In Tadhg Coakley’s book, The Game - A Journey into the Heart of Sport, the author says hurling isn’t just about the joy of All-Ireland wins. Coakley, an All-Ireland winner with the Cork minor hurlers, writes that it is also about the moments of quiet when fans reflect on games won and loved ones lost.
One would be hard pressed to find a quieter spot in Cork this week than St Mary’s Cemetery in Garrycloyne near Blarney. Sycamores rustle in the wind, ivy wraps an old church ruin and moss clings to headstones dating back to the 1700s.
It is to Garrycloyne, overlooking the meandering River Martin and the Cork-Dublin rail line, that one Cork fan comes every year that the Rebels reach an All-Ireland hurling or football final. She plants a flag at the graveside of her grandfather, in doing so honouring a pledge made over 30 years ago.
Tracy O’Riordan was just a teenager when she made the promise to her grandfather, John ‘Kid’ Cronin, masseur to Cork hurling and football teams for 20 years. She committed to remembering him whenever the Rebels made it to Croke Park to compete for the Liam MacCarthy or Sam Maguire.
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“I was very close to my grandad because I was the only one of us to really play sport; I played camogie with the Glen,” said O’Riordan, who won a minor All-Ireland with Cork in 1985 and later, two All-Ireland club medals with Glen Rovers, with whom her grandfather was involved.
“My grandad lived for Cork hurling and football, and I promised him before he died that every year that Cork would reach the All-Ireland final I would put a flag on his grave. He used to say to ‘tell the lads, be sure to give me a wave when they are passing in the train with the cup’."
One of Cronin’s closest friends in the Cork camp was the team medic, Dr Con Murphy, who remembered his friend and the role he played in Cork dressing rooms over the years, preparing players not just physically but also mentally for the challenges of All-Ireland finals.
“The Kid was there in 1976 when I came in,” he said. “It was Donie O’Donovan (Cork All-Ireland winning coach) who brought him on board in 1973 with the footballers. He stayed on for the next 20 years and was involved with every Cork hurling and football team to reach an All-Ireland final.
“He was hugely popular and everyone was mad about him. Every fellow he rubbed (massaged), he told him he never looked better. He had great wit and could defuse the tension in the dressing room before a game with some quip or other.”
Murphy recalled sitting beside Cronin on the train up from Cork for the 1993 All-Ireland football final against Derry. “We were passing by Garrycloyne in the train and he said to me, ‘someday, you will be bringing me up there’. Little did I think we would be doing it just a few days later.”
Kid Cronin died on September 21st, 1993, two days after Cork lost that final to Derry. Among the mourners at his funeral was a young Brian Corcoran who, a year earlier, had found himself sitting beside Cronin as they passed by Garrycloyne after the hurlers’ All-Ireland defeat to Kilkenny.
“We had lost to Kilkenny and my memory is that we were coming down in the train and I was a bit down in the dumps and I was wondering would I ever win an All-Ireland. Kid said to me, ‘don’t worry – you will win one some day. I won’t be there for it but remember me when you do’.”
Fast forward to 1999 and Corcoran put in a man of the match performance at centre back when a Cork team coached by Jimmy Barry Murphy beat Kilkenny by 0-13 to 0-12 to win the Rebels’ 28th All-Ireland.
He said: “It was seven years before the hurlers got back to Croke Park but as we were coming down on the train after the win, I remembered that promise I made Kid, so I picked up the Liam MacCarthy Cup as we were approaching Garrycloyne and I went down the carriage on my own.
“I just stopped between carriages and I lowered the window and as we were passing by the graveyard, I held the cup out the window and just said, ‘this one’s for you, Kid’. - I remember the commitment to him I made in my own mind that day in 1992 and those things stick with you.”
Back in Garrycloyne, Tracy O’Riordan and her husband, former Blue Demons basketball player, William ‘Mono’ McCarthy, are packing up after attaching a large Cork flag to her grandfather’s headstone. The flag is large enough to be visible to anyone on the trains across the valley.
“My mam Nellie is a big Cork hurling fan. She’s Glen, like her dad. She’s mad about the Downeys and she’ll be disgusted if Hoggie (Patrick Horgan) doesn’t get a medal. we just hope they win and if they do, it would be nice if they remember my grandad on their way home with the cup.”
