Thunder and lightning? Play away!

Thunder and lightning? Play away!


Daniel Carey

THE ‘thunder and lightning final’ of 1939 has gone down as one of the greatest in the history of the All-Ireland Senior Hurling Championship. The second half of that game, in which Kilkenny beat Cork, began with a ferocious clap of thunder. ‘What followed’, according to Wikipedia, ‘was a thunderstorm of extraordinary proportions … [with] conditions … so bad that spectators could not make out the identity of some of the players on the field’.
The story of the night Glencorrib footballers trained in thunder and lightning is rather less well known. Indeed, this reporter had never heard it until last Friday week, when I listened to Tom and Pádraic Mohan, Tommy Carey, Eamon Ryan and Mike Flynn reflect on their time involved with a club which was a standalone entity for 21 years before it amalgamated with Shrule.
Interestingly, there’s no suggestion that the ‘thunder and lightning’ final was actually halted at any stage, despite the horrendous conditions. So when Glencorrib players proceeded with training as the storm worsened, they were continuing a GAA tradition, albeit a rather foolish one. Just how foolish those involved realise now, given the deaths that night of a number of animals two fields away.
“There were eight cattle roasted, and it could have been the 20 of us out in the field,” Eamon Ryan reflected. It was only when the late Michael Corbett pointed up at a transformer from which there were sparks flying, and the smell of sulphur permeated the air, that discretion was seen as the better part of valour. “That would really have been a story,” Pádraic Mohan noted with a nod at the reporter, prompting visions of the headline ‘Glencorrib men fry!’ “We would have been martyrs!” said Tommy Carey, shaking his head at the folly of it so many years later.
Mike Flynn remembers the time Islandeady came to Glencorrib and the ball broke between local goalkeeper Paddy Fitzgerald and visiting full-forward Stephen Sweeney. “The two of them pulled on it together, and they burst the ball between them! It was an unmerciful bang.”
Other yarns pop up in conversation. Flynn reads from an account of the parish league, which began in the early 1970s – “The games were played on Sundays after second Mass … [and] large crowds attended second Mass in order to attend the games.” Eamon Ryan, who got involved in the management of Shrule/Glencorrib after his 24-year adult playing career ended, recalls having to ‘run a rake of sheep off the field’ before a Division 4 league match in Ballycroy could go ahead back in 1998.
Listening to these men describe what the club meant to players and members of the community is a glimpse at what a treasure-trove the GAA’s Oral History Project could be. That initiative, launched last November, aims to trace the history of the Association through the memories of its members. Those behind the project could do worse than pay a visit to Tom Mohan’s kitchen!