sportsfile
Fifteen days ago, Aoibhín McGrath came into the world. No sooner had she made her appearance than she had gifted her big brother Sam a toy cement mixer.
Two-year-old Sam is making a name for himself appearing on television with his daddy Noel. A day after his mother Aisling gave birth to Aoibhín, he was stealing the show on RTÉ as his father was being interviewed following Loughmore-Castleiney’s county senior hurling semi-final win over Holycross-Ballycahill.
Sam has been doing it for both club and county this year, appearing after games with Noel in Croke Park this summer. Noel turns 35 in December. Before the Kilkenny game in July, the last time he played in Croke Park he was 28. Holding Sam and Liam together was no longer a pipedream.
“Bringing him to Croke Park was something I always thought would be a lovely thing to do and hoped for, but we hadn’t been getting to Croke Park, so you were wondering if you would ever be able to do it. But the way the whole year turned out and to have him there both days in Croke Park was great.
“I suppose he won’t remember being out on the field or in the dressing room but myself and Aisling will. We have the photos to show him in the years to come and they’re great memories.”
Aoibhín’s arrival, coupled with a fourth All-Ireland medal, has made it a seminal year for McGrath – and that’s before Loughmore-Castleiney defend the Dan Breen Cup against Nenagh Éire Óg on Sunday.
Coming as these events do 10 years after McGrath was diagnosed with testicular cancer, he is full of gratitude. That health scare is something he thinks back to regularly – how could he not?
“Ah, sure I do, there's no point in saying I don't. There's so many stories around that you hear of and probably more that you don't even hear of, of people that are in tough situations.
“I’m 10 years out now, thank God and I do, like (think about it), there's no point in saying any different. I got into a hard situation that nobody wants to be in, but I'm lucky enough that it wasn't long-term, it was relatively short-term in a lot of ways compared to other people and I got well looked after and I was lucky that it was caught on time and I was able to get back to living a normal life and back to doing all the things I wanted to do.
“There’s probably not a day that goes by that I don't think of it in some way or another, but I'm just happy to be able to think about it and to be at this side of it now where I can enjoy myself and be grateful for it.”
At least Sam has seen his father win titles – Noel wasn’t yet born when Pat McGrath starred in the Loughmore-Castleiney team in 1988 and won an All-Ireland medal with Tipperary the following season.
“I remember him playing senior hurling and football with Loughmore and he played senior until 2003 or 2004. In 2005, I played a junior B football match with him so that was a nice thing to do.”
His father, his uncle Frankie, and Éamonn Sweeney are among the men McGrath feels obliged to for all the support they provided him, his brothers John and Brian and cousins down through the years.
“Éamonn Sweeney would have been the real driver of it when we were younger. He put hours and days and weeks and months and years into us, like, he gave us our foundation, really, when we were young. The time that he put into us is something that we'd be forever grateful for. He was a massive part of my career at the start and then ended up as a senior coach, senior manager, and then was involved in numerous titles that were won at all levels, all the way up from U12 to senior.
“There’s plenty of others as well, Noel Morris, Declan Laffan, Frankie, Paddy and Jimmy Hennessy, who would have put a lot of time into teams when we were maybe 17, 18, 19.”
Paying it forward on the sideline is on McGrath’s agenda. “Whenever I do finish up that, I'd like to give it a try. How good you are at it or how much you can contribute, you just do your best and give what you can and you just don't know if it's something that you would be good at or not.”
Loughmore’s pursuit of a successive dual double ended with defeat to Kilsheelan-Kilcash in last Sunday’s football semi-final. It brought to an end a remarkable unbeaten streak of 21 games (20 wins, one draw) in the senior county championship.
Part of the club’s mystique, McGrath suggests, is the need to strike while the iron is hot – there were 19 years between their successful final appearances in 1988 and 2007. “You have to make the most of what you’ve got. You're not always going to be competing.”
There’s also the rhythm of playing week-in, week-out. With little training, meaning the joy factor is immense. “I know it's always said, but you just literally do have to just take the weekend ahead of you, go at that as best you can, prepare for it as best you can, and you wake up then on Sunday or Monday and you worry about what's coming for the next week.”
The defeats mobilise McGrath too. After the 2020 SHC extra-time final loss to Kiladangan, McGrath was visibly distraught on the Thurles field. “We lost both county finals that first Covid year, and we lost by such small margins, but the hurling was a devastating defeat.
“They're the ones to help you get the gear ready again come January or February the following year and to maybe to have a go at trying to fix that and to rise to disappointments that you've had and maybe try and turn that around the next year.
“It's all part of sport and it's learning and when you get older, it doesn't make it easier, but you're able to maybe process it a bit better and figure out a way to get yourself on and keep moving.”
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