In this week's 'My Club' feature, Galway hurling star David Burke tells us all about St. Thomas' GAA club.

By John Harrington

St. Thomas' GAA club was founded in 1968 when two adjoining parishes, Kilchreest and Peterswell decided to join forces.

Both parishes had been associated with hurling since the foundation of the GAA, with Peterswell in particular a major force in the early years of Galway club hurling, winning seven senior championships.

In their very first year as a club the newly founded St. Thomas' enjoyed success by winning the county U-14 Championship. The County U-16 title was won in 1970 and the South Board minor title in 1972.

Two years later, a St Thomas' team coached by Cyril Farrell won the County Junior title. Another milestone was reached in 1978 when they were promoted to senior status and a new clubhouse was opened.

The club had a yo-yo existence in senior club hurling for a number of years with a series of relegations and promotions, but since winning the 2005 Galway intermediate title they've been a consistent force.

They finally made the big-time when they won their first county senior title in 2012 and went on from there to win the All-Ireland Club Hurling Championship by beating Offaly's Kilcormac-Killoughey in the Final on St. Patrick's Day, 2013.

The club has produced a number of county players of note including Anthony Cunningham, Richie Murray, Conor Cooney, and David Burke.

For more information on the St. Thomas' club, visit their website at http://stthomassgaaclub.com/

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Q: Where exactly in Galway does St. Thomas' draw it's players from?

A: So, St. Thomas' hurling club was founded in 1968 and is made up of two parishes, Kilchreest and Peterswell. So it's based in between the towns of Loughrea and Gort in south Galway.

Q: Very much the hurling heartland of the county, so?

**A: **Oh it is, yeah. It's right in the middle of the hurling heartland at the foothills of the Slieve Aughty mountains. It's a small enough area. The road between us is probably seven or eight miles long and we're just drawing people from a mile either side of that main road. It's a bit of a rectangular block, really.

Q: It sounds like the club is still picking from a relatively small population?

A: Yeah, it is, you're talking about maybe 200 houses in the area.

Q: So you punch above your weight as a club?

**A: **We do, yeah. We're doing well with what we have, really. There's a nice bit of work going on and it's a good club. There's good clubs in Galway in general, anyway. There's a lot of good work going on everywhere. Keeping the underage going is the main thing and getting lads coming through every year. Yeah, we're doing well with what we've got. We work hard and aren't as lucky as other clubs with numbers so we have to keep things going.

Q: What are your earliest memories of going into the club for the first time?

A: Probably when I first went to National School when I was four or five and then I'd go down on Sunday mornings to the pitch and just playing with lads of that age I would have made friends with in school. That's where it all started and grew from. The next thing you're playing underage together and you're constantly in contact with the lads. It just becomes an everyday thing.

Q: Were ye successful as ye progressed through the underage ranks?

**A: **We would have been, yeah. In my last year U-12 we would have won the County title. We didn't win U-14, but we would have then won U-16 and minor. I lost two U-16 'A' Finals, won one of them in between, and it was the same at Minor 'A'. Won one in the middle of losing two minors.

When we got to U-21 we got to five U-21 Finals in a row and won two of them. So we wouldn't have been as successful as we liked, but it led it's way to better things to come down the line.

Q: There's clearly a talented generation in the club that grew up together?

**A: **That was it, yeah. I suppose there was always good hurlers at different ages it was just to keep them going and it was hard at times because people grew apart and lads went off working. But with our group lads just stayed around and went to college near enough in Galway and Limerick and we worked from that. The lads that were over us encouraged us to stay together that bit more. A year ahead of me, my year, and two or three years after me, that group makes up the senior team at the moment really.

Q: You have a lot of brothers who all hurl for the club too. Like a lot of clubs from small areas, a number of key families seem to supply a lot of the players.

**A: **That's it, yeah. You'd have pockets of families like the Murrays, Cooneys, Skehills, and Kellys. There's different families in the area that make it up, really. That's what it's all about with clubs in smaller areas. You might have two or three sets of brothers on each panel and that's what makes the club GAA so unique in a way.

Q: Were there any mentors in the club that would have been particularly influential?

A: At underage I suppose my own father (John) would have been over a lot of the teams that we were on. Himself and a few other lads like Martin Fahy, Aidan Barrett, Cyril Kelly, they would have been over the teams up along at the various grades, U-16, minor, U-21, so they would have had a huge impact on keeping lads together I suppose more than anything. It was just about bringing lads to training because the will and the want to win was there within the group.

Q: How many from the club are in with the County panel now?

**A: **Conor Cooney, myself and my younger brother Eanna.

Q: How many years are between you and Eanna? How many brothers and sisters do you have in total?

**A: **Eanna would be the youngest. This is his last year U-21. There's seven of us in total, I've a sister and five brothers.

Q: Some serious hurling matches in the back-garden, so?

