Declan Bogue

FOR SUCH A small country, with so few people writing about it, the canon of Gaelic Games literature is fairly pulling its’ weight with plenty of absolute triumphs. 

They can be split roughly into two genres; that of the autobiography that was superbly executed by the likes of Jackie Tyrrell with Christy O’Connor in ‘The Warrior’s Code’, Kieran Donaghy’s basketball and Gaelic football memoir with Kieran Shannon in ‘What Do You Think Of That?’ and Fintan O’Toole of this parish with Richie Hogan in ‘Whatever It Takes’ and his novel family memoir with David and John Meyler, ‘A Family Memoir.’

This is the most popular type, but needs careful stewardship; there has to be a natural fit between subject matter and ghost writer than can often elude projects.

The other type is the concept book. This has been achieved by Michael Foley in both ‘Kings of September’ and ‘The Bloodied Field.’ By Denis Walsh with ‘Hurling: The Revolution Years’ and Christy O’Connor’s ‘The Club’ and ‘Last Man Standing.’

It can be said that recent years have seen a resurgence, with novel ideas from, among others, Paul Rouse’s ‘The Hurlers’, Eimear Ryan’s ‘The Grass Ceiling.’

Ciarán Murphy, the Second Captains podcaster and columnist with The Irish Times has produced ‘This Is The Life’ in 2023 and followed it up with ‘Old Parish,’ now.

His latest idea required a lifestyle change, a geographical move and pushed him far beyond his comfort zone.

A fan of the celebrated American author George Plimpton, he was struck by a line in a PBS Documentary about Plimpton when he was described as a ‘Collector of experiences’.

Murphy’s idea was ballsy and wrapped up in an early line, ‘Why did I feel like less of an Irishman for not having played hurling?’

So here’s how he scratched the itch: he relocated from Dublin to An Sean Phobal (Old Parish) a coastal area of west Waterford, where his father came from and he had a slew of relatives including his uncle John, a certified Gas Man of the area and his cousin Michael Hogan, the club chairman.

He would play hurling and do his best with the Irish language in this Gaeltacht area. At the ripe old age, for a first-time hurler, of 41. And then write about it.

Ciarán Murphy taking part in a trajning session.

While Plimpton tried out and did his best to take a couple of snaps as quarter-back for the Detroit Lions in his ‘Paper Lion’ book, he did so in pre-season with the benefit of everyone knowing the deal and several continental quilts of padding.

Murphy would be thrown at full forward in the very first league game and kept there until he had thoroughly embarrassed himself. He would get flaked on the hands and react with fury only to discover that if you stick your hand up to catch a sliotar without using your hurl to protect yourself, then that was your own business, brother.

He asked for advice and the responses cut his ego to shreds. Such as his good friend Sinead O’Carroll advising him that all this stickwork was well and good, but he might want to polish up on his arsework for making a positive impact in a ruck. 

The hurling glove; what a riddle of neuroses that provoked. When to wear it. When would the hands be leathered enough not to need it? Was it necessary? What would the young kids who use the nearby handball alley think?

In all the learning he took on board, one line sticks out from his friend and renowned hurling coach, Jamie Wall, who said that hurling is not a game to be thinking, but rather feeling.

What hurling is, is riotous self-expression,” he says with the zeal of the convert.

“You can watch it with a footballer’s eye, as I would have done. Taking on some of the stuff that was cycled through, the stuff that has ruined football in ways; whether that’s a sweeper system, putting such a premium on defence and all the rest.

“You see it with Limerick, the level of tactical sophistication they have and their players. To some extent, too many things are happening at one time. The pitch is too small, the ball can be driven far too far.

“There is no control. The example I use in the first couple of pages comes from the Cork-Limerick semi-final last year; there was six minutes that had seven turnovers, two goal chances a point at the opposite end, all played with ridiculous levels of skill. And ridiculous levels of intensity that we would love to see with Gaelic football, massive hits, the whole shebang.

“I was listening to it when I was driving back to Dublin and Marty Morrissey was doing the commentary. I remember the noise that came out of my radio. I never actually heard anything like it. The noise was ridiculous.

“It was like 82,000 people standing up and going, ‘FFUUUUUUUUCCCCKKK!!!!!!’

“We’ve just been transported altogether to another dimension.”

He watched it back later on and felt the same things, even knowing the outcome of the match.

“But there isn’t a sport like it. You cannot make an argument that there is a sport within a nautical mile of hurling. It’s just on a totally different plane,” he adds.

“In ways I always knew it, but when you play it, you can feel it.”

One weekend stood out for him. He and Wall took in the Cork-Limerick Munster round-robin game in Pairc Uí Chaoimh on a balmy Saturday night, and the day after he was chief mullocker on the edge of the square against Cappoquin.

It was, he admits, two different sports entirely. But all the same, he saw stuff in Junior B Waterford hurling that took his breath away.

As his journey continued, he was joined by his wife Gill who had finished her teaching term and soon became a daily bather in Clonea Strand, just the far side of Dungarvan.

He spent days agonising over who to buy hurls off and what they might look at, training his face to make appropriate expressions when others talked about the weight and balance of an ashplant. He tortured himself over the choosing of a helmet and got carried away over the perception of his new clubmates and what they might think of his box-fresh shorts and socks.

Along the way, this was a project that led to a lifestyle change. He lived in Waterford for five months in 2024, and this year he has spent roughly half his time down there. He went back to hurling but in less than a fortnight it was all over as he broke his wrist. There’s always next season. 

He also tackles the eternal question of why hurling is not played in all areas of Ireland, and in a lot of cases why it is seen as a hostile threat to Gaelic football.

Issues such as these might be well worn by now and subject fodder for many features and columns, but when this pessimism is met with Murphy’s childlike enthusiasm for hurling it becomes fresh and vital. Something worth fighting for.

Then again, his introduction was one of complete immersion.

“I went down and was immediately thrown into matches. The league is just about getting it played. I played when I was terrible. My improvement happened when the season was more serious. My minutes went down the more important it was,” he says.

Little by little, his touch got sharper. His wrists got stronger and more flexible. He became more knacky and something approaching a hurler. He remembers the first time he felt like one.

“There was a moment I go back to a week before we got knocked out. I stuck a shot in under the crossbar. And there is something about the best of hurling that makes me want to laugh.

“By that, hurling can be laughably good. Tony Kelly’s goal (2024 All-Ireland final), anything Shane O’Donnell does, Joe Canning’s behind the back handpass. I had never seen that done before and that made me laugh.

“It’s like watching a Leo Messi or something. And that’s such a gorgeous reaction. I laugh at David Clifford all the time, because he is on a different level of thought and imagination altogether.

“In hurling, that happens all the time. There are very few hurling games you watch that you don’t see at least one transcendent moment of skill.

“I wondered how hard these things were before I started to play. But I didn’t understand just how hard.”

As somebody said to him in the book, Murphy has an innocent quality in that he doesn’t mind taking on something that he might just be terrible at.

But in doing so, he gave himself an entire new lease of life.

“I wanted to get out of the city and lean into the idea of the Irish language as a living thing and wanted to connect with my father’s family. And outside of a city, I have lived in Dublin for 22 years and I love it, but I am a country kid,” he says.

“Having an opportunity like this, I am just so grateful to everyone in the club for being as welcoming as they were. Not just, ’We will tolerate this lad,’ but it was something else.

“You sit down to write a book and then it becomes a life-changing move. This is an all-time experience, I don’t think I’ll ever get so much out of anything again.”