JP has got to the Democrats and The NYT.
Limerick gaa is bigger than Ireland
Cut and paste please
We are everybody’s favourite team.
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Here you go. Unlimited heartbreak even gets a mention.
Limerick’s Once-Hapless Hurlers Get Used to Something New: Winning
Goalie Nickie Quaid, one of five Quaids who have played for the team since the 1950s, has helped transform Limerick County into a dynasty in the ancient Irish sport.
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Limerick hurling players after their victory in the Division I final of the National Hurling League against Kilkenny this month.
By David Segal
Photographs by Paulo Nunes Dos Santos
April 20, 2023Updated 1:06 p.m. ET
CORK, Ireland — For decades, the story of Limerick hurling was a tale of failure so filled with off-field drama and on-field defeat that it verged on farce.
And it was a farce played out on the country’s grandest, most public stage. An Irish sport born some 2,000 years ago, hurling looks like a hybrid of lacrosse and baseball, with players whacking the ball, and each other, on a field big enough to land an airplane. For millions of avid fans, winning and losing records are measured in time spans that can seem geologic, and after Limerick’s golden age, way back in the 1930s, it acquired a history of futility neatly captured in the title of a 2009 book, “Unlimited Heartbreak: The Inside Story of Limerick Hurling.”
Most notoriously, the team was up by 5 points with minutes left in the 1994 All-Ireland Championship final against Offaly County. The conclusion looked so foregone that Limerick fans left their seats and headed toward the field, anticipating pandemonium. Offaly scored 7 points in a frenzy. Game over.
Limerick won a single All-Ireland title in 1973, after a decades-long drought, and then didn’t win again for more than 40 years.
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“Even when the team was good, it contrived to lose in ways that were spectacular, almost ludicrous,” said Arthur James O’Dea, the author of “Limerick: A Biography in Nine Lives.” “They went to the finals five times after that win in ’73 and lost every time.”
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Limerick supporters arrived at Páirc Uí Chaoimh, got their pints and got settled.
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Then, in 2018, Limerick began its improbable transition from also-ran to dynasty. The team won its first All-Ireland in 45 years, a squeaker against Galway. After losing the next year in the semis, Limerick went on a roll, winning the championship in 2020, 2021 and 2022. If Limerick prevails again this year, it will become only the third team in history, along with Cork and Kilkenny, to win four titles in a row.
“That’s way, way down the line,” Limerick goalie Nickie Quaid said this month about the prospect of a four-peat. “We’re only looking at the first round in two weeks’ time.”
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The turnaround has been especially sweet for Quaid and his family. A Quaid has played on the county team in every decade since the ’50s, starting with twin brothers, Jack and Jim. Jack had a son, Tommy, who played goalie in the ’70s, ’80s and ’90s. Jim’s son, Joe, took over the position and played in the ’80s, ’90s and ’00s.
And in 2011, Tommy’s son, Nickie, became the third Quaid to serve as the team’s goalkeeper — and the first to win the cup.
On a recent Sunday, Quaid stood at midfield at Pairc Ui Chaoimh, Cork’s hurling stadium, leaning against his bat, known as a hurley, and cooling off after just over 70 minutes of play. Limerick had just defeated Kilkenny in the final of the National Hurling League — a kind of warm-up to the All-Ireland tournament — and the Cranberries’ “Zombie” blared from loudspeakers as fans, dressed in the team’s green and white, cheered and beckoned for selfies and autographs.
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The scene had all the familiar trappings of any postgame celebration, but something about hurling seems ready-made for mythology, as though fans aren’t watching a contest so much as a parable. Maybe it’s the age of the sport or the scale of the field, which is about three times the size of a soccer pitch. Maybe it’s the spectacle of men batting the sliotar, as the ball is called, at over 90 miles an hour and scoring points from as far away as 100 yards.
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Limerick scoring a goal against Kilkenny. Teams get 3 points for putting the sliotar, or ball, into the net and 1 point for making a shot over the crossbar.
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Limerick hurling supporters reacted as their team scored a goal during the final.
They do all this with a wooden stick that looks stolen from field hockey, then tricked out with a flat, rounded end that players use to bounce the sliotar as they run. The ball can be passed by a swing of the hurley, a slap of the hand or a kick, though whatever you want to do in this game, it’s best to do it quickly. There are 15 players on each side and while they can’t use their hurleys as weapons, they can come pretty close.
Beyond its proportions and physicality, hurling is set apart by what it pays: nothing, even at the highest levels. And you need to hail from the county to play for it, making hurling — along with Gaelic football — one of the last bastions of pure amateur sport. Like everyone else on the field, Quaid has a full-time job, in his case as a primary schoolteacher.
