Hannon hails Currid's impact on Limerick hurling

By John Harrington

As Declan Hannon watched his former Limerick team-mates dig deep to beat Clare in the All-Ireland SHC semi-final by scoring an unanswered 1-5 in the final 18 minutes of the match, one person was foremost in his mind - Caroline Currid.

Hannon is convinced that the togetherness and mental strength that Limerick showed to find a way to win a game that looked gone from them is borne from the work that the team has done over a sustained period of time with Currid, the team’s highly regarded Performance Coach.

“There's a real respect there in the Limerick camp and it transfers onto the field like it did against Clare with the way they just kept grinding it out and grinding it out,” says Hannon.

“A part of that is obviously your training but a huge part of that is the mental side of it, to just refuse to drop the head, and that's been built up over the last 10 years and Caroline has been amazing.

“Her record speaks for itself with Limerick. When she's been around we've won the All-Ireland and, when she hasn't, we haven't. It's going okay this year for her again!”

Currid is part of the Limerick backroom team this year for the first time since 2023. In her absence, a Limerick team that won five All-Irelands in six years with her as their performance coach failed to reach the final in successive yeras.

Hannon is well qualified to gauge just how important Currid has been to this golden era of Limerick hurling because he also hurled six championship campaigns with the Treaty County before she came on board with John Kiely in 2017.

If he were to pick one quality she brought to the group more than any other, it would be trust.

She facilitated honest conversations between team-mates that would never have happened before and in doing so she forged bonds between them that translated to greater unity on the pitch as well as off it.

“The mental side of the game is gone really important,” says Hannon. “Like, my first year in 2011, there was very little mental preparation at all.

“Just kind of go out there and see how you get on and if you have any issues, sure, look after yourself kind of a thing and just brush them under the carpet.

"Whereas now lads have so much going on, they're busy in personal lives and work, and they could have anything at all going on.

“Caroline was a person you could talk to, express your feelings to. It could be so small but it could lead to something a lot bigger.

“You know, these lads need to be 100% mentally ready to go for All-Ireland semi-finals and finals because if they're not they just won't last I suppose.

“So, she's been fantastic in terms of getting the Limerick lads more comfortable with having uncomfortable conversations and expressing your feelings.

“It's a difficult thing to do. It took us a long time to get it right and to trust the people in the room that it wasn't going to go outside the room either, that's a big part of it.

“You're in a room with your peers, 36 players, and everyone I suppose is trying to be the tough macho man and you don't want to let the guard down.

“It takes time to build up that trust that it won't get outside the room, because lads were discussing personal things that are hard to talk about to one person not to mind 36 lads in a room, but it created an unbelievable bond like. It's just a bond there that's difficult to break.

“You might say, 'sure how does that have to do with hurling?' But, jeez, it counts hugely in those moments when it's coming towards the end of the game and you need that unity there that will get you over the line for a finish.

“There's just that trust and unity there that nobody wants to let the side down, nobody's going to let the side down.

“When you were playing you'd look to your left, there's Kyle Hayes, look to your right, there's Diarmuid Byrnes. In front of you is Darragh O'Donovan and Cian Lynch and behind you is Dan Morrissey, Sean Finn.

“You can trust those guys that regardless if you're 5 points down with two minutes to go or five points up, you're still just going to do the job and get over the line eventually. It was so evident against Clare.

“They were probably off it a small bit against Clare but never ever put their head down or threw in the towel and they just grinded it out. They were second-best but semi-finals are just there to be won, and all that work off the field transferred on to it."

Hannon will always be remembered as one of the greatest players of his generation and the man who captained Limerick to five All-Ireland titles, but he’s not sure he would have fully unlocked his ability without Currid.

He was scarred by his experience as a 20-year-old in the 2013 All-Ireland SHC semi-final when he was substituted in the 50^th minute having missed a series of scoreable frees.

In the aftermath of Limerick’s defeat to Clare that day he received hate-mail blaming him for the loss, and he carried a burden for years that he was only able to shed with the help of Currid.

“There was a bit of embarrassment there that you felt that you'd really let the county down,” he says.

