YOU CALL UP Tommy Guilfoyle to get a flavour of the novel last four in the Clare senior hurling championship, and the conversation sparks off in all directions like a Catherine Wheel.
For the record, the make-up of this weekend’s semi-finals are Scariff facing Crusheen on Saturday, and Tommy’s own Feakle up against Clonlara on Sunday.
It’s a departure from the usual faces. The Canon Hamilton Cup has been the preserve of either Ballyhea or Sixmilebridge for the last eight seasons and you’d have to go back to 2011 and 2010 with Crusheen’s back-to-back until you found the last success from the foursome left.
But O’Callaghan’s Mills put an end to Sixmilebridge, Crusheen and Clonlara squeezing out of what was the ‘Group of Death’ on scoring difference. Ballyhea never made it out of their group either, containing Scariff and Kilmaley.
“From very early in the championship, the bigger teams such as the Kilnomonas, Eire Óg, Sixmilebridge, Cratloe looked like they weren’t that far ahead of the other teams. And then suddenly, maybe round two or round three, you are saying to yourself, well anyone can win this,” Guilfoyle explains.
“I think at the start of the year, four teams in the seni-final, Clonlara were 20/1. Feakle, 33/1. Scarriff were 50/1 and Crusheen 80/1 to win the championship. You would have got high odds for them to qualify out of the group.”
And so here they are. Clonlara, the club of John Conlon, stand in the way of Feakle aiming for their first title since 1988.
“Someone from Clonlara could accuse me of being cute when I say this – we have won our four games as well – but Clonlara since down through the years when they made the breakthrough, they would have been a nearly team,” he continues.
“They would have underachieved. But it has transitioned, it is a new team, it’s a different kind of attitude. A better team ethic, less starry names, and superbly led then, by John Conlon.”
How they manage Conlon, he believes, will go a long way to decide the outcome of the game.
Conlon’s father Pat would have played with Guilfoyle at Feakle in underage. In 2005, Guilfoyle was managing the Clare minor team and he had the very young John walking over to train in Cusack Park from his digs as a boarder at St Flannan’s school.
“His first question to me afterwards used to be ‘Are we going for dinner after?’”
It takes a place with a strong identity to do what Feakle do. All the way through underage, they are amalgamated with Killenena. And after U21, they go their separate ways.
For a while there, Tommy went in with Francis O’Halloran at Roscommon. It all started well with the first year but deteriorated sharply, with the management stepping down in late February.
Did it sour hurling for him? Sure, it did. For about two or three days before he was asked to take the club U7s and U9s.
“It’s kind of inevitable that we could merge into one club. Killenena would be in the intermediate relegation finals. They could go to junior A. We would be senior,” he explains.
“We are nothing without each other at underage. But when it comes to adults, both clubs would want retain their status.
“But it’s a big step. Like any parish, the politics comes into it. It’s a hot potato at the moment I would say.”
All of that is miles away when he’s out coaching children taking their first steps in the game.
“I am just amazed with what 7 year olds will come out with when you give them that opportunity, when you ask them, ‘what did we do well today, what do we need to improve on?’
“And I remember early on, we were doing six coaching stations, roll-lift at one and so on. I was explaining all of this to them and there was a young lad at the back with his arms folded and he looked at me and says, ‘Tommy, when are you going to stop talking, and we can start training?’
“I was on my knees, at their level talking, and I just fell back laughing. You have to make fun of yourself in front of them, to be one of them.”
They have found a novel way to entertain the parents while their children were playing. A ‘Mothers and Others’ camogie session was arranged for the time. That goes on in one half of the pitch, with the mammies up the other end.
Tommy will tell you anything about hurling. What he doesn’t say is that his own son Gary came off the bench in the semi-final to register 0-4 on their way to victory over Kilmaley.
A former underage prodigy, he is the spit of his father now but still a critical part of their ability to turn the dial.
They have current county players in goalkeeper Eibhear Quilligan, and defender Adam Hogan.
There was always a core of strong players, but the club was mindful that they had to stay together to knit it with the emerging players who won a Dr Harty Cup with St Joseph’s Tulla.
Two of those players are the young brothers, Ronan and Oisín O’Connor. Earlier this year, their sister Aisling represented Clare in the Rose of Tralee and told the heart-rending story of how the family have lost both their parents in quick succession and how the community of Feakle have helped them through the trauma.
Such an inspirational moment with Clare Rose Aislng O'Connor 💚 #RoseOfTralee pic.twitter.com/hqJIfbdeWT
— RTÉ One (@RTEOne) August 22, 2023
“The hurling club would have been part of it but there are others,” explains Guilfoyle.
“But it is the parents of the friends; Adam Hogan’s mother and father, Oisin Clune’s, the parents of children the same age as the lads are including them in their own families by just helping them out, assistance and all that.
“Without looking for any great credit. It was the right thing to do, it wasn’t that it had to be organised. It just happened. Everyone rallied around.
“Again, there’s a lot in Feakle that goes with our identity. The hurling club is our main social outlet. We don’t have other sports, we don’t have football, soccer, rugby. Our identity is hurling and music.
“We had the Loughnanes, the Fr Harry Bohans, the sense of identity and where we come from and that. It’s a way of life in Feakle.”