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“It’s a big hurling parish,” Quaid said. “Nice if you win something, because you can bring the cup to school and see the joy in their face.”
Quaid has played a singular role in Limerick’s exit from its tragicomic era, and one moment in particular stands out. It’s a play widely regarded as a turning point in the team’s fortunes and surely the greatest save of Quaid’s career.
It happened during that 2018 semifinal. The team was trailing against Cork, then mounted a comeback in the waning minutes, scoring 6 consecutive points. (Quick primer: You get 1 point for sending the sliotar over the uprights above the goal and 3 points for putting the sliotar in the net.)
The game was tied as the final seconds ticked away. Then a Cork player named Seamus Harnedy took a pass near the goal and it suddenly looked as though Limerick was about to add another calamitous stumble to its rich library of pratfalls. Harnedy was firing at almost point-blank range, which would have buried Limerick’s dreams for yet another year.
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“This could seal it,” the television announcer shouted, “this should seal it!”
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Instead, Quaid seemed to have read the play in advance and he lunged at Harnedy with his bat, knocking the sliotar to the ground. It soon became known as “the Flick” and it turned Quaid into a folk hero, the play marveled over in pubs and dissected on YouTube.
“It was just one little incident in a whole game,” Quaid said when asked about the Flick. “It wasn’t anything that I dwelt on really or such like.”
Judged on the transactional basis of American professional sports, hurling takes far more than it gives. And the Quaids, with their affinity for the goalkeeper’s job, have accepted the terms of this arrangement and more than their share of the danger that comes with it. Prizing mobility over bodily harm, hurling goalies do not wear pads. (A 2011 Slate essay about the position was titled “The Craziest Men in Sports.”) Helmets were mandated by the Gaelic Athletic Association only in 2010, and it took some cajoling to persuade many goalies to go along with the rule.
The risks of the job were amply demonstrated by Joe Quaid, who during a game against Laois County in 1997, took a penalty shot to the groin that destroyed a testicle. To the relief of family and fans, Quaid went on to father four children.
“The joke is that my aim improved,” he said in a phone interview.
Joe Quaid coached Nickie when he played in the under-16 league, though arguably the greatest influence on the newest Quaid in green and white is his mother, Breda Quaid. Her husband and Nickie’s father, Tommy, died at age 41 in 1998 after he fell from a building where he was working construction. Breda was determined to keep hurling in the lives of her three sons — Nickie is the middle child — and she enrolled in a course in coaching at a time when women were a rarity in the sport.
“She’s one of the most exceptional, most selfless women I’ve ever met,” said O’Dea, the author. “She’s one of the nine people I profiled in my book, and she agreed to speak to me on one condition: that I not put her face on the cover. She wanted Tommy’s face there.”
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A hurling pitch is about three times the size of a soccer pitch.
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Nickie Quaid is a schoolteacher by profession and a hurler by heredity. He is celebrated for a save known as the Flick.
O’Dea was struck by her gifts as a coach — “She’ll kill me for saying that,” he said — and her devotion to both her children and the sport. Breda prefers talking about her son’s success. Reached at home in Limerick, she was expansive on the topic of the 2018 win.
“I’m one of those people who lived through the era of Limerick being starved of success,” she said. “So when we won, it’s hard to describe. We were all crying. His two brothers, at the end of that match, when the whistle blew, they were actually crying with joy.”
Limerick has excelled by pioneering a brand of hurling that prioritizes long-range scoring through the uprights as opposed to scoring goals in the net at close range. A goal is worth three times the points, but nearly every Limerick player is a threat from as far as 50 yards, allowing the team to pepper opponents from all over the field.
Back in the ’90s, most games ended with each team scoring 10 to 15 points through the uprights. Limerick will occasionally score double that number. Consequently, the job of goalkeeper has changed drastically.
“When I was playing, your job was to keep the ball out of the net, then hit it as far away as possible,” Joe Quaid said. “Now the goalkeeper is more like a quarterback. When he gets the ball, he starts the attack.”
To be effective, a goalie must have pinpoint accuracy with that initiating pass, known as a puck out. The Flick notwithstanding, puck outs are the skill for which Nickie Quaid is most renowned. During warm-ups on Sunday, he stood at the goal and batted balls to players standing 60 yards away. In most cases, his teammates barely needed to shift their weight to make a catch.
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Quaid gave autographs and took selfies with fans after the team’s victory.
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Children play in the halls of Pairc Ui Chaoimh.
