Donie Nealon has left some legacy

IN ALL FAIRNESS

It’s fair to say Donie Nealon is the most consequential person in Tipperary GAA history. From player, to coach, to referee, to administrator, the indomitable Burgess man has done it all, and it was never for the limelight. His passion for the game of hurling was total, both for men and women, promoting both equally.

Donie has been prominent through what he has done more for what he said, which is the mark of a legacy. The phrase “if you want a job done, ask a busy person” is certainly attributable to him as he managed to be all four of the aforementioned roles, some at the same time, while also being a national school principal, and raising a family of his own.

You can’t give what Donie has given to the GAA and camogie down through the decades without the support and backing of one’s family which he had from his late wife Kitty, and his eight children, all of whom have taken on his and the Nealon family legacy, which Donie was handed on from his late father Rody.

In life, there are givers and takers, and the Nealon’s are very much givers, and the unveiling of the mural in recognition of Donie Nealon at Pairc na nGael, Kilcoleman, on Sunday evening, is very much for everyone he has worked with.

Donie said as much in his address: “I am being honoured here but it wouldn’t have been possible about those that played with me, my colleagues, my friends, by fellow players, we were on a team, and a team plays together and supports one another, and drive one another. I was on a team all the time and I wasn’t on my own.”

When you think of Donie Nealon and Michael ‘Babs’ Keating, you immediately think of their playing days together when Tipp won All-Ireland’s in 1964 & 1965. Then to 1971 when Donie was coach when Babs was central to that All-Ireland success. Off the field, they linked up again forty years ago this week in 1986 when then county chairperson Michael Lowry asked Babs to become senior hurling manager and finally lift Tipperary out of the hurling wilderness, and it was Nealon whom he turned to, to prepare the team, and less than twelve months later, led to one of the great Tipperary hurling days when they defeated Cork in the Munster Final replay in Killarney, ending a sixteen year wait for success.

However, it was his arrival in South Tipperary to teach in Crough National School which was arguably his greatest impact. As a young man, he could have easily focused on his fledgling teaching career and gotten on with hurling locally but he used his time there to spread the hurling gospel, as a hurling missionary, in a part of the county where Gaelic Football was king with Ardfinnan to the fore.

Ballybacon and Grange, great rivals, pulled together to form Liam Lynch’s to play in the junior hurling championship, but Donie’s arrival also helped spawn Na Piarsaigh, an amalgamation of five junior clubs to compete in the Tipperary senior hurling championship where they would get all the way to the final in 1957.

It provided the platform for the likes of Theo English, Tom Larkin, and Liam Connolly who would start on the Tipperary All-Ireland winning team of the following year, three South men – unheard of prior to that, four if you include Donie.

It was that which inspired the next generation, which included Michael ‘Babs’ Keating to become what he became. In a football mad area, they now had hurling heroes to finally look up and aspire to, from where Keating took on the baton, and from where the likes of John Leahy, Eoin Kelly, and more recently Seamus Kennedy have followed.

Every oak tree needs its acorn and arguably Donie Nealon was that for hurling in much of South Tipperary, and the county as a whole has benefited from that.

Donie Nealon could have been Tipperary manager on his own, could have been chairperson of Tipperary GAA or Munster GAA, or indeed GAA President if he wanted to, but he was a man who preferred to be at the coalface, on the field as a player or coach, or behind the scenes as secretary at North Tipperary and Munster level, help things work smoothly from where many people benefitted from be it a player achieving success or a supporter enjoying that success.

For Donie Nealon, it has been a live well lived and while he might have said on Sunday night that it is time for this man of iron to start to rust, he doesn’t believe that himself!