Joe Connolly: A Speech to Remember

Galway hurling was as low as those slate grey Connemara skies in 1973. The nadir came that year with the All-Ireland quarter-final defeat to London. It was fight or flight time for a county chasing its first All-Ireland title since 1923.

Comeback stories – in this case the romantic tale of the renaissance of Galway hurling – don’t happen without heroes. MJ ‘Inky’ Flaherty, a legendary hurling figure in the county from his playing days in the 1930s through to the ‘50s, was the revolutionary figurehead who brought about the sea change in attitudes in the west.

Flaherty, in his second stint as manager, took on the job of recalibrating the mindsets of a beleaguered group of players who had known only years of toil with little success. It worked and the results were immediate. Galway came from nowhere to win the 1975 National League title before losing the All-Ireland final to Kilkenny that September.

The success starved Galway people once again had a team to relate to and a cause to rally around. The latter half of the decade saw a massive upsurge in support for the team. It was instigated by the success of the ’75 side and their gradual re-emergence as a hurling force over the next few years.

A succession of near misses, including an All-Ireland semi-final replay defeat to Wexford in ’76, as well as the ’79 final loss to Kilkenny, having shocked four-in-a-row chasers Cork in the semi-finals, cranked up the intensity. In between, Galway had won an All-Ireland U21 title, in ’78, and there was a palpable feeling of expectation amongst an expectant Galway public.

Joe Connolly, who came into the Galway set-up in 1976, was named captain of the side in 1980, a year that will forever be synonymous with Galway hurling.

“It was ravenous, the hunger in the county for All-Ireland success, because there was decade after decade of heartbreak, near defeats,” he says. “By the time the new decade started in 1980, I’d say that for players, management and supporters, there was absolute starvation and absolute focus. It was a huge county effort.”

If ‘Inky’ Flaherty was the man who kick-started the revolution, Connolly, the Texaco Hurler of the Year in 1980, was the on-field manifestation of the passion and desire of the Galway people. He was their leader and inspiration.

Galway beat Offaly – who had eliminated Kilkenny in the Leinster final - in the All-Ireland semi-final before meeting Limerick in the final at Croke Park on September 7, 1980. It’s a date that still resonates with generations of Galway people. The Tribesmen, captained by the messianic Connolly, ended a 57-year famine, dating back to 1923, with a 2-15 to 3-9 defeat of Limerick. With it came validation and, finally, a sense of belonging for Connolly.

“I know I used to feel an awful sense of not belonging. When I met fellas with All-Ireland medals, I had a sense of inadequacy in myself,” he says. “I couldn’t believe or imagine what life would be like to have an All-Ireland medal in your pocket. Genuinely. Going into it, you would know there was a fair chance because we were in the ’79 final and we were back again a year later so we knew what was ahead of us. I think though we lost ‘Iggy’ Clarke, who was our number one player, and he was a huge loss, at the same time we had 15 able-bodied men on the field on the day.”

Connolly, now 53 and a selector with the current Galway Senior team, thinks back to those storied days and can put the ramifications into perspective. The memories are as vivid as ever and the pure joy it brought to his people, the people of the west, still swells his chest. He describes that day, the outpouring of unfettered emotions, with an affecting warmth and earnestness. It was, he says, a spiritual reawakening for a population that had been torn apart by mass emigration and, before that, famine.

“I believe it was an outpouring of who we are and what we are in the west of Ireland,” he recalls. “I honestly subscribe to the theory that the Galway hurling team was a west of Ireland creation as regards the whole province. It was the sense of place and the sense of at long last.

“I think the outpouring of joy was a very genuine one because it was the time came to stand among the Leinsters and the Munsters in the pedestal of hurling. I believe it was a very genuine outpouring of affection for the team and the effort that was going in. It was a team full of characters that resonated with the population of Galway.

