Brothers in Sport (14 page)

At the highest level Tommy and Declan played with and against some of the great exponents of the games of football and hurling. Playing for both Tipperary and Dublin, Tommy lined out against
Jack O’Shea. ‘He was a huge man in every way, a huge athlete, he really had everything.’ There were others he regarded as special. ‘Peter Canavan had incredible skill levels, so much talent.
Larry Tompkins was another.
Bernard Flynn was a great forward. All of those guys had super talent but they also had huge application levels which made them what they were.’ There is a little regret among the Carrs that they never played alongside one another at the highest level. ‘We always supported each other,’ says Tommy. ‘I was always pumped up watching Tipperary, even last year [2009] in the All-Ireland final. And Declan has been a huge Dublin supporter. If he hadn’t played hurling for Tipperary he would love to have played football for Dublin.
’
Declan has taken on coaching duties as well and has spent two seasons with the Tipperary under-21 hurlers, guiding them to a Munster title in 2008.

Appropriately they did finish their playing careers side by side back where it all began, with Lucan Sarsfields. Tommy was first to return to the old stomping ground when his one-time adversary and good friend from Meath,
Liam Hayes, took up a coaching role with the club. The Carr effect would be profound. Lucan regained senior football status in 1995. Declan had moved to the United States for four years but returned late in 1998 and rejoined Lucan. He inspired the hurlers to win the Dublin Intermediate League and Championship. And for a few football games that season Tommy and Declan Carr were team-mates.

Cormac Bonnar was coaxed out of retirement to play a vital role in Tipperary’s re-emergence as a major hurling power in the late 1980s.
© Brendan Moran/SPORTSFILE

Cormac Bonnar was twenty-nine years old when he decided it was time for him to end his hurling career with Cashel King Cormacs. It was 1988 and he was living in Limerick and newly married. He had enjoyed a good innings – twelve seasons in all with the club, All-Ireland under-age medals with Tipperary, great hurling and football experiences in University College Dublin (UCD). He even had a Championship outing with the Tipperary seniors a few years before. That hadn’t gone too well. But, all in all, he could reflect happily on his sporting achievements. It was time to move on.

He knew he wouldn’t be idle. As a teacher he would be involved with coaching children. That was fairly obvious. And there was a chance he would get involved with a club wherever his career took him. Limerick at that time; who knows where in the future. He was ready to transfer his enthusiasm for playing to supporting his younger brothers as they developed their careers with Cashel and Tipperary.

Colm was five years younger. Cormac had been in the crowd in Fitzgerald Stadium, Killarney the previous summer when Colm had been one of the star turns as Tipperary bridged a sixteen-year gap between Munster Senior Hurling Championship successes after a series of dramatic games against Cork. Colm had lined out alongside another Cashel man,
Pa Fitzell, in Tipperary’s midfield. The second youngest of the Bonnars, Conal, had been on the Tipperary minor team that won the provincial title in 1987 and had only lost to Offaly in the All-Ireland final by two points.

These were exciting times in Tipperary hurling. Cormac had no regrets that his time had passed. Just one more season with Cashel and that would be it. ‘I had had enough, simple as that,’ he reflects. ‘I had a dozen years at it and enjoyed most of it. There was a lot of travelling back and forth for training and matches and I was getting tired of it.’

Cashel were drawn to play Clonoulty-Rossmore in the first round of the 1988 West Tipperary Championship. With a young
Declan Ryan generating much excitement around the county, Clonoulty started as favourites. Cormac had the task of marshalling the new guy. Cashel won against the odds. Among the interested spectators that evening was
Theo English, the former star hurler who had become a Tipperary selector with his old team-mates Babs
Keating and Donie
Nealon two years before and had begun the major reconstruction job necessary in Tipperary.

Theo reported back to his colleagues. They had been searching for new talent all winter and spring. They had come up short against Galway in the 1987 All-Ireland semi-final; they needed height and physique. Cormac was a defender but they felt he could provide them with the necessary assets in the forward line. He had another attribute Theo admired – pace, and plenty of it for such a big man. They knew he did not have a good experience in his previous incarnation as a Tipperary hurler, but everyone deserves a second chance.

Six weeks before the 1988 Munster final
Theo
English spoke to Cormac. ‘It was a shock at first,’ he remembers, ‘and I didn’t jump at the chance initially. I wondered did I really want it. I had already decided that I did not want to make the commitment to travelling for club hurling and now I was being asked to make a major commitment to Tipperary. I really was unsure. But Theo talked me through it and I agreed to have a look. But once I got back into the squad and saw the potential, felt the atmosphere around the place, I knew I had to have a go. I was delighted and honoured to be back somewhere I never expected to be again.’

