Tragedy taught gloved-up Rabbittes to love life on family's remarkable sporting journey
L-R: Sabina, Joe and Jason Rabbitte in action, all wearing a hurling glove. Pics: Sportsfile
The hurling glove is back in vogue. Tall Rabbittes are again thriving on the most revered grass.
Like father, like son. Like father, like daughter. Be it stature, style, or gait, the young Rabbittes are quintessential chips off the older block.
Be it Sabina plucking possession from the Croke Park sky minutes after she was introduced in last August’s All-Ireland camogie final to unmanageable younger brother Jason winning a pair of frees in extra-time of this month’s Leinster U20 semi-final, the resemblances to dad are remarkably exact.
A brother and sister only too happy to have comparisons drawn to their oul fella. The tapes have clearly been consumed and studied. Their match styling has an obvious muse. Nothing uncool about dad in this particular house.
Three weeks before Galway’s 1993 All-Ireland semi-final, Joe Rabbitte broke a bone in his hand. For protection and increased peace of mind going out against Tipp, he purchased a red ash guard. It was a pioneering piece of matchday apparel. The hand subsequently healed, the ash guard never stopped climbing above forests of hurls.
Jason’s Azzurri glove is also red, while Sabina has been sporting a black and red glove going right back to her Community Games days. All gloves go to work in the full-forward line.
The outlier is Olwen, who Joe laughingly describes as “your typical middle child”. She's making her own way in the middle third, neither hand draped in any sort of glove.
The Rabbitte family will make for Thurles this Sunday. They were last there as a family on January 24. That was the evening of 19-year-old Jason’s Galway senior debut.
The debutant struck 0-2 and assisted 1-1 for immediate impression. The teenager has continued to stand out across the eight games he’s started since. His dad was the same age when earning his Galway debut 36 years ago, as if father and son were short for likenesses.
Exactly three weeks before the youngest began his senior maroon chapter, they made their first family spin of the year to Thurles. That was the frozen Saturday evening where Joe, Sabina (22), and Olwen (21) were centre stage characters in Athenry’s stunning All-Ireland club success.
That they are now returning for an All-Ireland U20 final is continuation of a special last 12 months for the family.
Joe takes our call while out farming on Thursday morning. There’ll be no bigging up of any of the three kids. That’s not his style, nor is it our request. The conversation is to reflect on a sporting journey very few families are fortunate enough to go on together.
“I came in from the farm one of the days in January and sitting on the island in the kitchen was the County Cup, the All-Ireland Club, and All-Ireland senior titles. They’d be the three biggest Cups in camogie and there they were sitting on our island because the two girls were going bringing them to the local national schools later that day. I was just so proud as a father looking at what they’d achieved,” Joe began.
“On Sunday now, we’re looking forward to trying to win that U20 All-Ireland. It’s a great occasion for us as a family going up and hopefully things will work out for them.
“Most days, you know, I thank God that the three of them are healthy and able to play the sport they love. I'm very appreciative of that fact.
“The four of us, when they were younger, we’d be out hurling in the back garden and sure it would turn into a competition before we’d come in for the evening.
“You see them now and Jason is heading off to Galway training with the Mannions, the same as the two girls are loading up in another full car. They all come home with a smile on their face every evening and that’s why we do be so happy as parents because we can see they are enjoying this.”
The fifth Rabbitte has gone unmentioned for too long. However many kilometres Olwen clocked when sweeping so brilliantly in the drawn and replayed All-Ireland club finals either side of Christmas, it ain’t a patch on what mam, Mary, has racked up as chief taxi driver over the years.
“There was one year where Sabina was with the Galway seniors, Olwen was with the Galway intermediates, and Jason was with the Galway minors, and none of the three of them were driving. Mary and I used to meet coming back the way we were so busy trying to get them to the three training sessions, which would typically be in different corners of the county.
“Then this year, on the first Sunday in March, Mary brought Sabina up to Dublin — she was having two screws inserted into her foot — brought her home on the Monday, filled the car back up with diesel, and brought Olwen up to Dublin on the Tuesday for her cruciate surgery the following day before bringing her back down on Thursday.
“The two of them were going around home on crutches and things had to be done for them, so Mary has made a massive contribution to all this. She would nearly be a better shoulder to cry on than mine at times.”
The sisters’ contribution to Athenry’s All-Ireland club success was all the more impressive for the fractured foot of the full-forward and ruptured cruciate of the centre-back.
“I hugged the two girls that dark night in Thurles, knowing Olwen had a serious knee problem and knowing Sabina had her foot problem. In that moment, all the pain and all they had to do was worth it,” said their manager.
“It was a sort of Covid Christmas for us because we were all at home together looking forward to the replay on January 3. It was a beautiful time.”
Joe’s incredibly strong sense of family and his appreciation for so much more than the silverware that this still infant sporting journey has brought the Rabbitte clan is rooted in tragedy and what tragedy taught him.
On the 1977 morning of Athenry’s maiden Galway SHC final appearance, Joe’s three-year-old brother, Oliver, drowned in the water tank on the family farm.
On Easter Monday 2022, Joe was Athenry manager when one of his players, 20-year-old Kate Moran, had her young life cut short following an accident in a league game in Ardrahan.
“That lovely fine Easter morning we went up, did we ever think that things were going to turn out as they did,” Joe continued.
“I saw myself as a young kid. We were out hurling in the field, and my little brother, three years old, he was too small to hit the ball back to us.
“I suppose I feel a certain amount of little grief ourselves that we kinda wouldn't hit the ball to him because it wasn’t coming back fast enough. He went off to the water tank and whatever he was at, we found him drowned in the water tank.
“I won eight county medals after that but every time you’d go to a county final, my parents would be thinking about their son.
“Life throws things at you. You have to appreciate life. You have to enjoy life. Enjoy every day as good as you can.”
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