A book promotion in Ennis this week attracted 1,500 people in three hours and became a celebration of Clare's hurling successes under their former county team manager, Ger Loughnane.
Raising the Banner, a biography of Loughnane written by John Scally, is likely to become a publishing phenomenon in the run-up to Christmas. On Tuesday, more than 2,500 copies were sold after clips of the All-Ireland successes of 1995 and 1997, interspersed with documentary footage, were played on large screens. People resorted to convincing friends to part with copies from the bundles they were carrying away.
The publisher, Mr John O'Connor, of Blackwater Press, which has done an initial print run of 20,000 copies, believes the book will be a best-seller. "In the sports arena, I think this will be the biggest sports book in Ireland ever." He has published biographies on Dermot Early, John O'Leary, Cyril Farrell and Mick McNamara, the Clare team trainer who had 800 people at the launch of his book in Scariff, Co Clare.
Mr O'Connor has received requests from Britain and the US for copies, while booksellers in Ireland are seeking autograph sessions with Loughnane.
"What did surprise me, something I had never experienced before, were the number of people who bought four, five, eight or 10 copies. One person bought nine copies. He said, 'I have relations in America and I want them to have a signed copy as a present'."
Mr Scally described Loughnane as somebody who laughed hard and often. Beneath the hard exterior was the soul of a cat. "The only problem is, as soon as you start asking him about the events, in particular, of '98, almost immediately the pussy cat turns into a lion."
He was referring to Loughnane's run-ins with the GAA that year for pitch incursions and over the suspension of Colin Lynch, for alleged rough play. The book has re-opened an old controversy about alleged unfair treatment of Clare in disciplinary matters in 1998.
Loughnane, a teacher in Shannon, received a standing ovation when he took the stage almost three hours after the event began. He was reminded of what a former Liverpool manager, Bill Shankley, had said of his full-back, Tommy Smith, that he would raise an argument in a graveyard. "Sometimes I feel like the successor of Tommy Smith," he said. He added the villains in the book were few in number, "and none of them are from Clare".
"Our main point always was there were double standards being applied. All of those criticised in this story or feel they are criticised should realise one thing, and this is crucial; the person who will be most criticised over the next few weeks when reviews are written, when comments on the book are brought out, will be myself. And I think that is right." From Feakle in east Clare, Loughnane was coached as a boarder in St Flannan's College, Ennis, under the tutelage of the then Father Willie Walsh, now the Bishop of Killaloe, and Father SΘamus Gardiner. He subsequently trained as a primary teacher at St Patrick's, Drumcondra.
His introduction to Clare hurling as a 17-year-old was under the late Paddy "Duggie" Duggan who had given a "most amazing speech" in the dressing room in Limerick. While whacking a hurley off a table and as his false teeth did "three laps of his mouth", he had called on the team to kill and maim the opposition, before saying an "Our Father" and three "Hail Marys".
"Such was my introduction to wearing the saffron and blue and I will never forget it." The heroes of the book were the backroom teams and the players, both of the 1995/97 sides and the ones he played alongside in the seventies.