Seosamh Breathnach pictured in his hurley making and mending workshop at Na Fianna GAA club in Dublin.
By John Harrington
A symbiotic relationship is defined as one where people or things exist together in a way that benefits them all.
The arrangement that Seosamh Breathnach has with Na Fianna GAA club is a nice example.
Since 2010 he’s operated as a hurley-maker and mender on the club’s grounds which sounds like a marriage made in heaven.
Breathnach has a large customer base right on his own door-step and for a club with as many active hurlers as Na Fianna it’s a gift to have someone on-site to tend to a constant demand for new or mended ash.
Timing is everything in life and Breathnach’s was spot on when he approached his home club 14 years ago to ask could he rent a space at the back of the club-house and transform it into a hurley-making workshop.
He was given the green light and his nascent business venture happily coincided with a hurling boom in Na Fianna.
By then a nursery that was started from scratch at the turn of the millennium was producing a steady stream of very talented young hurlers who would win a Dublin minor championship in 2012 and then four in a row in the grade from 2014 to 2017.
That same generation of players backbones the team that will contest Sunday’s AIB All-Ireland Club SHC Final. Breathnach has watched them grow from boys to men over the course of the last 14 years.
“After 15 or 20 years of lots of hard work from lots of people it was an overnight success,” says Breathnach with a smile. “I know it's a cliche, but this team saw further than others because they were standing on the shoulders of giants behind them as well. They really were. A lot of them would acknowledge themselves that huge work has gone in to them.
“There was a golden generation over a three-year period that won Dublin minor and U21 titles, but they would have had great people coaching them who took them on at the age of eight, nine, 10, when there was no glory to aim for that lads of that age now would be able to see today.
“But there was still huge amounts of people doing massive work in the background who harnessed this crop of players. These lads wouldn’t have come through without the people that coached them and the parents driving them to matches and people organising trips away to go play a team down in Kilkenny, Wexford, Waterford, or wherever.
“In fairness they have acknowledged themselves there's a huge amount of people who put a huge amount of work in to get them to the level where our current senior management could take them on that extra step."
Seosamh Breathnach pictured in his hurley making and mending workshop at Na Fianna GAA club in Dublin.
Breathnach is in his workshop at the club on Thursdays, Fridays, and Saturdays, and the soundtrack of his day is often this golden generation of Na Fianna hurlers doing extra bits and pieces to hone their craft away from the bright lights.
“There's a hurling wall in the club that's just outside my door and there's not a Thursday or a Friday that goes by that I don't see half a dozen or more of them in there,” Breathnach told GAA.ie
“Or I'd be walking around the club and there's three or four of them going into the gym or Donal Burke and Colin Currie are out practicing frees or there are another three or four lads out on the pitch working away on their own as well.
“You can't be around the club for any length of time without seeing some of them going doing extra bits and pieces. I suppose that's what's required to get to the level that they're at.
“Some of the lads from the senior team that I fix hurleys for called up to the work-shop the week before Christmas and some of the young lads from different teams came up too and they had a puck around with the lads outside the workshop door.
“For some of the kids, it just made their Christmas. The idea of getting to hit a ball with some of the stars of the team who are their heroes.
“As well as being wonderfully talented hurlers, they're really great lads and they give back to the club in lots of little ways that probably goes unseen.
“There's a good lot of them involved in various levels of coaching at various age-groups in the club as well so they're a great bunch of lads as well as a great bunch of hurlers.”
Donal Burke of Na Fianna celebrates with supporter Tiarnan O Dubhlainn after his side's victory in the 2024 AIB Leinster GAA Senior Club Hurling Championship semi-final match between Na Fianna and St Martins at Parnell Park in Dublin. Photo by Sam Barnes/Sportsfile.
Breathnach first go into hurley mending as a teenager because he was so fastidious about his own hurleys. They had to have the right weight and balance so he’d work on them until he had them in the sweet spot he wanted.
He’s dealing with a lot of kindred spirts on this Na Fianna team who make the most of having a hurley doctor on speed-dial.
“Unless their hurley absolutely smashes, some of them would have to have the same hurley for the season, won't change hurleys, might get it repaired once or twice, but that's their main match hurley,” says Breathnach.
“Hurley mending is nearly a tougher job in some senses because they had the hurley exactly as they wanted it before it broke and you’re looking around for just the right piece to get it back to how it was.
“Then some of them would have three, four, five hurleys always on the go and could use any of them in any given match on any given day.
“It's funny how some people are totally relaxed about their hurley and more of them are very fastidious to the extent they might ask you to move the band a little bit higher, that kind of a way.
“It reflects the preparation they put in. Even the guys who might be a bit more laissez faire about what hurley they use, they'll still make sure they have five or six good hurleys there ready to go.”
In a club as huge as Na Fianna with such a multitude of underage and senior teams it can be sometimes challenging to develop a holistic sense of identity because so many groups are operating in their own silos.
The success of the club’s senior hurlers in the last two years has very much engaged the whole community though and led to the sort of natural mingling that has made everyone feel part of something bigger. The place is buzzing ahead of Sunday’s Final against Sarsfields of Cork.
“It's phenomenal,” says Breathnach. “You'd be talking to fellas who might have played with the club when they were in Dublin and played for three or four years and moved away or people I played with when I was eight/nine and who moved away from Dublin or stopped hurling for various reasons in work and life.
“We're all kind of in touch again these last two weeks. ‘We'll see you in the club on Saturday night or Sunday morning’, that sort of thing. It's just phenomenal.
“We're all looking forward to the march from Mobhi Road down to Croke Park. We’re hoping over 1,500 people will march behind our mascot ‘Mobhi’ the wolfhound from the clubhouse down Mobhi Road, Botanic Road, onto Drumcondra Road and Clonliffe Road.
“It'll be even bigger than the march we had for the Leinser Final this year.
“It was phenomenal to see it pass for the Leinster Final. It made the hair on the back of your neck stand up.”
Na Fianna mascot Mobhi the Wolfhound pictured with club senior footballer, Al Fitzgerald.
Mobhi the Wolfhound normally carries a shield and sword to echo the club’s crest, but on Sunday the sword will be replaced by a hurley crafted in Breathnach’s workshop.
There’ll be plenty more of them on the field of play stamped with his name, something that means an awful lot to him.
“The phone has been hopping since last Thursday or Friday with lads just in for last tweaks or to get a new band on the hurley just to make sure everything is perfect for the final,” he says. "I've been putting new grips on hurleys as well, it's been great.
“I was never a good enough hurler to make a county team or to play in Croke Park myself, but it is lovely to have my handiwork on fixing up or making hurleys for lads contributing something.
“If it could contribute a score in Croke Park on All-Ireland Final Club Final day it's something I could never have dreamed of really, but it's super to have a nice little hand in a day that's generational for the club.”