He was nearly as good during the game. Just two of his 24 puck outs wound up in the opponent’s possession, an exceptional tally. When the first half ended, Limerick had a comfortable 6-point lead, which it padded in the second. By the time the final whistle blew, fans were musing aloud about the bulldozing strength of this squad as championship season began.
For a less exuberant take, it seemed apt to check in with Henry Martin, the author of “Unlimited Heartbreak.” In a phone interview, he echoed Nickie Quaid’s one-game-at-a-time philosophy, tamping down any premature optimism. After years of anguish, he is still getting accustomed to Limerick as a feared and dominant force in hurling, a transformation he knows is worthy of another book.
“There should be a sequel, but it won’t be written by me,” he said. “It should be written by someone less haunted by past defeats. Someone who’s grown up and witnessed this astonishing success.”
A correction was made on April 20, 2023:
An earlier version of this article misidentified an Irish hurler for Cork who was involved in a play that has come to be called the Flick. He is Seamus Harnedy, not Robbie O’Flynn.
When we learn of a mistake, we acknowledge it with a correction. If you spot an error, please let us know atnytnews@nytimes.com.Learn more
David Segal is a Business section reporter based in London. @DSegalNYTimes
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7 Likes
Great to see Henry Martin getting a mention.
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Would that have been in a print edition ? I’d love to get a copy on my hands.
Thanks bud
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20s have a bit of a call to make tonight when picking the team. Obviously things didn’t go totally to plan, particularly defensively, against Clare. Win this and we’re through; lose and you have to beat a very decent Cork side in the final game.
So can’t really afford any mistakes; do you stick or twist with full-back? Centre-back? Probably don’t want wholesale changes either.
Do you play Liam Lynch from the start?
Not sure Mullins has the knowhow or balls to make the right calls.
I think that’s very harsh; generally I don’t think there’s been any major personnel wrong decisions over the past few years. There have been a few cases of players being eased back in after injury, and maybe a game or two to find the right balance to the team but that’s natural imo; you never know until Championship.
Remember in the U-21s in 2015, John Kiely and his selectors somehow had Sean Finn on the bench behind Mark O’Callaghan? In these underage competitions, you find your best team as the competition progresses. Obviously more scope for that now in the round robin format.
The New York Times no less … Limerick are global
2 Likes
Maybe harsh, but I remember some dire tactical decisions, against Galway in Ennis, being one and he just doesn’t appear to get the best out of his really talented players. I think Lynch has to start, Kirby is living on borrowed time a while, switch wing and CB, not picking Joe Fitz first night I think. Just doesn’t fill me with confidence, plus he’s a Laois cunt. Better qualified manager s around, Niall Moran, Liam, Cronin, Jimmy Quilty etc…
These lads will need to put in the work in the academy before they get the call.
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Niall Moran? Jaysus, I don’t know about that…
I really rate Quilty but I’d probably have him as coach rather than manager, maybe the same with Cronin. But the point is that Mullins brought these lads up through the academy and deserves a shot with them at 20s, I think. Hopefully we do get the likes of Quilty & Cronin involved from 14s/15s/16s. Hopefully Loftus does very well this year with the minors and we’ll see him step up to be a 20s manager too.
I’d agree that there probably have been some dodgy tactical decisions; but I would say they are tactical rather than getting personnel wrong. And that’s the management team as a whole; I know the buck stops with Mullins as manager but, at the end of the day, the tactical gameplan is probably developed by the coaches.
Apparently Lynch was struggling for form so I don’t think they can be faulted for picking players who are going well, but I think he showed enough the last day to get a start over Con Hayes. I thought Kirby was good against Waterford but possibly more suited to midfield than wing-forward tbh.
Would agree on switching Hurley & Scully too.
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Some win by the minors 
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Quilty got the road from the senior back room because he wouldn’t pull with kinnerk i thought or tried take over.
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Mighty to be fair. That centre forward is a bit of a throw back!
The major concern I would have for this squad is that they are poorly managed. There is an unfortunate, but evident, lack of sideline smarts with this group, and it gives me no pleasure to say that.
The AI final last year and the recent Clare game looked badly botched. There seems to be an ugly, unearned arrogance that is not healthy for some of these players. I don’t mind earned arrogance, I do mind entitlement.
This team are perfectly capable, probably favourites, to win an AI. Whether they will, we shall see. I have my doubts, when push comes to shove.
I think someone told me before, the reason Quilty was in there in the first place is because he offers a contrary opinion to everything. It’s also the reason he was let go 
I think it was fairly mutual though. I think he’s a serious coach but he’s an abrasive enough character. Which is probably why I wouldn’t have him as a manager over kids, but will always be an excellent coach. Good tactical brain aswell.
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