Donie Nealon's tentacles are everywhere

KILLINAN END

An electric photo of a Burgess team about to leave the dressing-room before a North Intermediate Final, with an animated Donie Nealon shouting last-minute advice, is pure gold. It captures perhaps the quintessential man of Burgess and Youghalarra in full Green & Gold mode. Yet, despite his extraordinary contribution locally, Nealon’s story has an elasticity going beyond geographical boundaries. His exploits in Blue & Gold were remarkable even in an extraordinary team with immortals throughout. But this yarn reveals a man of many jerseys.

His achievements are the more remarkable because they happened at all. When he was a young man in one of the most northerly outposts of the county, the old line mentioned by Raymond Smith that “nothing much came from a line north of Cashel to Borrisoleigh” held weight. The 1954 Tipperary minor team – Donie Nealon’s vintage – had just two North Tipp starters in the All-Ireland Final: Nenagh’s Mick Burns and Willie O’Donovan of Toomevara.

Six years later, in club colours, O’Donovan was captain in maybe the Toomevara Greyhounds’ finest hour – and it is a rich menu – when they toppled Thurles Sarsfields in the 1960 County Final. He was a colleague of Donie Nealon in the famed blue jersey of St Flannan’s, Ennis in the 1954 Harty Cup final. Flannan’s beat Thurles CBS by three points in the Gaelic Grounds when Con Murphy – erstwhile Cork full-back and future GAA President - refereed. O’Donovan lined out at midfield; Nealon at left-half-forward. The blue jersey seeped with talent.

Paddy O’Malley of Cappamore was at midfield; two years later he played for Limerick in the Munster Final against Cork. In those days of Cappamore’s glory club-mate Séamus Ryan lined out at wing-back. The mind boggles to think that Ryan played centre-back for Limerick Seniors just a year later when they won the Munster Final. No small matter that. In 1956 the Limerick Leader expounded on what was required of a player in the Munster Championship cauldron: “He must be prepared to put his hand and head where a sensible man wouldn’t put a crowbar – that’s the secret of hurling success against a team like Cork or Tipperary in a Munster Championship tie.” Handy enough so. Nealon and Séamus Ryan were walking in the shadow of a pioneering spirit; their fathers had played Munster Championship hurling against each other as early as 1918.

Six North Tipp men won Harty Cup medals that day: Jack Collison (Moneygall); Kevin Gaynor (Kilruane), perhaps the only Australian-born Harty Cup medallist? Willie O’Donovan (Toomevara); Donie Nealon (Burgess); Mick Gilmartin (Nenagh), and Séamus Gardiner (Borrisokane), who went on to become St Flannan’s royalty. Seven Harty Cup finalists, including Nealon, were chosen for the Munster Colleges’ team, which lost by three points to Leinster Colleges the following Sunday. It was Nealon’s Croke Park debut on a ground where he would make enough hay to fill the barns of Ballywilliam.

Another of Donie Nealon’s jerseys was that of University College Dublin. There was quite a backdrop to the 1961 Dublin Senior hurling final when UCD met St Vincent’s. The Marino club were a powerful force, proudly flying the Dublin flag against teams like New Irelands and Faughs, filled with countrymen. Vincent’s had won eleven of the previous twelve County football titles – the single loss being to a college team. This was Erin’s Hope from St Pat’s, Drumcondra, when All-Ireland winners Galway’s Mattie MacDonagh and Kerry’s Tom Long featured. Vincent’s had won five of the previous eight hurling titles as well. Losing was not their thing. Dropping county titles to country lads whose real loyalties lay elsewhere was unendurable. A college team likely inflamed sensitivities further. While UCD won the Fitzgibbon Cup against UCG, the County Final would be different gravy. Parlour hurlers need not apply.

UCD was a packed team. Donie Nealon was wing-forward beside Lisdowney’s Mick Carroll – father of Thurles Sarsfields’ Brendan, and Pat Henchy of Ruan and Clare. Mick Carroll’s brother, Ted - Hurler of the Year 1969 - was centre-back, while Patsy Nealon of Burgess helped make up another pair of brothers. It was always going to be intense but this final went a fair bit beyond that. The match finished 13-aside amid some ferocious exchanges. Donie Nealon finished with two goals; the exact margin between the teams as UCD won the day.

Most telling of the extra-curricular jerseys worn by Donie Nealon was perhaps the least well-known. Teaching in Crough National School in the parish, he threw his lot in with Ballybacon which fed into a Senior combination of Junior clubs called Na Piarsaigh. They beat Carrick Swan in the 1957 South Final and overcame Nenagh in the County semi-final. Junior clubs or not this South team had oodles of talent including Theo English. Though coming up short against an all-powerful Thurles Sarsfields in the final, their achievement echoed. When Tipp won the All-Ireland Senior Hurling Final against Galway a year later, the starting forward line included Liam Connolly, Tom Larkin and Donie Nealon from that County Final team. Other colleagues were Jimmy Doyle and Ray Reidy who both played for Thurles in that 1954 Harty Final. Tentacles everywhere: a story of Burgess and Tipperary, but that’s only the half of it.