1934 All-Ireland Hurling Final
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Fig.2 The chain and circumferentor were still the main tools of the trade in the 1750s. (Courtesy of the National Library of Ireland)
Fig.3 Carrickmacross, from Thomas Raven’s survey of Essex estate, County Monaghan 1634-5. Note the cluster of cabins, center right. (Courtesy of Marquis of Bath)
Fig.4 The manor of Tallow 1774 – part of Bernard Scale’s survey of County Waterford’s Devonshire estates. (Courtesy of the Trustees of the Chatsworth Settlement)
Fig.5 The town of Maynooth, County Kildare, from John Roque’s 1757 survey. (Courtesy of Patrick’s College, Maynooth)
Fig.6 Graigsallagh, from a volume of maps of the ‘Manor of Maynooth'(1821) by Sherrard, Brassington and Green. (Courtesy of carton Desmesne)
All-Ireland football final day, 1949. Meath fans are en route to Croke Park by steam train, and will see their county win its first championship. They stop at Dunboyne. He hears their cheers fall through the billowing steam from the railway bridge. Five-year-old Seán Boylan knows something big is stirring.
Then he was simply a small boy kicking a ball around the family garden. The green and gold throng roared encouragement through fellowship and goodwill, buoyed by the occasion.
In later years he would give them good cause to cheer. Just a snapshot, but the moment seems to have acquired a near-cinematic resonance through what it prefigured. That railway bridge is now known locally as Boylan's bridge.
Around Dunboyne, there were local heroes to fire the imagination. His neighbours included Meath players like Jimmy Reilly, Bobby Ruske and 1949 All-Ireland-winning captain Brian Smyth.
"Brian Smyth was a great friend of my father's. I have a memory of kicking a ball around with him in the run-up to the 1954 All-Ireland final.
"He'd call out to the house on a Wednesday night to Daddy, getting the brews. Brian had a very famous dummy and he showed me how to do it. Of course, I practised it and used it all my life after."
He drew inspiration, too, from further afield. The great Gaelic names of his childhood were lent further mystique by Micheál O'Hehir's radio commentaries, which painted bold pictures in his head.
The legends were remote yet vividly present through the voice piercing the static.
"When he was doing matches you'd swear you were at the game. You were trying to be a John Dowling or a Seán Purcell or a Bobby or Nicky Rackard, a Christy Ring when you heard the way he described it."
Not that Gaelic games alone dominated his formative years. Motor races held in Dunboyne thrilled him as a youngster. Even now, his heart quickens a little at the vroom-vrooming of racing engines.
"I was always mad into motorsport, but most kids around Dunboyne were, because you had the racing which started in the '50s.
"It was outside your door so you followed the motorbikes and the cars. Of course, the only thing you could afford to do yourself was the go-karting. You'd go across to Monasterboice, where there was a track, or down to Askeaton in Limerick. The bug is still there."
At the age of nine, he was sent to Belvedere College. Rugby, of course, was on the sporting curriculum and he played with enthusiasm, once certain positional difficulties had been resolved.
"At the time the Ban was in but I played for a few years. In the first match I played I was put in the secondrow. At my height! I ended up in the backs afterwards, but it was very funny."
He chuckles at the thought of himself as a secondrow forward. In later years he was to meet Peter Stringer after an Ireland international. The scrumhalf greeted him warmly, announcing he was delighted to meet someone even smaller than himself.
His participation in rugby at Belvedere was never questioned, despite his GAA and republican family background. He was left to find his own course.
"My father, Lord be good to him, never tried to influence me in any way with regard to what I would play or what I became involved in. He wasn't that sort of man. And, well, in Belvedere, you're talking about the place where Kevin Barry went to school."
He took two of his boys in to see the old alma mater a few years back and was touched at the reception he received.
"I said I'd see if the then headmaster, Fr Leonard Moloney, was around. I hadn't been back in the place much but he invited us into his office. He went over to the press and took out two Club Lemons and two Mars bars for the lads. From then on that was the only school they wanted to go to and they're there now."
He hurled too at Belvedere, but his education in Gaelic games was to be furthered at Clogher Road Vocational School in Crumlin, which he attended after leaving Belvedere at 15. Moving from the privileged halls of Belvedere to the earthier environment of his new school was a jolt, but football and hurling helped smooth the transition.
In Crumlin, he would learn how to use his hands, within and without the classroom.
"The big thing there was the sport end of it. It was Gaelic and soccer we played. The PE instructor was Jim McCabe, who played centre-half back on the Cavan team that won the All-Ireland in 1952. He was still playing for Cavan at this stage. He was a lovely man and a terrific shooter."
He found himself spending Wednesday afternoons kicking a ball around with McCabe and another Cavan player, Charlie Gallagher. The latter's patiently rigorous application to practising his free-taking left a deep impression on the manager of the future.
While at Clogher Road, he represented Dublin Vocational Schools at centre-half back in both hurling and football. The goalkeeper on the football team was Pat Dunne, who would later play with Manchester United and Ireland.
He was on the move again at 16, switching to Warrenstown Agricultural College near Trim. His family background working with the land made the choice seem logical. Besides, the college did a nice sideline in cultivating footballers and hurlers. Again, he found an All-Ireland-winner circling prominently within his youthful orbit, foreshadowing his own relationship with Sam Maguire.
"The man who taught us veterinary was Séamus Murphy, who won five All-Irelands with Kerry in five different positions, an extraordinary record, from corner back to wing-half back to midfield to wing-half forward to corner forward. He brought a few of us from the college to Meath minor football trials."
