WHEN GER LOUGHNANE needed a team around him to push Clare up the hill to an unlikely Liam MacCarthy, he needed people with otherworldly talents.
His old friend Colum Flynn was one such man.
A boxing man, a hurling man, a physio and something of a healer man. He had been involved in Clare set-ups going back to the 60’s, ‘70s and some of the ‘80s.
Disillusioned with Clare in general, he accepted an offer to help out with Galway, and was there for two All-Ireland triumphs in ’87 and ’88.
Some years later, his Galway contacts came asking a question. Would he and Ger Loughnane, at the time a Clare selector under Len Gaynor, fancy the Galway U21 job?
He called Loughnane.
And Loughnane said he had a big hope for Clare in 1995. Would he come with him?
To reach paradise, the Clare hurlers had to go through Hell, with Mike McNamara the torturer in chief with the full approval and egging-on of Loughnane.
Their respite came in the physio room, with Colum Flynn.
Last Saturday, Flynn passed away after a short illness. Once the news broke in the What’s App group of the Clare hurlers of the ‘90s, there was a collective gulp and waves of sadness for someone so treasured.
Colum Flynn, second from right on the back row, takes part in a Clare Jubilee team parade.
Because in any ambitious set-up, particularly one as cut-throat as Clare of that time, there needed to be some sanctuary.
A good physio is worth more than medical expertise. It is the physio that hears the pillow talk, the grumbles and the uncertainties.
Flynn’s way was to give players the fuel of confidence.
“He was a massively important figure in our dressing room. A much-loved individual,” said Jamesie O’Connor when contacted this week by The42.
“Like, I think everybody in the group had a heavy heart when the news came through. He was just a great guy, such a positive influence. An inherently decent human, compassionate man.
“We were lucky to have had him in our lives,” he said.
“He was just a guy who was incredibly loved by our group. Because obviously Ger was a tough taskmaster and Mike Mac was, well you know what I mean?
“It was as much what he was saying to you when you were on the treatment table as he was doing.
“And I suppose if you were talk to any one of us, we would all say the same thing.”
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Fergie Tuohy backs that assertion up.
“He was a great man for the chat. You’d go into him if you thought there was something up with you before training. You might not be thinking you were playing well at all,” said the Clarecastle man.
“The next thing he would tell you he was watching training and you were doing some very clever things. That you were flying it. He’d even say that a few of them, the selectors and so on, were having a conversation saying how good you were playing when he walked into a room.
“You’d be heading out to train absolutely full of confidence. He’d have been a silent selector, he had a big influence.”
Only a few weeks back, the Ennis Boxing Club paid tribute to his unstinting service of coaching children and adults for over 67 years. That experience made him an expert when it came to a certain type of injury.
“He was just an institution in Clare and beyond,” said Tuohy.
“He had his golf that he loved to play, he had five daughters and a son and his wife Kay.
“He had a great talent for healing. If you had something wrong that was just niggling at you, say a bad finger, he had an ability that it would just come right for you.
“What that was, I do not know. Maybe there was the touch of a psychologist about him because your mind would feel right and therefore the body would then follow.”
Anyone who remembers Jamesie O’Connor’s career will recall he wore many bandages around his wrists and hands.
“Over the years, I had a lot of hand injuries. Just with fingers and so on. I remember one year I had no power in my hand and this was going back to when I was in St Flannan’s,” he recalls.
“And I would have gone over to Colum. This was around 1990 and before maybe a Harty Cup quarter-final.
“My wrist wasn’t right. There was a little link bone or something and whatever he did, he strapped it up and away I went and had a great game the next week.
“There were certain injuries he just had a great feel for. I think maybe through the boxing he had a feel for hand injuries.”
His funeral will be held in Ennis Cathedral on Friday at 11am, with burial in Drumcliffe Cemetery.
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'He had a great talent for healing' - Clare players pay tribute to the late Colum Flynn
WHEN GER LOUGHNANE needed a team around him to push Clare up the hill to an unlikely Liam MacCarthy, he needed people with otherworldly talents.
His old friend Colum Flynn was one such man.
A boxing man, a hurling man, a physio and something of a healer man. He had been involved in Clare set-ups going back to the 60’s, ‘70s and some of the ‘80s.
Disillusioned with Clare in general, he accepted an offer to help out with Galway, and was there for two All-Ireland triumphs in ’87 and ’88.
Some years later, his Galway contacts came asking a question. Would he and Ger Loughnane, at the time a Clare selector under Len Gaynor, fancy the Galway U21 job?
He called Loughnane.
And Loughnane said he had a big hope for Clare in 1995. Would he come with him?
To reach paradise, the Clare hurlers had to go through Hell, with Mike McNamara the torturer in chief with the full approval and egging-on of Loughnane.
Their respite came in the physio room, with Colum Flynn.
Last Saturday, Flynn passed away after a short illness. Once the news broke in the What’s App group of the Clare hurlers of the ‘90s, there was a collective gulp and waves of sadness for someone so treasured.
Because in any ambitious set-up, particularly one as cut-throat as Clare of that time, there needed to be some sanctuary.
A good physio is worth more than medical expertise. It is the physio that hears the pillow talk, the grumbles and the uncertainties.
Flynn’s way was to give players the fuel of confidence.
“He was a massively important figure in our dressing room. A much-loved individual,” said Jamesie O’Connor when contacted this week by The42.
“We were lucky to have had him in our lives,” he said.
“He was just a guy who was incredibly loved by our group. Because obviously Ger was a tough taskmaster and Mike Mac was, well you know what I mean?
“It was as much what he was saying to you when you were on the treatment table as he was doing.
“And I suppose if you were talk to any one of us, we would all say the same thing.”
Fergie Tuohy backs that assertion up.
“He was a great man for the chat. You’d go into him if you thought there was something up with you before training. You might not be thinking you were playing well at all,” said the Clarecastle man.
“The next thing he would tell you he was watching training and you were doing some very clever things. That you were flying it. He’d even say that a few of them, the selectors and so on, were having a conversation saying how good you were playing when he walked into a room.
“You’d be heading out to train absolutely full of confidence. He’d have been a silent selector, he had a big influence.”
Only a few weeks back, the Ennis Boxing Club paid tribute to his unstinting service of coaching children and adults for over 67 years. That experience made him an expert when it came to a certain type of injury.
“He was just an institution in Clare and beyond,” said Tuohy.
“He had his golf that he loved to play, he had five daughters and a son and his wife Kay.
“He had a great talent for healing. If you had something wrong that was just niggling at you, say a bad finger, he had an ability that it would just come right for you.
“What that was, I do not know. Maybe there was the touch of a psychologist about him because your mind would feel right and therefore the body would then follow.”
Anyone who remembers Jamesie O’Connor’s career will recall he wore many bandages around his wrists and hands.
“Over the years, I had a lot of hand injuries. Just with fingers and so on. I remember one year I had no power in my hand and this was going back to when I was in St Flannan’s,” he recalls.
“And I would have gone over to Colum. This was around 1990 and before maybe a Harty Cup quarter-final.
“My wrist wasn’t right. There was a little link bone or something and whatever he did, he strapped it up and away I went and had a great game the next week.
“There were certain injuries he just had a great feel for. I think maybe through the boxing he had a feel for hand injuries.”
His funeral will be held in Ennis Cathedral on Friday at 11am, with burial in Drumcliffe Cemetery.
There will be guards of honour aplenty.
*****
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Clare GAA Hurling RIP