**A: **There were, yeah! We're all getting older now. A few of them are living on their own and one of the brothers, Sean, is working in London. Darragh and Eanna are still in college. Darragh was on the (Galway) panel for a while and is still hurling away with the club.

Q: Was there any particular reason why it all came together in 2012/13 when the club won the All-Ireland title?

**A: **I suppose looking back on it you'd be always saying that you need a lot of things to go right in any given year. There was a turning point in 2012 where we would have lost the first-round game to Gort who be close rivals of ours. We ended up playing a knock-out game for relegation against Liam Mellows and were down by six or seven points at half-time and came back to win it and got into a group stage from where we went on to win the county title.

So that was a huge turning point that year. It gave lads the belief that we could go on and do something. We ended up beating Castlegar, Gort, and Loughrea on the way to winning the Final. When lads are so young at that age you're kind of just playing without fear. That's what helped us in the All-Ireland series then after that. We just threw off the shackles and went out to hurl and enjoy it. There was no pressure really on us. It was just a matter of taking it one step at a time.

Q: The majority of the team was around 21 years of age?

A: That was it, like. I was only 22 at the time. Richie Murray and Robert (Murray) who was captain and my brother Kenneth would have been the oldest in the team and they were only around 30. There was that gap where you had that experience and then that huge blend of youth. That fear factor just didn't exist. We just did a bit of hurling without any pressure.

Q: You and your five brothers all played in the All-Ireland Final. It must have been some buzz to win it?

A: It was great. It was might for the locality. There was just a huge buzz in the place for the next 12 or 18 months and it just never went away. The following year we came again and got to the County Final against Portumna but it ended there when they beat us after a replay. They went on to win the All-Ireland again themselves, so we weren't too deflated by it because we knew we were there or there abouts. It was a massive achievement considering where we came from.

Q: I suppose if you win a Galway championship you have to fancy your chances of winning an All-Ireland?

**A: **Well you do, I suppose. Once you're finished in Galway you have a bit of a break whereas the Munster and Leinster teams have to go an extra bit and probably have tougher campaigns whereas you can come in that bit fresher maybe. Still, it comes down to who wants it more on the day of the game.

We had a really tough game with Loughiel in the semi-final that went to a replay. It was probably one of the best fixtures I was ever involved in. There was some serious performances there from our lads like Conor Cooney in the drawn game, he was just unreal. I suppose they're memories you'll draw on for the rest of your life. They're great memories.

Q: You mentioned Gort as being a rival club. Are they your biggest rivals?

A: They probably would be. Themselves Loughrea and probably Craughwell. In south Galway there's rivalry with all the clubs like Clarinbridge, Ardrahan, Gort, Loughrea, Craughwell. They're all well known clubs and any time you play them it's huge. Craughwell, Loughrea, and Gort are probably the ones we've played most in the last couple of years and they'd be pushing being favourites for the County Championship.

Q: The Galway club championship has a reputation for being famously intense. Is it still that way?

**A: **Oh it is, yeah. We only played a match against Turloughmore in the weekend gone past and we had to win to get through to a preliminary quarter-final. We had lost three games and won two just to get through. It's very tight and there's nothing between the teams. We've lost games by just a point. We're still there and we have a lot of lads who are still very young. I'm probably the oldest one, so you're still looking at a very young side and the future is still good.

Q: It's all about the fine margins...no reason why it couldn't all come together for ye again like it did in 2012/13?

A: It is fine margins. I suppose the biggest trait you need is probably being patient and if you can have that and not get frustrated with your players or frustrated with management and just have that bit of belief that you can still do it it might just come together. Because the training goes in and the work goes in behind the scenes. Lads are fit and strong and their hurling is good and it might come down to a small puck of a ball one the day like it did last year against Craughwell. There are small margins and you still might get that bit of luck where it'll come again.

We're still patient. We'll wait if it takes us whatever time it takes to do it. The will is definitely there, and I think this year more than ever. We had a few lads injured for the early games, Conor Cooney was just coming back, and I missed the first two games with a hamstring injury. We probably could have gotten something out of those two games but were then fighting and struggling to come out of it.

I thought at turning point was when we played Castlegar this year and Conor Cooney got sent off in the first-half but we still won it by two points despite being down to 14 men. We lost to Gort but we've since beaten Turloughmore and I think lads are a bit more tuned in now. The will and want is definitely there, you can see it straight away.

Q: You'd probably appreciate the second county title more than the first one? You were all so young the first time around it was probably a bit of a blur?

**A: **That's it, yeah. That time you were wondering was it real or not. You'd be thinking would it ever happen, and I would keep saying even when I was 20 or 21 that it would definitely happen, we just need to be patient because we have the hurlers. That kind of hunger was there and you can see that hunger there again. I think it's just about being patient and going at the right time and I think we're starting to peak at the right time coming into the end of the year.

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