Hurling, though, was the game at which he was most successful as a player. He broke into the Meath minor hurling panel while at Warrenstown. One day shortly after beginning there, he had another chance encounter which was to echo into the future. He was thumbing a lift home to Dunboyne, hurl slung over a shoulder, only to see a fawn-coloured Ford Anglia pull up. Its driver was Des "Snitchy" Ferguson. Thus began a long association. In later years, his two sons would win All-Irelands with Meath under Boylan's tutelage.
Back in his school days, though, nothing could top the feeling of making the Meath minor hurling panel. "The man who brought me for trials was the famous Brian Smyth. I'll never forget him coming to collect me for the trials. Here I was with Brian Smyth! Then when I got picked for Meath, it was just clover."
The 1962 All-Ireland hurling final wasn't the first time that the nation had been treated to live coverage of a game from Croke Park. That honour had been claimed by the Railway Cup hurling and football finals six months before when Clonmel's Mick Kennedy, playing for Leinster, had the honour of claiming the first ever score shown on live television. Dublin's Des Foley made his own entry into the annals by winning medals in both codes. Tipperary had seven players on the Munster hurling selection that particular St Patrick's Day. All of them would play again 24 hours later when the county side faced a Rest of Ireland selection in an exhibition in Thurles. Others to double up that same weekend were Christy Ring and Lar Foley. This was an era blessed with players whose talents would transcend time but Moloughney has no doubt that Jimmy Doyle's was the star that shone brightest. And still does.Roughly 500 people had arrived at Shannon Airport from the States and Canada on the morning of the match. A Swissair jet carrying 67 members of Toronto GAA Club was another visitor to Irish shores and these international waves were replicated on the ground. CIE laid on 25 special trains and road works on O'Connell Street made traffic jams inevitable.
Pos. | Player | Team | Appearances | Rationale |
---|---|---|---|---|
GK | ![]() |
Kilkenny | 2 | "For his courageous defiance, his agility and trustworthiness making him the kind of goalkeeper that any player would be happy to have behind him." |
RCB | ![]() |
Kilkenny | 1 | "For his dependability in defence, which combines with his natural hurling skill to establish him as one of the great corner backs of today." |
FB | ![]() |
Limerick | 3 | "For his undiminished skill and dependability in a very demanding position where quite often brawn is substituted for hurling artistry." |
LCB | ![]() |
Limerick | 1 | "For his rare bravery and mobility: for the all-round splender of his contribution to Limerick's much-delayed return to championship honours." |
RWB | ![]() |
Wexford | 1 | "For his alertness and sense of judgement, for the crispness of his stroke which played such a sizeable part in regaining the National League title for his county." |
CB | ![]() |
Kilkenny | 1 | "For his sheer skill and obstinacy in defence, his tenacious approach and the devotion he continues to give to the game." |
LWB | ![]() |
Limerick | 1 | "For the fervour he brings to all facets of hurling, and particularly for his dedicated half-back play which contributed so much to Limerick's 1973 successes." |
MD | ![]() |
Kilkenny | 1 | "For his artistic stick-work which he has demonstrated with increasing regularity, and for establishing himself as one of the most elegant and energetic midfielders of recent times." |
MD | ![]() |
Limerick | 1 | "For the level-headedness he has so frequently shown in the tightest of situations and for his exceptionally high rate of scoring." |
RWF | ![]() |
Tipperary | 3 | "For his incisive intelligent running which so often splits opposing defences: for the remarkable consistency and accuracy of his marksmanship." |
CF | ![]() |
Kilkenny | 2 | "For highlighting just how vigorous play can be totally fair, particularly during his famous attacks towards the opposing goal." |
LWF | ![]() |
Limerick | 1 | "For his seemingly limitless energy and his desire to work all over the field: qualities which have made him a natural leader and a high scorer." |
RCF | ![]() |
Wexford | 1 | "For the wide range of his playing skills, his constancy of purpose and his obvious versatility." |
FF | ![]() |
Kilkenny | 1 | "For the out-and-out hard work he puts into the game. For his power of striking and his adaptability in attack." |
LCF | ![]() |
Kilkenny | 3 | "For his enormously successful scoring record, his fluency of stroke and his accurate passing which create so many chances for his team mates." |
Pos. | Player | Team | Appearances |
---|---|---|---|
GK | ![]() |
Cork | 1 |
RCB | ![]() |
Cork | 1 |
FB | ![]() |
Offaly | 2 |
LCB | ![]() |
Cork | 1 |
RWB | ![]() |
Galway | 1 |
CB | ![]() |
Galway | 2 |
LWB | ![]() |
Cork | 2 |
MD | ![]() |
Kerry | 1 |
MD | ![]() |
Cork | 1 |
RWF | ![]() |
Offaly | 2 |
CF | ![]() |
Offaly | 2 |
LWF | ![]() |
Galway | 2 |
RCF | ![]() |
Cork | 1 |
FF | ![]() |
Cork | 2 |
LCF | ![]() |
Derry | 1 |
Limerick | 1-21 – 1-14 | Kilkenny |
---|---|---|
R. Bennis (0-10), M. Dowling (1-1), É. Grimes (0-4), F. Nolan (0-2), N. Rea (0-2), B. Hartigan (0-1), J. McKenna (0-1). | C. Dunne (0-7), P. Delaney (1-1), M. Crotty (0-3), L. O'Brien (0-2), M. Brennan(0-1). |