“One of the things I noticed an awful lot was the diversity of people of all over the county. The football stronghold of north Galway, Tuam and that, and very much as well the Irish speaking people of Connemara followed us everywhere. On the way in and out, you would hear an awful lot of the native Irish speakers who followed the team.”

The Speech
He battled through a throng of delirious, back-slapping fans wearing cartoonish rosettes and maroon-coloured paper hats to accept the Liam MacCarthy Cup in the Hogan Stand. Connolly, the quintessential son of the west: swarthy, vital, possessed of a beguiling character and the most lyrical Irish, delivered an All-Ireland winning speech that will never be bettered. Or even matched.

People of Galway, after 57 years the All-Ireland title is back in Galway...It’s wonderful to be from Galway on a day like today. There are people back in Galway with wonder in their hearts, but also we must remember (Galway) people in England, in America, and round the world and maybe they are crying at this moment…People of Galway, we love you!"

Connolly, from Ballybrit, just outside Galway city, delivered the speech in his native Irish. His parents hailed from Connemara and he knew he had to say it as Gaeilge. But that’s as far as the preparations went. The rest came off the cuff and straight from the heart.

“I know if I thought of it that I would mention the emigrants. That was something that really resonated, that the family would come from England and America for All-Ireland semi-finals and finals if we got into them. There was the dare not think about it because 57 years was a long time.”

The final phrase echoed the address given by Pope John Paul II at the Ballybrit racecourse, a few hundred yards from where Connolly grew up, to an estimated 280,000 people in 1979. Some would argue the words delivered from the steps of the Hogan Stand will outlive those that came from the papal pedestal.

Connolly passed the mike to Joe McDonagh – who would later serve as Uachtarán Chumann Luthchleas Gael – and his iconographic, warbled rendition of the West’s Awake crystallised that day as one of the most memorable in the history of the GAA.

“That was the iconic moment. I think that it resonated with the west of Ireland that the speech was being given in Irish. It was a manifestation of where we are from. I think for the first time ever in the history of the GAA, McDonagh grabbing the mike and singing our anthem, our moment of arriving. The West’s Awake was THE moment. Those words put it into the archive.”

Connolly recalls that intoxicating day with great affection. The team gathered for the 25th anniversary in Croke Park five years ago and spent a week on holidays together in Portugal to mark the occasion. It was like they had never been apart. Although most of the players are in their fifties now, the bond between them is still as strong as it was in 1980.

Another five years have passed since then and the 30th anniversary will be celebrated in September. It’ll be a bitter sweet for Connolly, who admits that he is tormented by Galway’s failure to capitalise on the success of the 1980s, which saw two more All-Ireland titles come at the end of the decade.

“My great sadness and regret is that 22 years have gone by since the last one. There is a mixture tinged with sadness that due to Galway’s own fault, and the way hurling was run in the county, that it was never grasped as a real opportunity. Not managers, but by officialdom. That era was never run with and Galway lost the ambition and became satisfied with underage success.”

Rather than grow fat on the memories of 1980, Connolly decided to bequeath his experience to the current crop. That’s his way. That, he feels, is his duty. He got the call from John McIntyre, the current inter-county manager, to come on board as a selector. It’s time for Galway to create some new memories and for the sepia-hewed footage of the past to remain in the archive.

The lack of success has been the stone in his shoe for the last 22 years.

“It’s eating me. It’s eating a lot of people in Galway. When the phone call came from John McIntyre to get involved to get in Galway, I thought we could put a set-up together that would maximise the opportunity for Galway to win an All-Ireland again. Obviously it was one that was an easy decision for me. Once you stop playing, all you have is the success, or not, of the teams that you played with and after going 20 years it’s a huge influence for you.”

A National League win in 1975 sparked Galway’s remarkable revival. With Connolly in tow, the league title was brought back west again this year. There’s no way the people of Galway could cope without an All-Ireland title for another 57 years. Perhaps the West’s Awake will reverberate around Croke Park again this year.