Wexford won the 1968 All Ireland Senior Hurling Championship.
By Michael Devlin
Fifty years on, the memories of the 1968 All-Ireland Hurling Final are still crystal clear in the mind of Wexford gael Jim Berry.
“My brother Jack was playing at the time. I had been playing in ’67 but they dropped me for 68, for reasons best known to themselves!” the former Wexford County Board and Leinster Council Chairman told GAA.ie.
“We beat Kilkenny in the Leinster final, having beat Dublin in the semi-final. We only beat Kilkenny by a point, but it was all the sweeter I suppose. There was great excitement in our house with Jack playing and all the reporters calling, this was all new to us.
“We were playing Tipperary, and having won the minor first, we were looking forward to the senior one then. After 26 minutes of the first half, Tipp were leading by 1-10 to 0-3, and things didn’t look good. Just coming up to half-time, Jack got a goal and there was an eight point deficit at that time.
“But we hadn’t been playing that badly, we were eight points behind, and then Pasty Kehoe was one of the great players of the 50s, he was the manager. He made a few switches and gave the fellas a bit of a rollickin’ at half-time. With four minutes to go, we were leading by 5-8 to 1-12. Tipperary got two late goals, but it was too late at that stage.
“After the game I was in the Hogan Stand with my wife to be at the time, and when the full time whistle went I abandoned here and ran out onto the pitch. There was great excitement and great celebration in Wexford after that.
“It was some turnaround. In the 1957 league final we were 16 points behind to Tipperary as well, and we came back with a gale behind and won. But this was an All-Ireland final, so it was all the more sweet. It was a wonderful time, I still have the memories of it all.”
Former Wexford and Leinster Council Chairman Jim Berry.
Jim and his brother Jack, aged 25 and 24 at the time, were both also playing football with Wexford. In fact on one occasion they turned out for the Model County in both codes on the same day.
“We played Dublin in the O’Byrne Cup in Wexord Park, and Jack and myself were playing. I was centre forward and he was corner forward. They were playing Kilkenny in the Walsh Cup immediately afterwards, so he was selected right away to play at corner forward with the hurlers, and I was brought in a halftime to play as well.
“So I don’t know what the four subs were doing that they had to bring fellas from the football game to play hurling afterwards! I never asked them anyway, I was just delighted to get playing the two games on the one day.”
Last year Jim authored a history book of his club St Anne’s. The title, ‘October 2000’, relates to the unique feat that year when the club won the senior football and hurling double, with 13 players playing both codes.
The book documents Gaelic Games in the Rathangan parish - a reasonably small rural area of about 1,800 people - from 1884 to the present day.
As well as being a detailed record of the club’s history, the book also recounts many amusing tales and stories of years gone by.
“There were a lot of funny incidents,” says Jim. “One was of a well-off farmer who bought a new pair of leather boots, and a fella over the field asked him would he give the right footed boot to the full back to kick out the ball.
St Anne's won the Wexford Ladies Football Senior Championship in 2017.
“A fella in a neighbouring parish once said ‘I like playing against Rathangan, but there’s one fella, ‘The Boot’ Murphy, and he never stopped talking the whole match and I couldn’t play’”
Then there is the one about cavalier corner back Davy Rowe, a county player in the sixties.
“He was tidy footballer, and one wet day we came soloing out with the ball, and one of the selectors cried over ‘Will ya kick off the so-and-so ball’, so Davy handed the ball to him and said, ‘Here you kick the thing yourself.”
“There was an 'oul fella in the club by the name of Stephen Lee. He had a great lot of sayings. He was always riding round on his bicycle and he was in the southern part of the county and he asked a man ‘How far is it to the Hook Lighthouse?’, and your man said to him, ‘As the crow flies, it’s about six miles from here to the Hook Head.’ Stephen said to him, ‘If that crow was riding my bike, how far would he have to go?’"
The current Wexford crop of hurlers are in action this weekend against in the All-Ireland preliminary quarterfinals against beaten Joe McDonagh Cup finalists Westmeath, but what does Jim think of hurling in the county at the moment?
“They’re fairly good without being very good. They’re competing at least anyway. Two years ago we were nowhere, but Davy and Liam Dunne as well, have put in a lot of good work.
“We should’ve beaten Kilkenny on the last day. There were a couple little things went against us, and they scored a few points from them. But that’s gone by.
“We are there and thereabouts. We are a bit limited in our panel, whereas the Kilkennys and the Galways have strong panels, and Cork as well. We’re in with a shout, though, and we’ll hope for good things.”
