IN OFFALY, IT’S not so much a county hurling final weekend, as a county final festival as the Big Dance returns to Birr after almost two decades in exile.
Over-egging it? Hardly.
From 1954 to 2006 the county hurling final was the preserve of Birr, and Birr only. Following huge investment in O’Connor Park, Tullamore it found a new home. But it’s back in Birr for Sunday. Some hope forever.
From the 1994 and 1998 teams that won All-Irelands, only Kevin Martin from Tullamore came from outside the hurling heartlands that span no more than an eight-mile radius around the epicentre of Birr in the south of the county.
It’s a repeat of last year’s final, when Shinrone won their first-ever Offaly championship, against Kilcormac-Killoughey.
How much of a fuss are the locals making out of it?
On Friday evening in the County Arms Hotel, historian and author Aidan Doyle will give a talk named after the man the Offaly championship is named after, entitled ‘Sean Robbins – Flying the Faithful Flag.’
The following day, St Brendan’s Community School are hosting an U8 blitz for children around the county and beyond.
That evening, the Birr 1995 and 1998 All-Ireland winning teams will be honoured at a function that will then progress to a full chat night with the requisite guests such as Anthony Daly, Joe Dooley, Dave Clarke and Michael Duignan.
Come the day itself, the pre-game entertainment is provided by that cowboy-hatted former Feilé hurler for Birr, Mundy.
There will be a Pipe band brought up from Limerick for the pre-match parade. The National Anthem will be sang by the famous Bass singer, John Molloy, a son of the legendary Birr and Offaly hurler, Paddy Molloy.
So yeah. You could say they are making a fuss of it. And quite rightly too, insists one of the key drivers, Daithí Regan.
“The bigger picture here is that it is big for south Offaly and big for hurling,” the two-time All-Ireland winner insists.
“Tullamore is absolutely a fantastic stadium and a lot of money is pumped into it. But over the last number of years, the work that has gone into Birr! It’s a beautiful little stadium, with 8,000 capacity.
“I know the teams are looking forward to it and playing at a capacity crowd.”
There’s more to it, though. Since Michael Duignan took on the role as Chairman of the County Board, there have been signs of a county on the up, bolstered by success in underage football and hurling.
Regan could not speak highly enough of his former team mate and believes he can help hurling reconnect with the strong ties of the south Offaly stronghold.
“It goes deeper in that there’s no doubt since hurling has come out of Birr, something has been lost. Many would ask how you put a metric against that?” says Regan.
“But what we do know is an awful lot of people in the south of the county were disappointed when hurling came out of Birr. And rightly, or wrongly, they took decisions that, ‘Ack, it’s a them and us. The county don’t care,’ and they basically voted with their feet by not attending.
“And I would know there were an awful lot of young fellas and girls who weren’t being brought to blue riband games in Tullamore. You were now 40 miles away as opposed to six or seven miles away.”
He continues, “You had a lot of youngsters from around what was the epicentre of hurling in Offaly who weren’t being exposed to games on big days and therefore, didn’t have heroes.
“Youngsters must have heroes, ones they can look up to. And that’s your metric there. It’s vital that they have.”
A couple of years back, Offaly were hosting Dublin in a Walsh Cup game in Birr. Usually, these games feel like a certain penance, as much as excuse for the fresh air as for the hurling, but there was something different to the environs.
Standing alongside Joe Dooley in the stand, Regan found himself roaring and shouting during the first half, pot-committed even in January.
“The Offaly players wired into Dublin. We were getting behind them so much. And I turned around to Joe and said, ‘Jesus Christ, isn’t this just brilliant?’” he recalls.
“And he said to me, ‘This is really important. If this was in Tullamore, you wouldn’t get a fifth of the people on a Saturday afternoon at a Walsh Cup game. And number two, none of the Offaly players would have been held to account there.’
“So I asked what he meant by that and he said, ‘Every one of those lads know when they do something good, they get a reaction off the crowd. They know the crowd is with them, and if they make mistakes, the crowd will support you.
“‘But, you can’t hide here. You are being held to account by your own people and that matters.’”
Maybe, just maybe, this is the start of things to come.
“I hope an open mind can be taken by our hierarchy and CCC to say, ‘right, this is where it traditionally always was. The reasons it came to Tullamore are long past and all is sorted now. The ground meets all the criteria.’
“If we have the foresight to agree that a real sound benefit can accrue, in the hurling heartland that can feed into Offaly, then it’s only logical that we give it a consideration and a good decision could be taken.”
