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LAST LINE OF DEFENCE

You'll see sketches about hurling, the historic game of Ireland, and the fastest field game in the world.
However, the fastest field game in the world is changing.
For centuries it has been representative of parishes, towns, villages and areas, played for the honour and the privilege of representing where the players came from.
And it still is, perhaps with even more passion.
It's played for the honour and the respect of fellow-team-members, opponents, neutral observers and followers who simply know and love the game.
However, this great sport is now gaining global eminence.
The Travelling Irish, Television, Social Media and other routes have all contributed to the spreading of the word that a game exists in which the skills are unsurpassed, the speed and action are spectacular, and the spirit of the players is extraordinary.

HARD MARKING

Wherever you are in the world, at whatever stage in your life, you are very welcome, and if you feel you'd like to write, relate an incident, or just say 'hello', get in touch.

We'll be glad to hear from you.

And your word will not go unacknowledged.

GATHERING UP

MAKING
THE BREAK

What you'll see here is a collection of sketches of hurling action, in pencil, pen and sometimes colour.

If you read the accompanying texts, you'll get views, opinions and some little stories about what hurling has done for people at odd times, myself included, and what it has come to mean to many of us.

We're having a great and educational time compiling this website.

We'll carry on, building on the stories, the observations, getting yarns, contributions and incidents from readers, and putting in the few sketches.

If you get one half of the enjoyment that we do, from this, you'll be having a grand time too.

READY TO FIRE

CLOSE MARKING

From a Blog about a particular weekend in February 2026.

Well now!

What a lot of surprises and drama we witnessed in the sporting arena over the past weekend.
And I know that the audience will acknowledge the Sporting Achievement of the Rugby teams mentioned in this piece, as they will for the odd reference to sports other than hurling when something remarkable takes place.

The first of three surprising and welcome outcomes was the under 20 International between England and Ireland on Friday night.

Ireland got off to a bright start, but England never flagged and worked their way into the game in the first half and led by a deserved seven-point margin at halftime.

However, whatever was said in the dressing room at the interval translated into rugby dynamite in the second half from the boys in the green jerseys.

The action was dynamic, and the style and quality of play that followed were exemplary as to how coming men shape their application and careers in the early stages.

On Saturday, we were fed a diet of poor expectation in the face of a high-charging, defeated English team at the hands of a rampant Scotland from the week before.

A pall of doubt and scepticism, hanging like a dirty black cloud, was cast over the coming encounter, and we were being treated to a forecast of damage limitation in the face of insurmountable odds.

But the pundits had forgotten to instruct Andy Farrell and his team, and they came out blazing.

Fortunately, the team had not listened to the timorous forecasts from the experts and ran onto the pitch and into the game like men obsessed.

Maybe they were.
There wasn’t one individual on that team out of tune with their purpose and unstoppable spirit.

We witnessed hard, fast and determined rugby and were rewarded with a mighty result.

DETERMINED PASSING

But the ultimate display of Team Spirit and courage, will and determination came in Croke Park at 5 pm on Saturday.

Wexford, cast aside as lucky also-rans, were being patronisingly dismissed as unworthy contestants in the hurling schedule against Dublin.

Again, the manager, Keith Rossiter and his charges weren’t in agreement with this scene.
They tore up the script.
What ensued was 70 minutes of fiery, fast and on-the-limit hurling from both teams.

At times, the ferocity of the drive for possession, the speed and determination to score a point, from both sides, and the white heat of exchanges, were what might be witnessed in a high-summer Championship game.

And it never relented, tearing through the evening to Chris Crummey’s final point to level the game at the end, and finish in a justified draw.

To all the players of each contest, thank you, and well done on a display of Team Spirit, Personal Spirit, and a stellar display of the indomitable Human Spirit that still inspires us all, and will for a long time.
Have a Great Day and Do Well...

How Tony Doran, the Wexford hurling Team,
and Me, won the 1968 All-Ireland Hurling Final.

GROUND RUCK

It was 1968. We’d just finished a Sunday lunch gig in the “Green Man“ pub, Blackheath Common, South London.
The instruments had been loaded into the van. Our work was done for the day.
The boys in the band were going to a gig in hyde Park that afternoon. They said I should join them. But there are times in life when you want, and need, to be on your own.
Without having to converse, or take part in something, or go along.
You just need to be. To exist. Without interference. Without interruption.

