And then suddenly it all becomes clear.
22 Croke Cups, 55 Leinster Senior College’s Championships, countless junior and underage titles, breeding ground of numerous past, present and future All-Ireland winners.
This is St. Kieran’s College.
There is a Pakistani student in St. Kieran’s College, Kilkenny. When he first came over to the school from Dubai, cricket was his first love. Every day now, he walks into the country’s most famed hurling nursery with a hurl in his right hand and a sliotar in his left.
Pakistan, as a parish, is far from a hurling stronghold but it just goes to show that hurlers don’t have to be born as such, that they can, in fact, be made.
You see, Kilkenny’s relentless stranglehold over hurling these last few years had many of us believing otherwise – that hurling was, indeed, a game passed down from one generation to the next. And, while there’s no doubting the fact that family backgrounds play a huge part in the production of great hands, stories like this one show that if the conditions are correct, even the unlikeliest of heroes can emerge.
In Kilkenny, the majority of heroes hold a stick in their hands.
There is no shortage of heroes in the Marble city college, winners of a record 22 Croke Cups – the most in the history of the highest level college’s hurling competition.
Deputy principal Liam Smith is one of them and on a Tuesday morning in April, he’s happy to deface the 200-year-old walls of the secondary school for the stories that line their existence.
To him, they’re not stories. To him this is just reality.
This is a man who readily tells us that were it not for his duties as deputy principal, he’d be out on the college pitches at break-time pucking ball with the 800 or so students who flock like a herd of sheep being chased by a dog the moment the bell rings for sos.
And in Kilkenny, those sheep carry hurls. Everyone carries hurls.
From the outside looking in, this week has been a strange one for St. Kieran’s College, as can be seen on the updates of the school’s Twitter account. On Monday, would you believe it, the first year’s gaelic footballers booked their place in a Leinster final.
Good luck to our 1st Year Footballers. Playing Carnew in the @gaaleinster football league today. pic.twitter.com/sln6RKY8yp
— St Kieran's College (@KieransCollege) April 19, 2018
On the same day the senior golf team made it to the All-Ireland finals in Monkstown.
Best of luck to our Senior Golf team playing in the @GUIGolf Irish Schools Senior All-Ireland Final in @MonkstownGC today pic.twitter.com/s0Ml4JL5q0
— St Kieran's College (@KieransCollege) April 24, 2018
On Tuesday, the first year soccer team competed in an All-Ireland last four clash in Monaghan.
Wishing our 1st Year Soccer team the very best today in their @faischools All-Ireland Semi-Final v Carndonagh CS in Gortakeegan, Monaghan – Kick Off @ 3pm pic.twitter.com/ziePw8poPS
— St Kieran's College (@KieransCollege) April 24, 2018
Loads of success without a hurley in sight. It might be surprising for some, given the consensus that hurling is the religion, the be all and the end all Noreside.
And while Smith is quick to point out to us that the school is far from one-dimensional, a quick look outside his office window reassured him, as if he needed reassurance, that hurling will always rule the roost.
Indeed, no sport is encouraged or discouraged more than the others in this magic place, where even minority games like orienteering are being practiced but the more things change, the more they stay the same.
Success breeds success, and hurling is the culture.
“It’s not that we encourage it, it’s just the way lads are, it’s the culture,” Liam Smith told SportsJOE.
“But hurling, it’s in everything here. I was watching the lads heading out to the bus for that football game, and they were carrying hurls in their hands.
“It’s the same story now, I look out the window at the lads about to head off golfing and they’re all holding hurls out there as well as their golf clubs.”
That’s the way it is in St. Kieran’s, a place where these hurls are blessed at the start of the year by the local priest to ensure the year is just as successful as the last one.
There must be something special in the Holy Water because the success never dries up in Kilkenny, with the college defeating Pres Athenry to win the highest honour again this year.
And it’s all built on a culture that everybody there is similar, they’re all mad for hurling and for sporting success, but no matter how successful you get, you don’t change.
That’s why, at lunch time, you’re just as likely to see Kilkenny hurlers past or present as you are a student. 10 Celtic Crosses or 13-years of age. It doesn’t matter.
“And the teachers do be out with them, Lester Ryan, JohnJoe Farrell, Michael Doyle from Carlow. I’m the deputy principal but I’d be out there if I could be,” he said.
“Past students, Jason Cleere, Conor Browne, Richie Leahy – they’re all part of the Kilkenny panel now, you’d see them hop out of their cars and go pucking with the lads.
“Joey Holden was out with them too last week, and he didn’t even attend this school.
“I was down at a minor match recently and Tommy and Padraig Walsh were out pucking with young Tullaroan kids at half time. There’s no airs or graces about any of them. That’s just the way it is.”
And the hurls. They’re everywhere.
A photo taken outside of Dunnes Stores, Kilkenny, when the St. Kieran’s College students got lunch break.
The hurleys are just an extension to the arms of each student. They never leave.
“You can hit a ball anywhere in this school. The front building is 200 years old but there’s lads belting balls off the wall just missing the windows.
“For example, TJ Reid came in here the other day to talk to a bunch of students, the first thing he said was, ‘it’s great to see that you all have hurls with you.'”
“It’s the continuity of it all. If anybody who wasn’t familiar with the place came in here during break time, they’d get some eye-opener. The fields are absolutely thronged every lunchtime, you should have seen it last week during the fine weather.”
But the most fascinating thing of all is that it’s not all about the hurling. For example, the scorer of the winning goal in this year’s Croke Cup final was Ciaran Brennan. He plays underage soccer for Ireland, and will be allowed to make his own choice with regard to hurling or soccer.
“We’d do our damnedest for any of the pupils whatever sport or whatever discipline they want to pursue.”
“I was just looking at the Waterford United result the other night, two of the players were past pupils.”
There’s a school doing it right, and as Smith begins to list off the talented youngsters he sees coming up through the ranks in first, second, third and fourth year, I, as a Tipperary man, become vexed.
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