“It was probably just niggling there in the background the whole time, you felt like you probably owed it to your teammates and supporters and stuff to do something to get over it.

“So yeah, there was definitely a niggle there. When Caroline came in in 2017 it was the first thing I wanted to say and it was a massive weight off my shoulders.

“She just normalised the whole thing. Your head can be really strong, you can be going around in riddles there, and building something up that you don't need to be building up at all. She's amazing for just saying that, 'You’re reading way too much into this, let's just chat this out and simplify the whole thing.'

"We all probably go through different things, and your head is a strong thing, and it can lead you to a strange place at times.

“That’s why performance coaches or psychologists are so important because players have too much going on to handle on their own I think. You’re trying to balance work, family and loads of other bits and pieces that go on in the background.

“You’re expected to perform then in front of 82,000 people on a Sunday, so they need support and we're lucky in Limerick we've the best in the game, I think.

“I don't think people put enough emphasis on how important it is to talk about everything that's going on. It's just a weight off your shoulders. I'm sure everyone has experienced this when they were bottling something up and eventually the gasket blew.

“l think it's easier just to get everything out on the table. But, again it comes back to the person you're talking to. Do you trust them you're not going to hear this off Johnny down the shop next week?”

The trust that exists between this generation of Limerick hurlers is very obvious in how they hurl together as a unit for the greater good of the team.

Defenders cover for each other rather than mind their own patch and forwards offload to a team-mate in a better position rather than go for glory themselves.

“There can't be any egos or looking after your own patch, that doesn't work,” says Hannon.

“I'm sure you see it over the years in different teams the attitude, ‘Ah, I'm playing here so I'll stand here and if I win my battle, sure, happy days.' But the team loses so that just doesn't cut it.

“It hasn't been a thing in Limerick for a long time which is great. It's an amazing thing to be a part of when you have that team where there's no egos, that lads aren't looking out for themselves, lads are looking out for each other.

“And even with the mental health side of things, there's correlations there the whole time, off the field and on the field, it works in tandem and it's a really strong team to be a part of and you take huge confidence from having a group that are totally selfless in everything they do, and if any bit of selfishness comes in, you'll be told fairly quickly that it's not going to be tolerated.

“That's probably the one thing I miss the most, that unity in the group and we're on this journey together trying to achieve something, but we're doing it in a way that's beneficial to everybody, not just me or not just you it's for everybody, all the players, the backroom team, your families, everybody comes into it, so there's a big family there trying to succeed in terms of winning the All-Ireland.”

Having led Limerick to five All-Ireland titles from 2018 to 2023, Hannon is now no longer part of that family.

What does it feel like watching on from a distance like everyone else rather than being an integral part of a group that meant so much to him for so long?

“It’s different, yeah, it’s totally different,” he says.

“You're so used to being involved in such a high performing environment all the time. It's more the friendships though I think, they're the lads you soldiered with for a long, long time and they're your buddies, that's been the hardest part, you don't get to meet them as often as you'd like to.

“You get to meet them only sporadically. I'm living in Dublin now so it's even harder to get to meet them but I think there's such a bond there it's kind of like, you know, any of you that have good buddies, you might not see them for 6 months and then you meet them and it’s like you've met each other every day of the week.

“It's strange but I'm enjoying going to the games, it's great auld fun going in and meeting the supporters from both sides, it's a good auld craic. At times though you'd be in the stand and there could be a few choice words thrown in and you're wondering if they're watching the same match as you at all.

“So, it took a bit of getting used to in that side of things as well but I'm enjoying it. Looking back I had a great time playing with Limerick, plenty of ups and downs and for me the time was right to get out of the way and go and support the boys for the next 2 weeks. It's different but I'm very much enjoying it, yeah.”

Declan Hannon was speaking at the launch of Movember Ahead of the Game Phase 4 2026. The GAA and GPA are encouraging clubs around Ireland to take part in the intiative which aims to encourage meaningful conversations around mental fitness at every level of the game. More information is available here - https://learning.gaa.ie/Movember