There are those times when the only way to be is solitary.
At ease and within yourself.

And a vague anxiety was hovering somewhere in the back of my mind.
I couldn’t find a cause for it. There wasn't even anything wrong.
I just didn’t feel right.
I felt without direction, unsettled, aimless.
And that was how my mind responded; aimlessly.

Moving from the Common, I wandered into Lewisham High Street.
In those days most shops were shut on Sundays. The street was a canyon of glass and concrete.
People meandering, strolling, window-shopping, chatting, looking, buying tea at the tea stalls, milling slowly in the warm September sun.
Behind a tea stall at which I had stopped, was a barrow full of books, all hardbacks, with their spines turned up.

Picking up what turned out to be an old English reader, with essays by the likes of Hazlitt, Charles Lamb, Dickens, John D Sheridan, a page dropped open on “The Wayfarer”, the poem by Pádraic Pearse.
There, amid the roar of traffic, the high concrete buildings, the reflecting glass of the shop windows, the rumble of buses and the crowd on the sun-baked city concrete, my eye fell on the words,

“… To see a leaping squirrel in a tree,
Or a red ladybird upon a stalk,
Or little rabbits in a field at evening,
Lit by a slanting sun, on some green hill,
Where shadows drifted by…“

And they took my breath away.

I paid 6p for tea, three pennies for the book, and moved on.

A FINE CATCH

Now, in the realm of theatres of the world, every city has its centres. New York has Broadway; London has Shaftesbury Avenue.

But for real theatre of human emotion, passion, heroism, triumph, and heartbreak, nowhere in the world compares to Dublin’s Croke Park on an All-Ireland Hurling Final Day.

That was my discovery on a warm First Sunday in September in1968.

Walking back to my flat in Catford, South-East London, I heard the strident, unmistakable voice of Mice O’Hhir through an open window.
He was announcing the halftime score of the hurling final. “Tipperary one goal and 11 points”, said Miceal, “Wexford one goal and three points.”

Wexford. My county. In the all-Ireland. And I hadn’t even known it.

I stood, stunned, stilled by the name of my county, the sudden flash of pictures and memories and the notion that what was a magnificent event for the county was taking place.
And I hadn't even known about it.

The Wexford men were traipsing off, eight points down. It sounded bleak.
A face appeared in the open window from which the broadcast was coming.

“Where’re ye from?” It asked.
“Wexford” I replied.

“We’re batin’ the lard outa ye. Yiz are in for murder in the second half.”
There was a hint of sympathy in his tone.

He invited me in to listen.
I politely declined, sat on the wall, facing a grass-covered square in that part of London city.
But I was seeing the green of my home county, the patchwork of fields stretching off behind the village of Kilmore Quay, the high hedgerows, the looping Hawthorne, and the winding lanes.
I was hearing the wash of the waves on the front strand, and the crash and hiss of the Atlantic as it thundered on to the Burrow.
Then my reverie was interrupted.

Second half.
It had started. The teams were out again. There was a note of change in Miceál's voice.

Dan Quigley caught a highball, pumped it upfield to Tony Doran.
Tony grabbed it, passed to a running Paul Lynch, who looked, lifted, and fired it over for a second Wexford point.

Miceal’s Voice was lifting. His speech quickening. The roar was louder. The game was getting faster.

Miceal was now calling them “the Boys of Wexford”. There was warmth, admiration, a rising excitement to his tone.

This was a different Wexford team from the first half.
The Boys of Wexford were coming into the game.

Flashes, scenes of my home county, were exploding into my mind

The game hurled on

Ned Colfer flicked one over to Dan Quigley. Dan boomed it up the field to his brother John.

John passed to Paul Lynch. Paul to Jack Berry. Jack turns, fires, straight between the posts.
The game was changing.

There was a fresh and definite rhythm, a gathering pace, a surging momentum, in Croke Park.
You could sense it in the voice of the commentator, the roars and rippling changes of the cadence in the crowd.
It was growing into me in Catford, Southeast London.
The Boys of Wexford were roaring back to life.

Up goes Big Dan again.
A mighty catch! He bursts out and passes inch-perfect to a running Phil Wilson.
Phil runs and jinks, deep into the Tipperary half.
Over it flies to Tony Doran.

