Declan Hannon made his piece of history in the TUS Gaelic Grounds after Limerick had held on to win a fifth successive Munster title, which was, of course, history in itself. A more personal milestone was becoming the first county captain to be presented with the Mackey Cup in the Mackey Stand.
“It only came into our heads in the dressing-room afterwards about the five-in-a-row in Munster, which is a mad achievement, really. You see how tough it is to get into the top three in Munster. An amazing day having the Munster final in Limerick.
“Fantastic atmosphere, full house: coming in on the bus was unreal. We got the bonus the last day when we heard we were in the Munster final. When you get there, you want to do everything to win it because it’s not too long ago Limerick were struggling to win a game. We remember those days as well.”
The Limerick captain is no stranger to making history. A year ago he was eclipsing Christy Ring’s record of captaining three MacCarthy Cup-winning teams and the 19th-century record of Tipperary’s Mikey Maher, who captained three All-Ireland hurling winning sides in four years.
He also has Tipperary hurling connections through the Stakelums. Pat, who captained Tipp to the 1949 All-Ireland, was an uncle of Bobby Ryan, who captained the 1989 team that reclaimed the Liam MacCarthy. Ryan’s cousin, Richard Stakelum was the captain of the famine-relieving Munster champions of 1987.
Declan is a grandson of Pat Stakelum’s brother John, whose daughter Brigid is the Limerick captain’s mother, who married Joe Hannon.
A Harty Cup winner with Árdscoil Rís and a Fitzgibbon medallist with Mary Immaculate College of Education, Declan Hannon began his intercounty career as a forward, playing in the 2013 team that bridged a 17-year gap to the county’s previous Munster title.
Now, established as one of the game’s top centre backs, he, Graeme Mulcahy and All-Star goalkeeper Nickie Quaid remain the only survivors from that side 10 years ago, which also won a final played in the Gaelic Grounds, defeating Cork.
Sunday brought memories of that first title breakthrough.
“It kind of reminded me of 2013 when Limerick won their first Munster championship in a long time. Dodge (Donal O’Grady), who’s a selector with us now, collected the cup in a similar scene with green and white on the pitch.
“Limerick are just craving success and luckily we have been on the right side of the results the last number of years. There has been nothing in a lot of the games but we’re enjoying it. We’re having the time of our lives, to be honest.
“Looking down there, I don’t know what song they were playing there at the end. The place was ‘gone wrong’ is how we would describe it in Limerick. Unreal.”
There’s more history on the immediate horizon. The advantage of winning the province is a four-week break and just two matches remain as barriers between them and another record-equalling feat, an All-Ireland four-in-a-row.
The champions’ form hasn’t been brilliant this year and since a powerful league campaign concluded in a big win over Kilkenny in the final, their championship performances have disappointed. Yet, hitting that age-old metric of winning when not at their best, Limerick proved resilient at the end of Sunday’s contest with neighbouring rivals, Clare.
The crowd rose in tribute to Hannon when he left the field to be substituted by Colin Coughlan in the 55th minute.
Asked will the champions benefit from their upcoming four-week break, he is cautious.
“I think so but in years gone by, whoever won the Munster championship were told they can’t win the All-Ireland semi-final because there was a big break. We’ll enjoy ourselves and get back at it during the week. We have the experience of the last number of years of going in this way so we’ll use that to our advantage as well.”
The worry about the length of the interval until the next match refers to a sequence between 2012 and ‘19 when Munster champions — including Limerick in both 2013 and ‘19 — lost seven out of eight All-Ireland semi-finals. The champions have, however, won the last three en route to claiming Liam MacCarthy.
It’s just another piece of history they’ve been putting right.
