Voice of experience

Not alone does Michael Studdert clearly recall the last time Clare played Cork in a Munster senior football final, he can remember how he travelled to Limerick and what the weather was like.

 

The counties met in the 1949 final on July 24. Cork won their 15th Munster title 3-6 to 0-7 but before Michael zoned in on the events of that sweltering afternoon 63 years ago, the 84-year-old Cooraclare man harked back to Clare’s near miss in 1946.

“It was an open draw that year and Kerry met Cork in the first round. Kerry beat Cork, who were All-Ireland champions from 1945. In the semi-final Clare met Kerry in Ennis. I cycled over on an ‘oul crock of a girl’s bike,” Michael told The Clare Champion at his home in Dromheilly last Friday.

Kerry won 1-6 to 0-7 and Michael vividly recounted that fateful goal. “I wasn’t far away from it. A fella from Quilty, Callinan was in goals for Clare the same day. A high ball came in and he caught it in the goal. He moved out to give it the top of the boot. He showed the ball to Paddy Kennedy and Kennedy hit one slap with the palm of his hand and the next thing was the green flag went up. Kerry went on to meet Waterford and they beat them by 15 points. They met Antrim then and they beat them. They drew with Roscommon and they beat them in the All-Ireland final replay,” he said.

The 25-mile cycle home from Ennis was a quiet spin. “We came home terribly disappointed. I came home around 10 o’clock. If they’d won, we didn’t mind if we never came home. We came home disgusted. Cork were out of it and Kerry could have been beaten and it would have been a Munster title because they’d have beaten Waterford,” he sighed as if the game had been played last week.

“The greatest players that played for Clare that day were Michael Boyle and EJ Carroll. Any of them weren’t in the ’49 team after. Carroll was gone to America and PJ O’Dea was suspended (in 1949) because he went into a soccer match. That was the insanity that was there that time,” the former Marca Na Feirme National Council member said.

A year later, Clare were hammered by Kerry. “The score was Kerry 9-10, Clare 0-4. The greatest massacre of all times. Kerry played Cavan that year in the Polo Grounds in the All-Ireland final and Cavan beat them,” Michael noted.

In 1948 Clare lost by a point to Kerry in Ballylongford but 12 months later, Michael’s cycle home from Ennis seemed significantly less tiresome.

“Clare beat Kerry 3-7 to 1-8. Of course I didn’t mind if I never came home,” he laughed. “They met Cork in the final and t’was played below in Limerick. ’49 was an awful warm year. Violent heat all through. We had only shirts on us. There was no big stands 63 years ago. We’d a good view alright but we were scalded. There was no programmes although I think there was a piece of paper with the names of the players,” he recalled.

The evening before departing Dromheilly, Michael paid a visit to his nearest West Clare Railway station. Internet bookings hadn’t yet caught on.

“I went up to Craggaknock (Quilty parish) station the evening before. I knew Joe O’Donohgue. He was the Station Master there. I arranged it the evening before. There was an awful crowd of us going together. So we hit off early of a Sunday morning on the 24th of July. We brought our bikes up there. The train was packed and we changed in Ennis then into the big train and down we went. With the heat we were smothering,” he said.

If the train was hot, there wasn’t much fresh air to be shared at the Munster final either. “The place was thronged. There was an awful crowd there that day. You wouldn’t hardly see over the next fellas head, t’was so tight. There was no stand there that time. Of course things are modernised to the world’s end now,” Michael smiled.

As for the game itself, the clarity of his recall is admirable. Remember this was a game that took place 63 years ago this month.

“The half time score in that match was 1-5 to 0-3. The game finished 3-6 to 0-7. That meant that Cork only scored one point in the second half but of course the goals killed it,” he said before describing Cork’s goals.

“Eamon Young kicked a ball in. He had won an All-Ireland in ’45. Paddy O’Donnell got it and he scored a goal. They had a great centre-field that day, Cork. They had Nially Duggan and they had Con McGrath. He was from Galway but he was a guard in Cork. They controlled centrefield. The two Bradleys, Vincent and ‘Birdy’ were marking them. They were great players with Seán McDermott’s in Dublin. They had won the Dublin county championship in ’47,” Michael said of the Clare midfielders.

He also remembers another of the decisive Cork goals. “Nially Duggan kicked a ball in. I remember it well. Lynch above in Kilfenora was in the goals and a rolling ball deceived him. And it wasn’t a hard shot by any means. I’d say his view was obscured a bit too and it rolled into the corner for a simple goal. That was the first killer that Clare got that day,” he maintains before citing Peter Daly (Kilmihil), James Griffin (Kilrush), Tommy Kelly, Jack Moroney (Miltown), Murt O’Shea (Faugh’s) and Dermot Hogan (Kilfenora) as some of Clare’s most renowned players in 1949.

Such was Michael’s love of attending club or county matches, he once ran from Cooraclare to Kilrush when he couldn’t find alternative transport.

“There was a match one Sunday in Kilrush in 1944. Cooraclare were playing Coolmeen. I went down to Cooraclare walking with a guy. I hadn’t the bike at all that Sunday. I said to him ‘come on, we’ll run it in.’ I took to the heels anyway and I ran three quarters of the way as fast as I could. A guy overtook me about two miles outside Kilrush in a pony and trap. I got into Kilrush, ran out to The Cricket Field and I was just out in time for the throw in. T’was a draw, 2-2 to 0-8. Cooraclare were amalgamated that time with Kilmihil and Killimer,” Michael said, again displaying his prodigious memory.

It’s a talent that he appreciates and doesn’t take for granted. “Every day of my life, I thank God for one thing and that’s the gift of memory. Since I was four years, I could tell you everything that happened. Who I met, where I was. That’s not saying that I was clever at school but it’s just some bit of a gift which I thank God for,” he reiterated before detailing the winner of every All-Ireland football final from 1940 to 2012, without pausing even momentarily.

Still driving but adverse to wearing glasses, Michael intends to take his seat in the Gaelic Grounds on Sunday.

“Oh God, I would. I’d still go. When I’m going a distance away, I’d always go with someone,” he replied when asked if he was thinking of attending the 2012 Munster final.

Clare haven’t beaten Cork in a Munster final since their 5-4 to 0-1 win in 1917. He’s had to wait more than six decades since their last final joust but Michael Studdert won’t head for Limerick fearing Cork this weekend.

“I know they are a team that could beat Cork. No matter how mighty you are, you can fall too. But you want a bit of confidence going in to say, ‘I’m going to win and that’s that,” the Cooraclare memory man concluded with audible conviction.