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PAT HENCHY was a great student of hurling and there was nothing he liked better than following the fortunes of Clare when they scaled the heights in big championship games at Munster or All-Ireland level.
He was the same in his support of Cuala — his adopted club in Dublin that won Leinster and All-Ireland titles in 2017 and ’18 as Con O’Callaghan marked himself down as the best dual star in the land.
Clare and Cuala in full flow — there was nothing like it for Pat as he studied, analyzed, mused and marvelled about the qualities of the modern game in terms of skill, speed and the confidence, swagger and derring do in players like Tony Kelly, Con O’Callaghan and others at the top of their game.
His great friend of Clare hurling stock, Leo McGough, who comes from Carlow via Inagh, told a great story about him ahead of the 2013 All-Ireland replay when he picked the former Ruan and Clare star’s thoughts on the game.
“Pat came up with an interesting analogy,” noted McGough, “and said Con Houlihan was once asked how long it took to write his columns and with a trademark hand over his mouth answered “sometimes it flows like honey, sometimes it sticks like mud”.”
He expected the former and for Clare to flow like honey in the replay, just because he was bowled over by “the confidence of Clare”, the “execution of the gameplan” and the way “they went at Cork”.
It wasn’t like this when Pat wore the saffron and blue of Clare in the 1950s and ‘60s. Of course, in his day there was always hope that they might crash that glass ceiling, but when it came down to it he belonged to a generation when most times the real confidence and self-belief that Clare could master the bluebloods of Cork, Tipperary or Kilkenny wasn’t there.
“We had great battles with the big teams,” he recalls, “and we gave some great performances, but we came up short.”
What he remembered most was the summer of 1966 – not because of the World Cup that took place that year – but when Clare let a glorious opportunity to beat Cork slip away, which allowed the Rebels to go on and win Munster and All-Ireland honours for the first time in 12 years.
He brought the game down to the final seconds of their first round meeting in the Gaelic Grounds, when Clare were leading by 3-8 to 2-8 with just seconds remaining — a first Munster championship win over Cork since 1955 was theirs.
“I was injured that day,” he remembered, “as it was the early days of hamstring injuries and I couldn’t play. We should have won, we had it won but we didn’t. It was a last-gasp goal from Justin McCarthy – he hit a free, more in hope than anything else, but it got over the line.
“The outstanding memory of it is the terrible, terrible hard luck Clare had that day. Cork were beaten that day. That was for definite. Clare had them after playing a great game, but then that free broke our hearts.
“We played Kilkenny three times in the league semi-final a few years later – I missed a free in the first game that would have put us in the league final and it sticks in my mind for the wrong reasons.”
By then Henchy was a ten-year veteran of the Clare side — he was a Clare minor for three years, debuting in 1955 and playing centre-forward in all three campaigns, while his debut in a Clare senior jersey came in his last year of a minor, when coming on as a sub against Galway in a National League tie against Galway in Cusack Park.
“The ’54 All-Ireland was the first one I saw,” he recalled. “It was Cork and Wexford and the whole atmosphere was totally new to me and unbelievably exciting. I particularly remember taking a shine to Timmy Flood from Wexford – I thought he was a fantastic hurler.
“It was my first weekend to Dublin. My brother was in Dublin and I went up to him for the weekend. It was the start of the school year and I had to have a note going back to school on the Tuesday to explain where I was.
“I can remember Clare playing Limerick in ’53 – that was the day Jimmy Smyth scored 6-4 and it holds the record for a Munster championship match, while I also remember Jimmy scored a couple of goals off John Doyle in a league match around that time.”
Within a few years he was in the same forward line as Smyth at club and county level, while at the same time carving out a glittering career in inter-varsity hurling when winning four Fitzgibbon Cup medals within the space of five years.
His championship debut came against Cork in 1959, while he was still there ten years later as he marked himself down as one of the outstanding forwards of his era at club, universities and inter-county level.
“I went to UCC in ‘’57 and won one Fitzgibbon with them and then three more with UCD – we also won a Dublin championship in ’61, the last year Dublin were in the All-Ireland final. In Cork I played in the county semi-final against the Glen and it was Christy Ring who beat us – he got the goal just at the end.”
His Fitzgibbon Cup exploits were the stuff of legend and in recognition of his talents he was selected on the Fitzgibbon Team of the Century in 2012.
The Ruan man was one of three Clare players to make the starting 15. Pat was selected at centre-forward on the team. He won his first Fitzgibbon Cup medal with UCC in 1958.
The next year he transferred to UCD and won for a second time, and in the 1960 final his two goals earned him a third medal and the accolade of top scorer.
However, his display in the 1964 final set Henchy apart in Fitzgibbon Cup folklore: he scored 4-3 from play for UCD against his former college, UCC, to clinch his fourth medal.
A measure of company he kept in hurling was that three of the other forwards on that Team of the Century were Henry Shefflin, Joe Canning and Nicky English.
