By John Harrington

If Diarmaid Byrnes is voted the 2022 Hurler of the Year as many expect him to be, then Paul O’Connor is surely due a small slice of credit.

In his youth, Byrnes was a little bit one-sided as a hurler. He could hit the ball further than most children his age off his right side, so tended to exclusively focus on that rather than develop his left.

Patrickswell NS teacher O’Connor spotted this weakness in his game and resolved to do something about it.

He took Byrnes aside and impressed upon him the importance of being able to hurl off both sides.

Byrnes would make the effort to hurl off his left in drills when he’d see O’Connor coming, but in matches or when was no longer in O’Connor’s eye-line he’d revert to habit and use his strong side as much as possible.

O’Connor decided to get creative. He taped a sponge to the ‘strong’ side of Byrnes' hurley which meant he could no longer drive it very far and was instead forced to turn onto his left.

And even if O’Connor couldn’t always keep his eye on Byrnes in training drills, he could now hear which side of his hurley the youngster was using.

Would Byrnes have developed into a potential Hurler of the Year if O’Connor hadn’t made such an effort to improve his game at a young age?

Hard to say, but there’s no doubt that he benefited from a teacher’s tutelage on the training field as well as in a classroom like so many others have.

If you asked every single active inter-county hurler and footballer to draw up a list of those people who most positively impacted their sporting journey you can be certain that the majority will identify at least one primary school teacher who nurtured their natural talent.

It’s impossible to fully quantify the impact that the coaching carried out by primary school teachers has had, but the evidence is everywhere to be seen.

If a club is successful, there’s a very good chance they have a vibrant link with a local primary school where the principal or a cadre of teachers are hurling/football zealots.

Teachers like Joe Dunphy in Ballyhale, Tom Cloonan in Athenry, Paul Kennedy in Ahane, Mícheál Hayes in Tralee, Paudie Butler in Drom-Inch and PJ Fitzpatrick in Clonlara are typical of the breed who have had a hugely positive impact on their local GAA club that’s felt through the decades.

The importance of coaching and games in primary schools is often overlooked, but the reality is that if you don’t have a bedrock of well-run Cumann na mBunscol competitions in your county then it’s going to be very difficult to build anything really substantial as you go up through the age-grades.

Which brings us neatly back to Limerick. A lot of different factors have gone into their current dominance of senior inter-county hurling such as an increasingly competitive club championship, brilliantly run academies, the emergence of Ard Scoil Rís as a hurling nursery, and high-quality inter-county management teams at all grades.

But drill down and it’s plain to see that those structures are buttressed by a Cumann na mBunscol games programme that played a huge role in the development of the generation of players who have turned Limerick into a super-power at senior inter-county level.

We know this because it’s all documented thanks to the tireless work of Joe Lyons and Ciarán Crowe, who as well as being the long-serving Chairperson and PRO of Limerick Cumann na mBunscol respectively, have also produced the excellent The Green & White magazine for the past 26 years.

Launched in 1996, the Green & White has glamorised Cumann na mBunscol activities in Limerick for successive generations by shining a light on their achievements and also featuring regular interviews with their hurling, camogie and football heroes.

“It started out as a 16 page black and white A5 magazine and now it's a 72 page magazine full of colour,” says Joe Lyons, who was appointed national chairperson of Cumann na mBunscol last year.

“It's a great time to have a magazine about hurling and football in Limerick. Children love to read about their heroes, the Declan Hannons and all these. But equally they love to read about themselves. They love to see photos of their own competitions in it.

“We're the only county in Ireland that has such a magazine. Every club in Limerick buys a batch of them and then they're delivered to the schools by the GDAs who are working for Limerick County Board.

“It's a great way of promoting the game. And it's great to look back at it and see the photos of the likes of Cian Lynch and Aaron Gillane and all of these fellas playing back in the day.”

In a way, The Green & White is also a living historical document that offers clues as to why Limerick are now the dominant force in inter-county hurling.

Go back through the archives and you’ll find photos of this all-conquering generation of Limerick hurlers gazing back at you with boyish smiles.

One of the stand-out characteristics of the current Limerick panel is the number of players from City Division clubs on it.

William O'Donoghue, Peter Casey, Mike Casey, Conor Boylan (Na Piarsaigh), Diarmaid Byrnes, Cian Lynch, Aaron Gillane (Patrickswell), Gearoid Hegarty (St Patrick’s), Kyle Hayes (Kildimo-Pallaskenry), Colin Coughlan (Ballybrown), amd Cathal O'Neill (Crecora) all hail from City division clubs which is a much bigger representation than there would normally have been in the not too distant past.

The growing strength of the game in Limerick city has clearly had a considerable impact on the county’s fortunes, and this rising tide was first visible at Cumann na mBunscol level.