Tony turns, twists, trips and falls, bounds back up, and with a mighty surge, bursts through the Tipperary back line.....… and buries it!!

I was off the wall, on the pathway!
Scything with my imaginary hurl, scoring, pointing, hooking, blocking, with the Boys of Wexford in Croke Park.

The game raged on

GATHERING

Jack Berry goes for a high one, catches it from the clutches of five other probing hands in the air, tears past TJ Ryan, and from far out, lets fly.

Up it goes, soaring high, high, high, with sixty-three thousand pairs of eyes on it in Croke Park Dublin.
My mesmerised brain and my mind's eye watching it in Catford, South East London.
By sheer force of will, we floated it majestically between the Tipperary uprights.

We were inspired!
Out comes the ball again, a long one, down to the Tipp' half forward line.
But the Wexford backs are on that ball!
Up go the bodies and the arms for the small white sliotar.
It's in the hand of a Wexford jersey and is belted up the park!

Another long one deep into the Tipperary half.
Paul Lynch rises, catches, passes it to the path of the sprinting Jack Berry. Jack grips it in full flight.
A roaring crowd propels him into the Tipperary goal area.
He darts to the left, pirouettes to the right, and fires.

The net billows! Another Wexford goal!

Croke Park erupted in Dublin!
I erupted in Catford, South-East London!

Out it came again, a long ball aimed down the field for Tipperary’s Jimmy Doyle. But Jimmy was hurting, off his game.

Running onto it was Wexford’s Nick O’Donnell, booming it up the field to Phil Wilson, a flick to John Quigley, and then to the mighty Tony.
And to me in South East London.

Tony and me!

Up we went, going high and hard, snatching it from Tipp' defenders, and before we’d even hit the ground, were palming it, swivelling, and firing, rattling and billowing the Tipperary net to the roar of the worldwide Wexford voice!

We were ahead!
On we hurled.

Tony and the team in Croke Park.
Me in Catford, South East London.

We hurled, tackled, blocked, and hooked. We were men possessed.

Our lungs were burning, our legs were screaming, our shoulders were aching.
And on we hurled.
The pitch got bigger.
The ball got smaller.
Strength was waning.
Fatigue hauled on weary limbs.
Moving was like swimming through thick mud.
But the whiff of victory pumped hand, heart and body into a frenzy of energy and purpose.
The Boys of Wexford in Croke Park.
Me in Catford, South East London.

The scores were building. The points were mounting.
The hurls were getting heavy.
Two more times we smashed the Tipperary net.
The Tipp' men scored a couple of points, and somewhere in the frenzy, scored a goal.
We barely noticed it.
We were feeling the smell and the taste of victory.
We only had to keep scoring. The machine was in top gear.
We inspired ourselves.
In spite of wearied arms and heavy legs, we kept firing and passing and running and firing, again and again and again.
There was no stopping us.
We kept on committing sublime, murderous strokes like relentless assassins.

And then it went; the shrill, thin, merciful blast of the final whistle.

Wexford 5-8, Tipperary 3-12.

We, Wexford, were the All-Ireland Champions.

Sitting on the wall, relief, elation, pride, the sense of identity, all wrapped in an exquisite sadness, flooded through my limbs in body-shocking sobs.

“What’re ye bawlin about?” asked Tipperary. He was at the windowsill, sucking on a Gold Flake.
“Ye’ve just fucken won the All-Fucken-Ireland!”

I took a breath. The sobs subsided. The cheering and the noise faded.

I turned to that kindly Tipperary man.

The change that had swept over Croke Park in Dublin, and into my life in Catford, Southeast London, in those thirty-five minutes of hurling history, expressed everything I felt.

“I’m going home,” I said.

START REACHING

A simple declaration.

And it wasn’t talking about the small apartment around the corner; in Catford, South East London, which I had casually called my home, the place where I currently lay my head, where I slept, where I ate, where I'd come to live with and know the kind and generous people of the area.
No.

It was to green fields and high ditches, the winding laneways and nestling farmhouses, birds in a clear sky, warm quiet greetings on the roadways, chance meetings at crossroads, rabbits in the fields at evenings, lit by slanting suns on green hills, where shadows drifted by…..That was the home to which I was going.
That home.

Country Lane

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Let me know. 353 87 2321128.
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