Sunday’s Munster Final brings back memories of exactly 100 years ago

As Limerick face into battle in the Munster final next Sunday in the Gaelic Grounds, thoughts will inevitably turn to Munster finals of past years.

Whether you remember Michael O Hehir’s great commentaries that painted word pictures of the legends of Thurles, Pairc Ui Caoimh or the Gaelic Grounds or the animated Irish language inflected Michael O Muircheartaigh describing each blow of timber as an epic as important as anything from Homers Iliad.

Perhaps Patrick Kavanagh was right after all “Gods make their own importance”, or you prefer to have your own special moment, we are all hostages of memory and few pursuits allow us to remember as vividly as great sporting moments.

One hundred years is beyond the scope of all living memory but when we look back a century to the Munster final of 1919 the similarities are striking. Limerick had been All Ireland Champions in 1918, having bridged a long gap since their previous win.

Cork who they met in the Munster final that year and who ultimately went on to win the All-Ireland hadn’t won the national title in 16 years, the longest gap ever recorded to this day without a win for the Rebels.

Ireland was in turmoil as the teams took the field on the 24^th August. The first Dail had only been sitting since the previous January and four days before a motion had been passed that an Oath of Allegiance to the Republic should be taken, an act that was seen as the seminal act in dissolving the Irish Volunteers and establishing the Irish Republican Army.

Indeed the day following day IRA members started taking that oath and using the name officially. The fledgling GAA was seen as an integral part of the push for Independence and the British Forces were finding it difficult to know how to deal with it.

It is estimated that 20,000 spectators descended on The Markets Field on that Sunday with the gate receipts £800, a fortune in 1919. The logistics of that number of people crossing from Cork into Limerick proved a nightmare for the Crown Forces with many of the spectators using the opportunity to move arms and personnel around the country. Cork, the birthplace of Michael Collins, was regarded as one of the hotbeds of the  republican resistance movement at the time.

For many of the Cork supporters it was their first opportunity to see their team wear the new colour of red, a move necessitated by a raid on the GAA Headquarters in Cook Street  before the sem-final with Tipperary that  saw the old saffron jerseys with a C emblazoned on the front, stolen within hours of the game. The red jerseys came from Father O Leary’s Temperance Team which had been recently disbanded. They proved lucky that year and that was the basis for Cork wearing red from that time on.

The match itself on the day was a “classic” by all accounts available. Cork with their Captain Jimmy “Major” Kennedy emerged victorious by five points in the end but it was “neck and neck” all the way through. The matches in those days were played over 60 minutes.

There was much disappointment in the Limerick camp after the game that they had relinquished their All  Ireland crown but they did not have to wait too long for revenge as they put Cork to the sword on their way to the next Liam McCarthy Cup win in 1921 (a match not played until 1923). 

There is no doubt that the Munster Final of 1919 was a key moment in the sporting and social history of the province, coming as it did at a time when the flames of independence and civil unrest were being stoked.

It was indeed at the heart of a “golden age” of Hurling in Limerick with names like McConkey, Gleeson Lanigan, Ryan, Troy, McGrath and Humphries amongst others giving a war weary public some wonderful distraction from a world coming to terms with the devastation of the First World War and the pandemic of Spanish Flu which had killed 100million people in the previous two years

The Markets Field also played host to Corks 3-8 to 0-2 Semi-final win over Galway on Sept 7^th on their way to the victorious Final appearance