As principals of Ballybrown and Patrickswell National Schools respectively as well as officers with Limerick Cumann na mBunscol, Joe Lyons and Ciarán Crowe had ring-side views for the growing power of Limerick city hurling.

For many years Crowe was also manager of the Limerick City Mackey Cup team which is made up of the best primary school players in the city and competes annually against the same from the South, West, and East Divisions, so the shift of power was very noticeable.

“Yeah, I was in a very good position to see it because I'm from the city myself,” Crowe told GAA.ie

“In the late sixties and seventies and historically in the 40s there would always have been good strength in the city in clubs like Claughaun and St. Patrick's. Treaty Sarsfields, a club that's now defunct, was a hugely successful team.

“Then there was a drop in standard as the suburbs grew and initially there weren't clubs servicing those areas.

“You then had clubs arriving like Na Piarsaigh who located themselves in Caherdavin on the Ennis Road side of the city.

“By the 90s when I was involved as a selector and a coach for the Limerick City Mackey Cup team we were often the poor relations of the four divisional teams.

“But from the mid-90s/late 90s on we were equal strength and you could see the quality of players improving all the time.

“I’ll always remember Cian Lynch arriving on the scene. He was a very slight lad, not as well built as some of the lads he was playing against, but he had magic and you could see there was talent coming through that we hadn't seen before in the city.

“A very strong memory I have of Cian is of him playing at the age of 10 in an indoor U-10 hurling competition in the winter. He was doing this thing where he was turning counter-intuitively and hitting a ball from behind his back off a wall and running in a different direction.

“Not only were the youngsters he was playing against mesmerised by what he had done, I couldn't even figure the angles myself!

“It was like the most complicated snooker move you ever saw. And that was completely natural to him, he didn't think about it, he just did it.

“That sort of movement he had and how he turned just always stood out hugely for me.”

Crowe looks back on that time as “a perfect storm”. A generation of talented hurlers came along at the same time and had their natural ability hot-housed by dedicated teachers in a number of different primary schools in Limerick City.

Ballybrown NS, Patrickswell NS, Scoil Chriost Rí, John F Kennedy Memorial School, Monaleen NS, Mungret NS, and Milford NS all produced quality teams in the mid to late noughties and hot but healthy rivalries quickly grew.

Players who would go on to become team-mates and best friends with the Limerick senior team went toe to toe at primary school level in ferociously contested OLO Cups.

The blue riband competition of primary schools hurling in Limerick City since the 1930s, the OLO Cup was so named because it was donated by Bradshaw’s mineral water company who produced OLO (Our Lady’s Own) lemonade and orange.

Those players who stood out in the OLO Cup for their schools then came together under the Limerick City banner for the Mackey Cup.

When the Limerick City team won the Mackey Cup for the first time in 7 years in 2007, future county stars Cian Lynch (Patrickswell NS), William O’Donoghue (JFK), and David Dempsey (Scoil Chriost Rí) were team-mates.

Other current Limerick players like Kyle Hayes and the Casey brothers, Mike and Peter, also made the leap from the OLO Cup to the Mackey Cup and looked a bit special from a very early age.

“Kyle's athleticism was what stood out,” recalls Paul O’Connor, who coached Limerick City Mackey Cup teams alongside Crowe.

“He was just up and down the field non-stop, and you can obviously still see that now.

“My memory of Peter was his balance and his ability to turn lads inside out, basically. Then Mike Casey and another lad who got near the Limerick panel as well, Alan Dempsey, were together on another team at the same time.

“Even at that age you could see the doggedness in them. They liked defending and they were tough. It's great to watch them develop as adult hurlers because you feel like you have a great connection to the team when you see them growing up and having great success.”

If you’re a talented young hurler in the Limerick City Cumann na mBunscol division, then you won’t lack for matches to further develop your ability.

Win the OLO Cup and you’re then competing against the best schools from the other three divisions for the Limerick Leader Cup.

The best are exposed to a higher level again then in the Mackey Cup, and the best of the best have the opportunity to represent their school and county with the Limerick Primary Game team that plays at half-time in Munster SHC matches.

Limerick City schools have always produced talented hurlers. Brother Dormer nurtured the ability of players like Mike Nash, Declan Nash, Leo O’Connor, and Pat Davoren in Sexton Street CBS who backboned Limerick’s minor and U-21 All-Ireland success in ’84 and ’87.

What’s happening now though is that when the best hurlers from the city and beyond leave primary school they’ve already been talent identified and are benefiting from some joined-up thinking that gives them the best chance possible of making the grade as an inter-county hurler.

The development of Ard Scoil Rís as a hurling nursery at secondary school level has been huge. 15 of the Limerick panel that won the 2021 All-Ireland attended the North Circular Road school.

The Limerick GAA Academy structures are best in class, and because Limerick GAA’s Coaching and Games Department keep such a close eye on all levels of the game, the best young hurlers are being given every chance to fulfil their potential.

