Scud missiles hurtle through the chill night air of November scattering debris and shrapnel every where … innocent bystanders – minding their own business, not doing anyone any harm at all, at all – are shot in the backside, in a clear case of what the armchair generals on TV euphemistically term ‘collateral damage’ … a continuing jihad - a Holy War – against the blue-and-gold robed throngs of the dreaded Tipperary-ban, who inhabit the fabled land of Premierstan … New weapons of mass destruction are threatened or deployed: … the belt of the hurley … the lash of the tongue … the withering glance … the sarcastic sound bite … The policemen from the Ministry of Hurling Intolerance and Prevention of GAA Vice are on the rampage …

No, this not the BBC’s portly Foreign Editor, John Simpson, breathlessly reporting ‘live’ from the liberation of Kabul, nor the ‘Guardian’ newspaper’s Robert Fisk filing ‘copy’ from the lounge of the Kandahar Holiday Inn … nor yet An Fear Rua Himself finally taking leave of his senses entirely … But it could be an accurate picture of how many people in the GAA feel this month of November with the latest outbreak of hurling hostilities.

The perpetrator of this latest outbreak is a shadowy figure, variously named by Western Intelligence sources (in other words, Station Sergeant Binky Hanrahan at Salthill Garda Station, in Galway) as Ger Loughtalibane or Ger Taliban-nane. According to these sources, Loughtalibane or Taliban-nane is currently holed up in a cave hideout somewhere in the dreaded inclines and valleys of the Cratloe Hills, in the eastern part of County Clare. No foreign invader – least of all the dreaded Tipperary-ban – has ever succeeded in penetrating these Hills. Loughtalibane only leaves his mountainy lair to make occasional swoops on bookshops, radio and television stations making speeches, dropping 1,000 lbs sound bites, signing autographs and selling books.

Reliable news agency reports say as many as fifteen hundred people turned up in Ennis, county Clare, recently for the launch of Loughtalibane’s new book on his life and times in Clare hurling, ‘Raising the Banner’, soon to become known as ‘The Clare Koran’. By the way, that’s more than double the number who turned up to the pub in Scariff last year when Loughtalibane’s dreaded second-in-command, Mike Ben Mara, launched his magnum opus on the Clare hurling team. However, reliable sources have denied reports that some of the hordes left Ennis heading towards Eastwards towards Premierstan brandishing copies of ‘The Clare Koran’ in one hand and a hurley in the other, threatening to convert the blue-and-gold infidels to the path of true hurling.

In the past few days, a number of selected journalists have been accorded interviews with Taliban-nane under conditions of strict secrecy. As the Oul Belfast Barman Himself, Gearóid MacÁdhaimh, once remarked sardonically, in a different context, ‘He hasn’t gone away, you know!’

Talk about collateral damage to innocent bystanders. There was poor Páidí Ó Sé, the Kerry football manager, pictured on the front page of Sir Doktor O’Reilly’s Middle Abbey Street Organ, launching his GAA biography, chatting and shaking hands with some more Islamic friends, the bemused international footballers of Iran. Next day, Páidí is picking bits of hurley and steel banding out of his ample posterior after the Great Ger Taliban-nane had a ‘go’ at him! Ger’s claims Páidí got special coaching in tactics from a GAA ‘Mr X’ when he appeared before the Games Administration Committee in 1997 and so was not disciplined for alleged incursions onto the pitch in the football semi-final against Cavan. Poor Ger, on the other hand, was confined to the dug out for his ’97 final, following a similar allegation.

Ger won’t name names, but his publisher has conceded that the person who allegedly ‘coached’ Páidí was ‘closely associated with Cork teams…’ Now you don’t have to be a genius to put two-and-two together to come with the answer to who that might be – most likely the Great GAA Comb Over Himself. Páidí, of course, has reacted angrily, accusing Ger of trying to get cheap publicity for the book. His sage advice to Ger: ‘He had better milk his own cows!’

Ger’s evidence for this alleged episode is a phone call to a GAA official overheard in the car of Tony Garry, Managing Director of Davy’s Stockbrokers and a prominent Clare supporter. Aficionados of Loughtablinane stories, however, will recall the critical role overheard conversations play in them. For example, back in 1998 at the height – or more accurately, in the depths – of the ‘Colin Lynch Controversy’, allegations of a ‘stitch up’ were based on an overheard conversation of a couple of priests in a stand in Croke Park. Given the sad record of some Catholic clerics on certain issues in recent years, Ger’s insistence that the conversation was given added validity because the participants were priests showed that the oul Clare grá for the sagart was far from dead. After all, one of the favourite sean nós songs down Feakle way still is a doleful little number entitled ‘De Bootiful Hands of the Preesht’!

However, once the Taliban-nane missiles start flying, it’s too late to run for the dugout and no one, note even the BBC’s John Simpson, is safe. Here’s a quick list of some of the people ‘collaterally damaged’ in the crossfire:

Former Cork hurling manager Jimmy Barry-Murphy, only one of the greatest stars ever to grace the GAA scene … But to Loughtalibane … ’He was the greatest moaner I ever came across. I don’t think he’d survive if he was playing today … he hadn’t the steel in him …’
Limerick hurling star and manager, Eamon Cregan … 'It was such a disappointment when he came to train the Clare team in 1983 …
Clare’s Seán Stack, invited in to assist in training in 1998 … ‘it was like something out of the 1940’s … It was like what you’d do with a Junior B team …
Former Galway manager, Cyril Farrell ‘Cyril made a big mistake to come back with Galway in the 1990’s …’
Former GAA President, Joe McDonagh Cited by Loughtalibane as putting pressure on the Munster Council not to repeal their suspension of Colin Lynch in 1998.

Ger Loughnane did what he had to do to develop a winning mentality in a county that had waited eighty one years to win a senior All Ireland and AFR has no great quibble with the approach he took at the time. Certain other Munster counties would be well advised to learn from his approach. He put pride and passion – two critical ingredients of GAA success – into the preparation of his teams and his place in hurling’s pantheon of greats is unassailable. Equally, however, as his co-author, journalist Seán Stack puts it, he is ‘the kind of man who can euphemise fanaticism as common sense, who can disguise obsession as the only sensible way to behave …’

While that approach may have been what was needed at the time, we are not convinced that aggressive raking over of dead coals and harsh criticism of other hurling men is what is required in the calmer times of 2002. Still, when you’re trying to sell books …


He hasn't gone away, ya know!

Related Topics:
Thumpin" The Wall With The Leg O" The Table...
The Clare "Shout" or the Clare Whine?
The Fairies Of Clare Hurling...
Can "The Banner" Survive Without Loughnane?
To Hell and Back
Throwing out the Baby with the Throw-In