“YUDDY, yuddy, yuddy, yup, yup, yup, who’s goin to win the Harty Cup?”
That’s what the ‘cheer leader’ sang and we’d all answer back “C-o-l-m-a-n-s - Colmans.”
Ah yes, though it’s more than 50 years ago, I can recall getting off the bus near Clonmult Memorial GAA Park in Midleton and we all roaring that song at the top of our voices.
Back then in the 1970s, I think nearly every pupil in the college went to Harty matches. We talk of the Liam MacCarthy and Sam Maguire cups, but the Silver Symbol of Senior College Hurling in Munster was, and still is, the far famed and coveted Harty Cup.
St Colman’s always competed well year after year in the Harty, but in my day in the Fermoy college we survived on fading memories of the time Colman’s won two-in-a-row - but that was back in the last two years of the 1940s! A long, long famine for a school that always produced great hurlers and some outstanding teams.
Fr Bertie Troy I always remember as a central figure in the preparation of the Harty teams in Colman’s. Well, in the autumn of 1972, the talk everywhere was that we had a ‘handy team’ that could rattle the Harty.
We beat Flannan’s in Fitzgerald Park. Fermoy, in October - a ‘goal-fest’, we won by 6-9 to 5-5. The North Mon had got a bye in the first round. With their five Cork Minors they were fancied by many of the so-called ‘experts’ to win the title.
A cold November Wednesday in Midleton was our chance for glory. Twice ever at a GAA game was I in dread of my life - that day was one of them!
Our cheering, roaring group of supporters - several hundred including yours truly - were at the Town side of the pitch. The Mon supporters were at the far side - where the Midleton GAA pavilion now stands. We shouted, they roared - they chanted and we roared back.
Then, at half-time, the unthinkable happened as the Mon crowd made their way around behind the goals towards us - Fr Eamonn Barry was in the ‘interface’ between the rival supporters! The atmosphere was tension -filled as flags and banners clashed and verbal exchanges went back and forth. The referee intervened to try and separate the fans.
Eventually, the hostilities subsided as the game restarted. St Colman’s were just superb in their hurling that day, winning a great game by 3-8 to 3-3. Oh lads, we sang “Yuddy, yuddy, yuddy…” with gusto that afternoon.
Our ecstasy was short-lived however. As our bus was leaving the town of Midleton, bottles, cans and a few stones were thrown at our bus - lads, we were glad to be out over the Railway Crossing and heading for celebrations in the town of Fermoy.
We were through to the semi-final … or so we thought. The Mon objected on a technicality about team affiliation - at the time I think every school in the competition was guilty of the same technical rule breach. St Colman’s counter-objected - after all, we had won the game fair and square.
After weeks of hearings and behind-closed-door deliberations, both teams were thrown out. The Mon had been fairly beaten so ‘twas of no matter to them, but we in Colman’s felt we’d been blackguarded in an awful manner. To this day, a picture of that 1972/73 Harty team hangs proudly in the college with the caption ‘The St Colman’s team that never lost a Harty game’.
Memories of that day in Midleton 52 years ago were among the hundreds of moments and personalities recalled down in Kenmare last week. Yes, in Kenmare in the Kingdom of Kerry, where a group of the Class of 1969-1974 gathered for a reunion in the Kenmare Bay Hotel. They came by plane, train, car and van - John L. O’Sullivan even cycled from Cork city!
As we gathered on a wet, miserable Tuesday afternoon, it was just a marvellous feeling to meet men with whom we had spent five formative years of our younger lives.
When more than 100 of us walked into Colman’s for the first time in September, 1969, we were awe-struck. A magnificent new building with state-of-the art classrooms, a language laboratory, and a huge Assembly Hall were all there for us.
Boarding was still the norm, so in my first year we had lads from across the Diocese of Cloyne - from near the Kerry, Limerick and Waterford borders and every parish in between.
Back in 2019, the first talk of a reunion was mooted but then Covid reared its ugly head. We had a few mini-gatherings over the last few years before the Kenmare event was planned finally last autumn.
The fleeting nature of human life was brought home to us looking through the list of names of 1969 First Years who have died. Since last year we lost two more of our comrades, Brendan Terry and John Joe Whelan, may they rest in peace.
On Tuesday evening, as our numbers grew, I realised that lads had come from England and all parts of Ireland.
Over the past five decades, I’ve often met maybe 15 or so of my classmates - you could call them ‘locals’ in the Fermoy area. In Kenmare, then, seeing faces for the first time in half a century was so very special.
Before we sat down to dinner, Pat Hurley, who, along with Kieran Cogan and Neilus Ahern, were organisers of the event, spoke briefly, welcoming us all from here, there and everywhere. Pat then asked for a minute’s silence, having read out the names of the lads who once sat with us and are no longer with us.
We had a great night and the revelry continued well into the morning. The dawn was nearly breaking before the company finally went for a few hours of rest.
You know, we never spoke much of careers, pensions or plans for the future. No, our conversations, stories and funny incidents were rooted firmly in that half decade from September of 1969 until June, 1974, when we did the leaving Cert.
We spoke at length of ‘that’ Harty game and others we won and the ones that got away.
Many of the lads who had been boarders in the College remembered illicit nocturnal trips to the Top Hat or looking longingly at the Loreto girls across the road in their short green dresses - in fairness, us day-boys weren’t immune from that gazing - oh, to think of it!
Tough corporal punishment in schools was still the norm back then and we recalled things that wouldn’t be believed nowadays. While food rationing had finished at the end of World War II, the St Colman’s Refectory in 1969 went by ‘the survival of the fittest’ - and the fastest in claiming scarce potatoes at dinner time.
As we laughed and sang into the early hours of a March morning, we were truly aware of the common bond that still unites us after all these years - we were all Colman’s men - and proud of it.
We gathered again next morning for a leisurely breakfast. As we sat around tables, I think we all had that inner feeling - ‘yes, lads, it’s great to be here’, and please God, in the near future the boys of ‘69 - now heading for that age - will meet again soon.
Thanks for the memories last week in Kenmare, and for the friendships forged long ago but still as strong as ever five decades later.
We met again as old friends do
At first constrained by passing years
But classmates’ faces soon take form
And hand clasps hand amid brief tears
And suddenly the years recede
The time between has ceased to be
And we are classmates once again
The carefree friends we used to be.
(Lynne Fleming Wilburn)
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