Limerick GAA 2023-2024.... 5 in a row is not here

[TreatyStones]

Half time updates

Adare 0-5
Monaleen 1-2

Ballylanders 0-5
Galtee Gaels 0-7

[FlakeAway]

Crackers

[TreatyStones]

Adare lead by 2 in stoppage time

Edit: they win by 1

[manbehindthewire]

Bit of a surprise that. Big win for GG also.

[dodgy_keeper]

Just back from a miserable Newcastle.

Woodlands House Hotel Premier Junior A Football Group 2 Round 1 result.

G/B 2-10 Athea 0-09.

Brutal conditions, downpours during both halves. Weather more akin to November than June. Credit to both sides who dusted themselves down and performed admirably considering.

Following back-to-back promotions, the sleeping giants of Limerick club football pick up the two points on offer. Scored a point straight from the throw in before, from the resulting kick out, G/B intercepted to tap into the empty net. 1-01 on the board before an outfield Athea player had touched the ball.

A few fine scores from both sides followed before a point effort drifted in over the head of the unfortunate ‘keeper. Gave them
a comfortable cushion they were never to relinquish over the hour. Athea didn’t really create a goal chance of note.

Estimated attendance - 37.

They’ve done a lovely job on the back car park at the back gate. Tarmacced and lined, a fine job. The new set of goalposts, nets and grass goalmouths also look very well. Full credit to NCW.

[manbehindthewire]

Is the straight crossbar gone!?

[TreatyStones]

Yip, a round one now!

A remember a Drom man onto us before about being alert for balls coming back off the cross bar there.

[manbehindthewire]

He was right definately once a game a ball came off it.

[dodgy_keeper]

Also, the seats and roof have gone into the stand in Mick Neville.

[carryharry]

Galtee Gaels senior how many years now?

[TreatyStones]

This is their 4th year back up I’d say.

[carryharry]

Big win.

They did okay without many wins since going up?

[TreatyStones]

They’ve been very competitive and a touch unlucky not to go a bit further

[Crutches]

Just avoided relegation first year up, made semi in second year, went out in quarters (I think) last year

[Gazthegeezer]

Padraig Quinn in goals for monaleen tonight? Is that the lad usually wing back, where was o Sullivan? Anyone at it?

[carryharry]

The Landers must of been seething

[Crutches]

I wasn’t around tonight, but hopefully they were

[Julio_Geordio]

They’d be seething before it ever started the shower of cunts

[dodgy_keeper]

@Aristotle

How was Pierce Connery?

1-2 is good scoring, I think he’s a serious talent, will really bolster their attack this year.

He’s good alright, tends to have a shoot on sight policy but he’ll definitely be a more than decent player in years to come.

Himself & SOB will be a good pair at club level.

[CillDioma]

@Gary_Birtles_Lovechi

Fascinating chat tonight with a first cousin of my mother’s. Sean Casey, a member of Patrickswell’s first county title winning team of 1965. A native of Faha townland, midway between Patrickswell & Clarina, Sean moved to Croagh parish with his parents in the mid 60s, so I’ve often talked hurling with him, but not on the scale of tonight. We spent a good two hours talking nothing but the ‘Well. I should have jotted it down or recorded what he said, I’m forgetting half of it now I know.
The Well was only formed in 1943. Before that, anyone in the parish would have played with either Ballybrown or Breska Rovers (not to be confused with soccer team of same name). Tom Ryan’s father Willie (a native of Clonoulty, Co Tipperary) was one of three men credited with forming the club in 1943. It folded in ‘45, before being reformed in 1947. You had lads from Ballybrown, Croom, Fedamore, Manister and Crecora all lining out for the Well in the first two decades of its existence.

Lord Harrington, Limerick’s only member of the British Royal Family, lived at Greenmount Stud (present day racecourse) in the late 40s, and offered to purchase and donate the site of Patrickswell’s first hurling pitch. Many of his employees were members of the club. This offer was rejected by the club’s committee, who stated “we’ll take no money from any English Lord”. Then again, Patrickswell has always been a Republican stronghold. As an aside, Lord Harrington died in 2009 in at his home in Ballingarry.

The construction of Marian Park, the village’s first housing estate in the 1950s, was basically the making of the club. The club won its first City title in ‘49, first Juvenile honour in ‘54 and its maiden Junior County title in ‘57. 9 of that side were on the 1965 senior county winning team. Families that moved into Patrickswell in the 50s included the Foleys from Ballybrown and the Careys from Mungret. The Bennis’s came from Dromcollogher - Sean Casey maintains the Bennis’s were tough because they came from a family of blacksmiths, and “blacksmiths are hardy”.

The fact that the village of Patrickswell by the end of the 50s had three pubs, while Clarina had none, also influenced people from the Ballybrown side of the parish to socialise in the Well, and soon enough you had families moving into the village too from the other end of the parish.

Sean mentioned that the original colours worn by the Well were green and gold. That changed to light blue and gold in the early 60s, before settling at royal blue and gold in the 70s. As was the same at the time for every club, they had only one set of heavy cotton jerseys, which Sean says were washed “maybe once a month”, so the smell of sweat off them was something desperate.

He mentioned a couple of the current Well side; Diarmuid Byrnes gets his hurling from his mother’s side - she is a sister of Seanie O’Gorman of Milford who won All Ireland with Cork in 1990. (Think he was full back?) Described Diarmuid as the cleanest striker of a ball Limerick has ever produced.
There’s good hurling pedigree on both sides of Aaron Gillane’s family, his paternal gran-aunt Carrie Gillane was one of Limerick’s greatest ever camogie players, she played for county in the 50s & 60s. On his mother’s sides, his grandparents are Hartes of Kildimo and Sean described them as very stylish hurlers in the 50s.

Sean Casey will be 82 this year, he is the last living member of Patrickswell’s first juvenile county title team of 1954. His generation is the last that can actually tell a proper story. He goes to every Patrickswell game still, and every Croagh/Kilfinny game too for good measure to support his adopted parish. There is nothing this man doesn’t know about Limerick hurling from the 40s to present day. He told me a good one about a junior match between the Well and Kildimo in the mid 50s, a massive brawl broke out. He was watching it from behind the fence as a 13 or 14 year old - the first and last time he feared for his safety and the safety of others at a match. Said there was lads getting split open with hurleys and there was blood everywhere. Game was abandoned and the Well won the replay.

Pictured below is the Well team that won its first senior title in ‘65. Sean is front row, third from the left. His brother Jerry (RIP), is front row, second from the right.

Michael Harte is my neighbour and he was in goals the day night of the row. He wouldn’t ever talk much about it to me to this day. I meet him most days. His son Adrian was a very good hurler for kildimo and he’s the head of his cousin Aaron gillane.