“Well I can tell you something, if you do nothing else, go down to Limerick tonight and you’ll see celebrations!”
So said Shane Dowling the morning after the All-Ireland win before.
45 years without an All-Ireland title came to a thrilling, tense end at Croke Park, last Sunday, and the party has been raging in The Treaty County ever since.
After toasting their capture of the Liam MacCarthy trophy in the Croke Park dressing rooms, Limerick captain Declan Hannon and his teammates kept up the chorus’ of ‘Sean South’ and ‘Caledonia’ on the bus back to Citywest Hotel in west Dublin. The celebrations went late into the night and early into Sunday morning but most of the squad was up by 10am and available for fans and media members, including our very own Colm Parkinson.
Chatting to Parkinson for The GAA Hour, Dowling declared:
“There was still a good buzz here last night don’t get me wrong, but what I think what a lot of people were doing, rather than going mad, was they wanted to take a step back and actually take it all in.
“But tonight, I know for a fact, I know what’s going on down there, it will be a different ball game and you’re more than welcome Wooly and anybody else who wants to join the circus, bring them on!”
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An estimated 90,000 Limerick fans helped welcome them back home, on Monday, and many of that number crammed into the Gaelic Grounds to cheer on John Kiely and his men. The following day saw Hannon bring the trophy back to his club of Adare and another packed house.
The place to be, during the week as the party raged on, really looked like Mike Houlihan’s bar in Kilmallock.
Hannon was part of a huge group of Limerick hurlers, including Sean Finn, Aaron Gillane, Seamus Flanagan, Mike Casey, Gearoid Hegarty and that man Dowling, in the bar for one hell of a hooley. The final was played on a loop on TV screens around the jam-packed bar as a live band belted out those classics – Sean South and Caledonia – and a DJ pumped dance music.
One of the revellers, who knows the lads in the panel well, shared a couple of pictures and clips with us and said it was a day to remember.
Several of the panel even took turns serving pints behind the bar and there were more than few tipples handed out without the cash register being bothered.
‘The majority of the rest were up on the counters and chairs,” he added.
It looks like fierce craic alright as the county of Limerick engaged in one hell of a party.
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