RAY CAROLAN WALKED off the Croke Park pitch in September 1969 with the hope that better days lay ahead.
Four points was all that separated him and his Cavan team-mates from Offaly that day. They were nine down at one stage in the second half but after clawing back a draw a few weeks before, there was to be no successful rescue operation this time in the replay.
Another All-Ireland football semi-final had come and passed on an unsuccessful note for the county, continuing the theme of the decade.
Their form in Ulster had been strong, sweeping past Down to take that title in late July that year.
Ray Carolan, at centrefield, was never ruffled and his fielding was flawless,” was the verdict in the Anglo-Celt after a game where Cavan took down the then Sam Maguire holders, before a packed house in Belfast’s Casement Park.
Cavan were lauded for that provincial success but the goal was set higher with a national battle on the horizon. The county chairman at the time, TP O’Reilly, made an attempt to breed caution.
“I would appeal to the Cavan supporters not to indulge in dangerous talk that might put us on too high a pedestal. We have lost semi-finals on super-optimism.”
Those fears were confirmed. Carolan was left to dwell on defeat at that juncture again. But at the age of 26, he had four Ulster senior medals to his name. His first had arrived while he was still a teenager. The football future looked inviting and bright.
Carolan stuck it out in the Cavan ranks for another five years without adding to that honours list. Still he retired with a fine haul of accolades. It is a level of accomplishment that makes it staggering to think he has only witnessed two other such wins for Cavan since he claimed his last medal.
Forget super-optimism, retaining any level of optimism has been a challenge in the years of struggle since Carolan moved from a player on the pitch to a supporter in the stand.
That makes the days of success taste all the sweeter. Like the 1997 win when Jason Reilly’s goal sunk Derry and he wheeled away in celebration to provide a rare highlight.
And then a fortnight ago Carolan watched on in the sitting room at home in Cavan town, beaming with joy on a late November Sunday.
For sure it was this year of struggle with the Covid-enforced restrictions and the disruption to the normal rhythms of life, elevated the significance of this win.
But it was also rooted in those years starved of trophies since he played in that golden Cavan era in the ’60s. That meant this victory at the Athletic Grounds by a team cast as rank outsiders, resonated all the more.
The 77-year-old takes the call on a Tuesday morning, the first day of December. It suits him to chat early. The shift to Level 3 means he can return to County Cavan Golf Club. The forecast for the fairways is good.
Before he tees off, he is enthused by the prospect of talking about football. It is All-Ireland semi-final week after the strangest of years and the most uplifting of months for Cavan people.
“I didn’t think it on the 1st of January let alone the 1st of December that we would be talking about winning an Ulster championship. We have been going through relatively lean times over the last few years, finding it difficult to make progress.
“It’s been a brilliant lift when we’re all half locked up. I have to say the weekends are great wth all the sport.
“The best match Cavan played for years was against Donegal in the final. They played with great pride and passion and will to win.
“When I look at it, the Cavan county board and all the people involved, they’re putting in a great effort. There’s a tremendous facility in Kingspan Breffni and they’re putting in a tremendous effort in the underage.
“I’m often wondering why, we haven’t come through earlier or more often than we have. It’s a great boost for everybody involved in Cavan.
“Ah, it was just brilliant.”
Carolan freely admits he wasn’t expecting to be preparing for an All-Ireland semi-final tonight when he sat down to take in the action last Sunday week.
He did reason with himself that the winter conditions would suit the underdogs and the knockout element would further fuel Cavan’s drive.
And he is also a fully paid up member of the Mickey Graham supporters club, a man who has previous in the form of engineering seemingly miraculous Gaelic football tales.
It is just under two years since he managed a half parish from Longford to win a Leinster final. By the time he was supplying that Mullinalaghta magic, Graham had been installed in his native county’s hotseat where he has sprinkled some stardust on Cavan football.
“Mickey is a local man training the team, that local Cavan pride I think he has instilled it into each player. You can see it.
“It’s a credit to him. We’re all very proud of what he has done with that group of players. Donegal are still a very good team but Cavan stayed so tight and they hounded them like terriers, that they didn’t give them the opportunity to express themselves.”
In a normal season, Carolan would have been there as an eye-witness to the exchanges.
“Ah indeed I do, I go to the games and criticise like everybody else on the line when they’re not doing well,” he laughs.
From the comfort of his own home, he is a more studious viewer than one clouded by emotion.
“You miss the buzz of being at a match, especially when the team is going well. But I have to say the TV gives the matches great coverage.
“We have to be realistic about where we are. When the GAA decided to play the championship, at that stage I couldn’t really see it being finished. But in fairness to all the people involved, they have behaved very well.
“When I was playing football, I never opened my mouth to the referee or the opposition player, I just took a little silent note of what was going on. I wouldn’t be jumping up and down now or shouting, I just take it all in.
“My wife would have a passing interest in it when Cavan are playing but she wouldn’t have the interest that I would have, which is probably just as well.”
