Crossing the Great Divide

Killinan End

Pulses will quicken a little around Callan and Mullinahone this weekend with the arrival of Tipperary to the Marble City for another joust at a venue that has seen a fiery contests between the counties down the decades.

It is a game of some significance too with a National League Final place a real target for Tipperary, while Kilkenny will be happy to get a couple of more points on the board to stave off the possibility of relegation. Should Kilkenny lose their last two games and Clare win theirs that is the prospect that would be facing the Leinster team. They would hardly lack motivation anyway. Friction between the counties is a given. But it did not always rule out cordial relations.

Mick Kenny was born in Callan in 1922 and was one of the rare cases of someone who wore both the Blue and Gold as well as his native Black and Amber, living to tell the tale fruitfully. Like many a man of his time, Kenny became part of the expansion of the army during the ‘emergency’ provision in this country during the Second World War. We were not part of the war, but neither were we unaware of potential threats to national security. He was appointed to Kickham Barracks in Clonmel and so began an unlikely connection with the neighbouring county across the most hotly contested border in hurling.

Apart from competing in fairly serious level inter-army hurling competitions, Mick Kenny also lined out with Marlfield in South Tipperary in the 1940s. By 1950 he was back hurling club in his native county with Graigue and had established himself as Kilkenny’s centre-half-forward. That season came on the heels of a Kilkenny Leinster Final defeat against Laois at Nowlan Park in 1949, a match played on the same day that Tipp beat Limerick in the Munster Final by the Lee. A day when Jimmy Kennedy struck ten points and the Irish Press reporter claimed that “no praise was too high” for Tony Reddin in the Tipp goal.

1950 would be a significant year in the Tipp-Kilkenny annals. Not since the 1945 All-Ireland Final had the teams met in a game with a trophy at stake. That was soon to change profoundly. The National League Final was important not just for its own merits but there also was the small matter of a trip to New York for the winners. Though Kilkenny were missing Jim Langton, by now considered indispensable by the Nore for his scoring prowess, Mick Kenny was a post-1949er playing his part with none of the baggage of the Laois defeat of the previous year. The League Final was a game Tipp threatened to run away with building up an eleven point lead during the second-half. In shades of the 2003 League Final between the same teams at the same venue Tipp had to endure a rampant Kilkenny fightback. Scoring 1-5 without reply encouraged the Kilkenny People newspaper to declare – despite a three-point defeat – “a moral victory”.

It certainly produced a level of courage and belief that saw Kilkenny again bring Tipp right to the brink in the All-Ireland Final later in the year. The Irish Press described Tipp as “the hardest hitting team we have seen in many years” but the Black and Amber with Mick Kenny as captain, gave almost as good as they got losing by just a point. Kenny’s position as captain was as a result of Graigue beating Tullaroan by a point in the 1949 County Final, with the man himself scoring the winner. He was also captain of Kilkenny in 1958 having won another County title with Callan, though the club had no starter on the team that lost the All-Ireland semi-final to Tipp. He played centre-back on the Callan team that beat Slieverue in the County Final of ’57 – neither club has played in one since. In September 1957 he had scored 2-5 – half of Kilkenny’s entire winning total in the All-Ireland Final against Waterford.

In between the contributions with Kilkenny, he declared for Tipp adding an All-Ireland Junior medal in 1953 to the one he had won in Black and Amber in 1946. A year later, along with his Junior teammate Theo English, he won a National League medal against his native county when Tipp had a resounding win over Kilkenny. He gave an outstanding performance at wing-back on day of torrential rain that saw many games postponed and abandoned around the country. It was also the day a young Billy Quinn took the Diamond Hayden for a hat-trick. Kenny’s direct opponent that day, Mick Kelly, would captain the successful Kilkenny team three years later when Mick Kenny was so effective in attack. In 1958 he transferred back to Callan for work and so ended his Tipperary connection. Mick Kenny died in the last days of 2003 and can be said to have successfully crossed the great divide on the hurling field too.