“That's exactly the way to describe it - there's joined-up thinking now,” says O’Connor.

“There's a very clear pathway and there's good communication between Cumann na mBunscol and Limerick Coaching and Games who would always give us great support.

“Noel Hartigan from South Liberties is over that and then you have the GDAs working in the schools.

“With the Mackey Cup you have four squads from all parts of Limerick with 21 in each squad. So, you have 84 players then to keep an eye on and you have a list of players and their clubs.

“Where I see the difference now is that we're bringing on more players. There are more players trained to a high level now. Even in the City division of Cumann na mBunscol, we now have two panels for the Mackey Cup.

“The players that come for trials and aren't selected on the Mackey Cup panel form another panel called the Mayor's Cup panel and they play the City's 'A' Division champions. So, before the OLO Cup champions would play the other three Divisional winners, they'd first have a warm-up game against the Mayor's Cup team.

“You'd have a bunch of lads predominantly from Division B and Division C schools who would be the best in their own schools and in this way get a chance to test themselves at a higher level.

“It's the same now at U-14, U-15, and U-16 in the Limerick Academy, you have two panels running at each age-group. The likes of Sean Finn and Aaron Gillane would have been on the 'B' panel when they were U-14, they were the two corner-forwards.

“So, lads who don't make the 'A' panel are being kept interested and coached to a high level whereas if that second panel wasn't there a gap would develop and it would be harder to make the leap into an elite county squad if you haven't been training at a high level.”

Back in 2015 when Kilkenny won their 10th All-Ireland in 14 years, an image that neatly summed up the county’s obsession with hurling did the rounds on social media.

It was a photo taken outside St. Kieran’s College chapel that showed dozens of hurleys lined up outside the front door that had been left there by pupils on their way into mass.

Limerick has always been a city of many sports, but now hurling is very much dominating the sporting consciousness of the youth in a way it never did before.

“Back in 2006 when I became principal of Ballybrown if we said we were having a colours day in the school, I would say at least half the children would come in with a Munster jersey and very few of them would come in with a Limerick jersey,” says Joe Lyons.

“Nowadays if there’s a colours day in any primary school in Limerick, I guarantee you that 95 per cent of the jerseys would be Limerick jersies.

“Success breeds success and everybody loves to be associated with success. At the moment the Limerick hurling team is top, without a shadow of a doubt.”

It’s not just in schools where hurling’s new status is visible. Ciarán Crowe sees it every day on the streets of Limerick City.

“Everybody now in the city wants to play hurling,” he says.

“You see the lads walking around the city with the Limerick jersey more than the Munster jersey or the Manchester United or Liverpool jersey. You're seeing lads walking around estates with a hurley in their hand as if it's an extension of their arm.

“You have to be mindful always that they're intoxicated by success and celebrity, and when you're on top that's what you have.

“With these homecomings we have and bringing Cups to schools and clubs, there's great visibility of this Limerick team.

“They're on television, they're back in your club, they're successful, it's glamorous. It's all good news for the past five years.

“It's made a huge change and people will follow what's successful and what's sold well and what's glamorous, and that's what it is at the minute in the city.”

Joe Lyons and Ciaran Crowe are both retired from teaching now and are most definitely not the type to seek credit for the considerable service they gave and continue to give to growing the game of hurling in Limerick city.

There is a quiet satisfaction though that really hit home when they co-authored the book, ‘At Last – Limerick’s long wait is over’, which chronicled Limerick’s 2018 All-Ireland Final win.

They interviewed all 36 players in the course of putting the book together, and, to a man, all of those players had happy memories of playing for their primary school in the Cumann na mBunscol, and most of them would have known both Joe and Ciaran personally from those days.

“They were so thrilled to be able to talk to us about the success and what it meant to them and their families,” says Crowe.

“That connection was copper-fastened and there was fabulous symmetry to the thing. It just neatly tied up the whole journey and the pathway.

“I'd often say what you get back from the kids makes all the effort you make with teams more than worthwhile. In particular in the school where you teach yourself.

“They know you go the extra mile and they know that you're doing something for them of your own free will. And you get that back in spades from them at every level.

“Not just when you ask them to respond when you're giving a team talk at half-time, also if you ask them to do their best in a test or to make a big effort for some other non-sports related activity in school.

“You can’t look at things in isolation because every club has hugely committed members developing their players as well, but we all played a part and it comes back to you with pleasure and pride.

“That's the thing, we feel involved. We know as teachers that all of us who put in the time with those lads, we played our part.

“We're proud of it and happy to have done it because it's a great story.”

The Kerry teacher and author, Bryan McMahon, once wrote that a teacher leaves the track of their teeth on a parish for three generations.

That’s certainly true as far as Gaelic Games is concerned.