Christy O'Connor: Harty Cup magic returns to Gaelcoláiste Mhuire AG
Gaelcholáiste Mhuire AG's Craig Ó'Suilleabháin has led the scoring for the northside school. Picture: Eddie O'Hare
At the end of the Harty Cup Gaelcoláiste Mhuire AG versus Blackwater CS Lismore preliminary quarter-final in Castlelyons in early December, Seán Óg Ó hailpín was interviewed by Mick Lenihan for Clubber TV.
As Ó hAilpín was speaking on the far side of the pitch, the AG players were getting photos taken about 50 metres away.
Yet as soon as they spotted their coach in front of the microphone, the group bolted for him, dragging him away and dancing and cheering, with Ó hAilpín only delighted to be swept up in the delirium.
“That’s what it’s all about,” said Linehan. “You couldn’t make it up.”
It was easy to see why they were all so thrilled, with AG having trailed by six with seven minutes of normal time remaining, while they were still down by two almost four minutes into additional time.
Yet AG never gave up, taking the game to extra-time with successive points.
They carried on that momentum in extra time with the first four points. By the time the final whistle eventually blew, AG had ed 15 of the last 18 scores of the game.
Ó hAilpín spoke to Linhehan about the journey this group had been on and how much the belief had incrementally grown in the squad. And that confidence began oozing out of the group when the heat was like a furnace against Lismore.
It had been an incredible few weeks for the school. Although they had lost the Dean Ryan final to Midleton CBS shortly afterwards, reaching a first Harty Cup quarter-final since 2018 underlined why everyone was on such a high.
“I always felt when the school was going through its doldrums in hurling that the success was somewhere there in the woodwork, buried there, and it just needed a crop of players and backroom team to just get it out,” said Ó hAilpín.
"It’s there and it’s just tapping into it. When the blue and white are on song, there’s no greater sight in Harty hurling.”
Ó hAilpín is right. There has always been something special about the Mon in the Harty Cup.
They were once an institution, a behemoth in the competition, feared everywhere by schools all over the province, not just because of the quality of player they produced, but because of the aura around the Mon.
Long before the late Teddy McCarthy made his name as a GAA icon, the first player to win senior hurling and football medals in the same year, he was first known around the province as Teddy Mac from the Mon.
Even back then, there was an air of reverence around the term. McCarthy won an All-Ireland with the college when he was still only 15. By the time Anthony Daly entered St Flannan’s as a 1st year in 1983, he’d already heard about McCarthy.
“North Monastery had been in the three previous Harty finals, having won the previous two, but Flannan’s beat them in the 1982 decider by three points,” wrote Daly in his column after McCarthy ed away in 2023.
“The general impression seemed to be that Teddy was almost unmarkable, nearly untouchable.
Iconic players made the Mon who they were but it also added to their mythical status in the Harty Cup for so many decades.
Different circumstances stripped away that aura, layer by layer, year by year, but now that they have a good crop of players again, the blue and white being back in the mix has added to the excitement of the competition.
Having another Cork school in the quarter-finals is also another plus for Cork hurling. In four of the last five years, Midleton CBS, St Colman’s and CBC reached the quarter-finals.
Midleton and CBC are now in their sixth successive quarter-final. Midleton were the last Cork side to win the competition, in 2019, but they are still the only Cork side to have won the title in the last 19 years.
Cork sides have gone close in the last five years; CBC lost to St Flannan’s by three points in the 2020 final; CBC were beaten by a late goal from St Joseph’s Tulla, who went on to win the competition, in the 2022 quarter-final; Colman’s narrowly lost to Thurles CBS (who subsequently lost the final by one point) in the 2023 quarter-final.
It's a different competition now from the last time Cork schools dominated the Harty; in the ten years between 1994-‘2003, Cork colleges won seven titles.
There have been seven first-time winners since, with the last three successful schools – Tulla, Cashel Community School and Nenagh CBS – all winning a maiden Harty title.
Ahead of next Monday's quarter-finals, the competition has never looked more open and evenly balanced than it does this year.
CBC face a De la Salle side that hammered AG and Colman’s in a three-team group before knocking out the holders, Nenagh, in the preliminary quarter-final.
Cashel are also unbeaten but AG will fancy their chances, especially with the confidence now built up in the group.
Whatever happens, the Harty looks more appealing with the Mon back in the mix. Ó hAilpín is right; when the blue and white are on song, the history of the Harty echoes louder.
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