Anthony Daly: Cynicism not gone away but Harty Cup showcases joy in purest form

It doesn’t always happen but, invariably, the wheel will turn full circle. At the end of the Dr Harty Cup final yesterday, I spotted my clubmate and former St Flannan’s team-mate, Pat Healy, recording footage of the trophy presentation on his phone. Thirty-three years on from when we won our Harty medals together, Pat’s son Darragh got to taste that feeling.

Another clubmate, Cian Galvin, was joint captain, the first Clarecastle man to lift the Harty since Peter Leyden in 1983. Flannan’s was always good to us in Clarecastle. There were four of us on that 1987 squad — Pat, Fergie Tuohy, Alan Neville and myself — which was kind of unusual at the time because the team was usually made up from a broad range of guys from all over Clare, along with boarders from Limerick, Tipperary and Galway.