Legends: Joe Connolly
This Saturday will see Galway hurling icon Joe Connolly revisit his most famous day in the maroon jersey, when he takes part in the All-Ireland Legends Tour at Croke Park.
Taking place on the eve of Galway's All-Ireland hurling final clash with Kilkenny, Joe will look back on that famous day in 1980, when he captained the Tribesmen to victory on hurling's biggest day, ending a 57-year famine in the process.
Click here for information on how to book for Joe's Legends Tour.
Here's an exclusive interview GAA.ie conducted with Joe ahead of the weekend.
BEING A 'LEGEND'
The first thing you do is laugh a lot anyway, that's for sure. But it's nice to be part of a huge GAA family, especially when your career is finished, in that there's no more enmity or whatever like that left.
This is a chance to meet some people in a fairly relaxed setting. It's a nice thing to do.
BREAKING ONTO THE GALWAY PANEL
It was in the autumn of 1975 that I started. Galway had made a fairly big breakthrough, first of all by winning the league in 1975 and then reaching the All-Ireland final that year. And I came on to the panel the following month, onto the new panel for the following league.
INKY FLAHERTY
Inky came on board in the mid 1970s and everything changed. In 1973, Galway had been beaten in the All-Ireland quarter-final by London, which was amazing, and within two years under Inky we were in an All-Ireland final.
In 1974, Inky came in as manager or as coach, whatever it was called then, and he started talking a kind of new language about Galway, about positivity and capability and confidence and all that kind of thing.
In fairness, there was a good group of hurlers there who had won the 1972 All-Ireland U21 final, Iggy Clarke and company, Frank Burke, PJ Molloy and those. And there was a nice team there but it was kind of a relatively disorganised Galway set-up that became much better under Inky, and I think his language started resonating with the lads very well.
There were years then of build-up. In 1976 we had two classic matches against Wexford in the semi-final, a draw and then the replay which we lost. Then in 1977 and 1978 it was kind of build-up time, and then in 1979 we won an All-Ireland semi-final so that was the start of the new era.
GOOD TIMES
It was the start of a wonderfully exciting time for a young lad, to be part of. One of the things that I distinctly remember about the late 1970s and early 1980s was the great connection between supporters and the team. It was great to be a part of that.
Not only the playing or the competition or the training, but also the great craic and nights and sessions and everything else that went with it. It was a brilliant, brilliant time to think back on.
ENDING THE FAMINE
There's three big ones. Kilkenny, Cork and Tipperary, and then the rest of us. That year, we just passed them out with our hard work. So then Clare, Offaly and Wexford, they sort of saw what we were doing and were successful at and they started working even harder. And now the workrate has just gone up and up now, and you have a team like Kilkenny today. But there will always be the big three and then the rest.
But it makes it even more special to be part of a county or team that has only occasional success. We weren't our own best servers at the time, in Galway. There was a lot of lack of ambition, something that also happened in the 1990s and the 2000s actually. Things weren't put in place, and there was no urgency about Galway hurling. We sat on the laurels of the 1980s, that it was going to happen again but we kind of ended up sleepwalking through a couple of decades there as regards ambition in the county, just concentrating on underage success.
When you're in a minority in anything, which is what Galway hurling and hurlers would be like, it makes anybody who's a part of it extraordinarily determined within the set-up. What we didn't have was the structures, not as much as other counties had. But it just made it very, very special to be part of it. And then extraordinarily special to be part of a team that won an All-Ireland within that.
THE MAGIC YEAR OF 1980
We won the club All-Ireland with Castlegar earlier on in 1980. There were actually five Connolly brothers on that team and two on the panel. John, Paraic, Michael, myself and Gerry were playing and Tom and Murt were subs on the Castlegar panel.
But that was a culmination of a team that came right as well. And I think that it resonated an awful lot around the county that we could win a club All-Ireland for the first time ever. We beat an all star Blackrock team in the All-Ireland semi-final. They had seven or eight of the Cork team at the time that had won the league only a few weeks before that, so the fact that a Galway club team could beat them kind of reinforced it around the county that these could be different times.
RAILWAY CUP
We also won the Railway Cup that year for the first time in 33 years, so that was a great thing to have going into the summer. Castlegar had won the club All-Ireland, beaten all-comers you could say, and then we had won the Railway Cup as well so that was another sign.
Having been in all four finals in 1979, the Railway Cup, the National League, the All-Ireland and the Oireachtas, and having lost the four of them, it was a great start the following year to win the two we did, because the Railway Cup was played on St. Patrick's Day and the club All-Ireland was on June 1, so it set us up.
WINNING LIAM
There was a bit of the risen people about it. I always think of Galway in relation to that. The way that a people, who had been defeated decade after decade with extraordinary hard luck stories through a lot of the 1940s and 1950s especially, that finally our day had come.
It was completely about winning an All-Ireland and finishing the famine. The fact that it was the first year of a new decade as well probably stayed in peoples' memories as well, longer than if it was mid decade or something.
For us it was completely about the long wait for that win and the extraordinary emotions that kind of brought in Galway people worldwide.
I don't think we have a diaspora anywhere in the country like we have in Galway. So what it did for the Galway people overseas was wonderful. It was just a dream come true ten times over. We didn't grow up in a world where winning All-Ireland seniors was going to be on the agenda so to attain that was just amazing and wonderful.
INTO THE WEST
It still resonates, absolutely, being of the west. Basically and utterly in what we're about. Being the men of the west, I think we are unique that we are the only county in Connacht that can take on the others and I think it's a huge thing.
For us, our culture, our language and our geographical location and everything, for me, makes up the package of what it is to be a Galway hurler or footballer. But certainly with hurling it's really unique because we're the only ones playing it. But it's a huge part of what I'm about. It still probably has no bearing on results, but for us, as carriers of something, of being the men of the west, it is a huge thing.
= =
The Joe Connolly All-Ireland Legends Tour is on this Saturday, September 8, at 12pm at Croke Park.
Booking is essential as places are limited. Click here for more information.