Tommy Larkin's long exile belies deep history

Tucked away in the heart of hurling country in the south-east corner of Galway, the areas of Woodford and Ballinakill have made an outsized contribution to the coaching of the county's most celebrated teams.

It's been widely documented that legendary Galway manager Cyril Farrell was a member of Tommy Larkin's sole county title winning team in 1971 - though he modestly describes himself as an "on-again, off-again corner forward."

Less well known is that the name of the club harks back to a man who had an influential role in the county's only All-Ireland hurling success prior to the 1980s. Father Tom Larkin, parish priest of Ballinakill, was a head honcho in Galway hurling during the 1920s and 30s and was centrally involved in the coaching of the Tynagh club which dominated the hurling championship in the 1920s.

The cult of the 'manager' wouldn't properly arrive in the GAA for another half century, with teams generally being selected via unwieldy committees. But Fr Larkin was widely credited as an influential force in Galway's 1923 All-Ireland victory [played in September 1924, unsurprisingly]. Tynagh were not only bulk suppliers to that winning team, Galway in fact wore the club colours of yellow and blue in their victory over Limerick.

There are actually two Tom Larkins being honoured in the name of the club. The Tom Larkin of Woodford had been a leader of the local Land League branch, who died in an overcrowded jail in Kilkenny in the 1880s after being imprisoned for resisting evictions.

When the two parishes came together in 1968, the amalgamated club was named after the Tommy Larkin from either parish.

Within three years, they had won their first and only Galway SHC title. Before Paul Kinnerk made the crossover from inter-county footballer to triumphant hurling coach, Tommy Larkin's were way ahead of them.

"We wouldn't have been expected to get to the final," Farrell tells RTÉ Sport. "That time it was knockout. It gathered momentum as it went along.

"We got in a fella called Johnny Geraghty, who'd been a great goalkeeper on the Galway football team that won three in a row in the 1960s. He got us very fit."

Coming from Kilkerrin and playing club football for Mountbellew, he was an incongruous figure to be involved in a championship winning hurling team.

But Geraghty, who conceded no goal in Galway's three All-Ireland final victories in the 60s, had always been an innovator and was fairly promiscuous when it came to dabbling in other sports.

He'd turned down offers from Manchester United and Fulham and was credited with introducing a soccer-style athleticism and sensibility to Gaelic football goalkeeping. So much that he earned the nickname 'Gordy' (after Gordon Banks, obviously). He told Marty Morrissey in a documentary on the Galway three-in-a-row team that he used to flagrantly breach 'The Ban' by wandering into Dalymount Park wearing 'a bob-cap and sunglasses', though this didn't stop him being occasionally recognised - "I remember Philip Greene waving at me."

He didn't do hurling coaching per se, Farrell recalls. However, "he'd be informing us on team tactics and overall movement."

The full-time score in the final against the tragic nearly men of Carnmore was charmingly retro even by the standards of the early 1970s.

Not too many teams won county finals after scoring two points, even in that era.

"The full-forward line got five goals," said Farrell. "Paddy and Tom Donoghue were in the full-forward line and got the goals. I didn't start but I came on.

"It was a funny scoreline (laughs). 5-02 we scored. But when you win you don't care about the scoreline."

Galway hurling was still perceived to be in the dog days in 1971, though the weather was about to break.

They'd found the going grimly tough in the Munster championship during the 1960s, mustering just one win (over Clare in 1961).

From 1970 onwards, they'd returned to hurling's outer wilderness, resuming their former role as a minor speed bump in the All-Ireland semi-final for whoever had just come through Munster or Leinster.

1975 is usually pegged as the breakthrough year for Galway hurling but Farrell cites the 1972 All-Ireland Under-21 victory as "the start of it really."

The groundwork was laid in the 1960s, when Galway were the kings of football at senior level. The county enthusiastically embraced the Coiste Iomána programme, with the lofty ambition that every child of a certain age be given a hurley. Retrospectively, it could be argued that the decade in Munster, while painful at the time, may have had a positive legacy in that it acted as a spur.

"They got proper underage squads together," says Farrell. "They weren't called development squads back then but that's what they were really."

In '72, they beat Dublin to win the Under-21 All-Ireland title, with Iggy Clarke captaining the side. Three of the Donoghue brothers from Tommy Larkin's - Frank, Tom and Micheál - were on the side, as was Tony Breheny.

Farrell, who has often described himself as "an ordinary club hurler", was on a parrellel journey. He was part of the UCG team that won the Fitzgibbon Cup in 1977, which contained three future All-Ireland winning captains in Joe Connolly, Conor Hayes and Pat Fluery, while McDonagh was also part of the side.

"That'd open your eyes. You were mixing with lads from Kilkenny and Tipperary, who'd be used to winning," recalls Farrell.

"And you'd realise that they weren't any better than you but they had the confidence and the winning habit that Galway lads maybe wouldn't have had at that time."

Still only 27, he was already heavily immersed in the coaching side of things.

As a 23-year old in 1973, he was a selector to JP Cusack as Galway shocked Tipperary in the All-Ireland minor semi-final, more evidence that something was bubbling at underage level in the west. They were pipped by a point by Kilkenny in the final.

In 1978, he managed Galway to their second All-Ireland Under-21 title and was added as a selector to Babs' Keating's management team for the 1979 campaign.

Following Babs' departure after the 1979 All-Ireland final defeat, Farrell was installed as senior manager, just in time to preside over the end of the famine.

During Farrell's fabled heyday as a manager, Tommy Larkin's had receded from view. Like many other small clubs, the area was badly hit by emigration in the 1980s.

"One year you might have a great team and then the following year, half of them would be playing for St Gabriel's in London," says Farrell.

"And it'd nearly always be the good lads that'd be gone. When things were bad economically, there'd be no work around here.

"The last few years, it's settled again."

They have been reasonably successful at underage level since the late 1990s but without really translating that to senior until now.

The generation born in the mid-80s won successive Under-14 titles in 1998 and 1999 and then Under-16 titles in 2000 and 2001. They subsequently won an Under-21 A title in 2005, and another cohort won a minor A title in 2006.

Kevin Huban, Damien Kelly and the late Paul Flynn, brother of Jason, was part of Galway's All-Ireland winning Under-21 team of 2005.

In recent years, there's been another wave.

"We've had Cian Daniels, who's broken onto the county team this year," notes Farrell. "And Eanna Murphy, who was sub goalkeeper this year and number one before that.

"And Jason Flynn, who has retired from the county seniors just this year and is really firing for the club."

Flynn, a regular presence on the Galway team for over a decade, sometimes as a starter, often as a sub, has naturally been a central player in the run to the final.

A former Young Hurler of the Year nominee, he was sprang from the bench in the second half to score 0-02 in the 2017 All-Ireland final victory over Waterford. In recent years, his cameo appearances had becaome shorter and shorter and he retired from the inter-county scene just last October, just before his 31st birthday.

He struck 0-13 as Larkin's stunned a Clarinbridge side containing the Niland brothers after extra-time in the semi-final.

Farrell readily concedes they're heavy outsiders for the Galway decider. Loughrea were All-Ireland finalists last January and are on the cusp of a historic success.

"They have players on the bench that'd get into any other club team. They've Shane Morgan in the corner, great hurler. The three Killeens, Tiernan who's at midfield for Galway - but also Cullen and Caimin who are knocking on the door of the senior panel.

"Then there's Jamie Ryan at corner forward, who'd been any other Galway team but keeps getting unlucky with injuries.

"They're 7/2 favourites. We're 9/4. But you have to remember they're going for three in a row. And if they get out, they'll believe they can win an All-Ireland."

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