These past few weeks he has been left entranced by the manner of Cavan’s progress, those improbable comebacks against Monaghan and Down sandwiching the win they ground out against Antrim.
“Cavan and Monaghan, they’re local and they’re neighbours. Sure we have great fun with them. They have been dominating over Cavan for the last ten years, they’ve had a great run. But there’s always the upset. They beat them last year as well.
“I actually felt confident Cavan could win that match. I didn’t know how much further they could go but I had that feeling about it. It was a tremendous fightback and it just shows the spirit that these lads have.
“They proved again against Down, the comeback was again remarkable because they had played terribly in the first half. Down were running straight up the middle through them. The second half, I don’t know what happened Down, but they disappeared and Cavan took over.
“Ah, we’ve had a great month supporting Cavan.”
The progression to an All-Ireland semi-final reawakens old memories. Carolan played in five over the course of eight seasons, lost four of them and had that draw with Offaly.
His first occurred in 1962, he was midfield for Cavan on a team captained by Jim McDonnell. A year previously McDonnell coached St Pat’s of Cavan town to win the MacRory Cup, a team that Carolan starred for.
“I hadn’t a great interest in football when I was young,” recalls Carolan.
“I didn’t follow it, it was different times, it was just matches on the radio and things like that. Cavan won it in ’52, you had the heroes like Mick Higgins and Tony Tighe and Victor Sherlock and Phil ‘The Gunner’ Brady and Peter Donohoe.
“At that particular stage, you knew they were heroes and that was it. It was a few years after that before I got interested, probably going into St Pat’s in Cavan when I started playing football. I was always mad to play football, just wanted to play it. We were lucky in Pat’s, played in three MacRory Cup finals and we won two.”
That stage stood to him in nurturing his development. He draws parallels with current Cavan sensation Thomas Galligan who lit up the schools final in 2015 when St Pat’s ended a 43-year title wait.
‘He gave an exhibition of football in the centre of the field with St Pat’s in that match that day. He’s a guy that’s very talented, has a lovely spring off the ground, wrist action and catch of the ball.”
The series of setbacks and disappointments at that national semi-final point are considered.
“When I look back on ’62, I think there was eight of us went on from a junior team onto the senior team that year. Probably were a little bit immature when it came to All-Ireland semi-finals. Later on then in ’64 we were beaten by a good Kerry team. We played bad. I was injured before the match, didn’t get training at all and probably shouldn’t have played. One of the regrets that I always have.
“Then against Cork we were beaten by a point in ’67 and Offaly beat us in ’69. There wasn’t that much in it. We had a very good panel of players, we just didn’t make that breakthrough.”
Carolan was a player of some renown, central to a period where Cavan were a pre-eminent force in Ulster. He won two awards in the scheme that was the pre-cursor to the All-Stars and four Railway Cup medals. When Cavan beat Down in the 1967 Ulster decider, the Irish Independent’s GAA correspondent John D. Hickey singled out the player from the Cuchulainn club in his report.
This game I am satisfied could well come to be known as Ray Carolan’s match. The pivot of the defence was majestic in everything he did.”
There was to be no All-Ireland senior medal to adorn his CV, an omission he has long come to terms with.
“We were probably unlucky we didn’t win an All-Ireland. We just didn’t beat the right teams at the right times I suppose.” At the same time we enjoyed it all so much. You play and enjoy it as far as you go. As long as you’ve an honest go at it, I think you can never complain. I always liked to be fit playing football and try and do my best. I would have no great regrets.
“At my stage in life when you look back at football, you have great memories from it and great friendships. I love to meet fellas I played with and fellas I played against. Sure the GAA is magical really, the contacts you have from it.”
Time moves on. He goes for a daily walk near his home on the outskirts of Cavan town and if there is reduced interactions at present, he still finds plenty people on the road wishing to chat about football. The Cavan hype is dampened compared to what would be guaranteed in a non-pandemic year but the current team have emerged as heroes that are widely admired.
“I’m delighted for players like Raymond Galligan. You have Martin Reilly who has played a lot of football over the last ten years. Padraig Faulkner and Gearoid McKiernan, as good a player as you’ll get in the country, Killian Clarke as well.
WThese lads, they have played a lot of football and they have got very little out of it the last while. Sometimes it’s demoralising when you put in this great effort and you don’t see the results at the end of it. After the Ulster final showed the passion they had and what it meant for them to win. It’s just absolutely brilliant.”
And so it’s just the daunting task tonight of taking on arguably the greatest side in the history of the game. The scale of the Dublin challenge is clear and yet it is one to relish and get excited about.
“Cavan people, they’re very proud of their football,” notes Carolan.
“When we get the opportunity, we tend to make the most of it because we don’t have it that often. Cavan have great fight and great spirit.
“At the end of the day it’s 15 players against 15. It’d be the surprise of the century if they beat Dublin, I have to say.
“But surprises do happen.”
In this remarkable winter of football, that has already been proven.
Subscribe to The42′s new member-led GAA Championship show with Marc Ó Sé and Shane Dowling.