Cormac had been on the fringes of the Tipperary team between 1979 and 1983, but injuries limited his opportunities. For the 1982 and 1983 National Leagues he formed a new midfield partnership with Michael Doyle. Then, before the start of the 1983 Championship, he was struck down by injury. In the first round Tipperary played Clare, and Cormac was brought on as a sub in the second half. Ten minutes later he was taken off again. ‘It was horrible,’ he says candidly. ‘It was the hardest psychological blow that any player had to take. It was really tough to accept and I still feel for players when I see it happening.’ He didn’t make the panel in 1984. The following year he headed for the United States for the summer. His inter-county career appeared to be over.

In July 1988 he came on as a substitute in the second half of the Munster final against Cork. With his first touch of the ball he scored a goal. It steadied the ship because Tipperary had allowed a twelve-point advantage to narrow to two. The Munster Championship was retained and training for the All-Ireland series intensified. The manager,
Keating, introduced training matches between the senior team and the county under-21 squad, which included Conal. When the squad was named for the final Conal was given a place in the extended senior squad. Colm started; Cormac appeared as a substitute.

Twelve months later Conal, Colm and Cormac Bonnar played in the All-Ireland senior hurling final together as Tipperary ended an eighteen-year wait to embrace the Liam McCarthy Cup.

Colm Bonnar won an All-Ireland minor medal with Tipperary in 1982 and finished his career eighteen years later when winning an All-Ireland junior title.
© Brendan Moran/SPORTSFILE

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In plying his trade as a block layer, Pearse Bonnar was happy to travel far from his native home in north Donegal in search of employment. Football, sports in general, were his mode of relaxation. He won junior football honours with Red Hugh’s of Killygordon in 1947. Maureen, his wife, enjoyed camogie success with nearby Crossroads. She too had an eclectic interest in sports. It was an interest they passed on to each of their thirteen children, providing advice and encouragement while inculcating a strong work ethic.

Their search for stability in terms of employment took them to Cashel, the market town in Tipperary South Riding, which also boasted tourism as an industry. The GAA club was a natural attraction. Football was the dominant game in the town, but Maureen also found an outlet for her camogie skills. They liked all sports and as their children grew they sampled everything.

The eldest son, Kieran, played football before academia claimed him. The girls – Mary, Fionnuala, Philomena, Eithne, Ann, Triona and Niamh – all enjoyed camogie success. Triona was also an accomplished handballer, while Philomena won County Championships in basketball and gymnastics. The boys – Brendan, Cormac, Colm, Conal and Ailbhe – played football, hurling and soccer, and dabbled in a variety of other sports. Conal remembers their leisure time being divided between the major sports as well as badminton, tennis and handball.

At Cashel CBS Brendan and Cormac came under the influence of Br Noonan, who put the structures in place to create a proper hurling environment. This was carried through in the local club where men like Michael ‘Monte’ Carrie organised coaching and games.
Michael
O’Grady, who later became a renowned coach throughout the country, was teaching in Cashel at this time and also had a very positive influence on the boys. Cashel had not enjoyed much in the way of success at under-age level, but in 1974 they won a county football and hurling minor double.

‘All I can remember,’ says Conal, who was born in 1969, ‘is from the ages of three and four playing hurling out the back of the house. There were always plenty of people around to play with. It was all we did.’ Pearse and Maureen were working hard to feed and clothe thirteen children, and as the family grew they moved into a bigger house in the mid-1960s. ‘Kieran, Brendan and Cormac helped out my father a lot with the house. By the time we younger ones came along all the work was done so we had the freedom in the evenings and at the weekend to play sport all the time.’

Cormac, ten years older than Conal, moved away from home in 1977 to study at UCD.
Michael O’Grady made the same move and continued to help nurture the talent of the youngster. Cormac won Fitzgibbon Cup medals in 1978 and 1979, but he was temporarily distracted from the game by the presence in the college of some extremely talented footballers.
Gerry McEntee and
Colm O’Rourke from Meath,
Tony McManus from Roscommon, Jimmy Lyons from Mayo and Galway’s
Morgan Hughes were just some of the star-studded line-up who had already won three Sigerson Cup titles. Eugene
McGee coached them. Cormac decided to concentrate on football for the 1979–80 season and lined out at full back in the 1980 Sigerson final, flanked by Roscommon’s
Séamus Hunt and Joe Joe O’Connor from Kerry. Though they lost the final to UCG, Cormac relished the experience. ‘It was fascinating, the next best thing to professionalism I was ever involved in.’

He had missed out on minor representation back in Tipperary, but made the under-21 hurling panel in 1979 when they won the All-Ireland title. ‘I hung on to my place for dear life,’ he says and worked hard to secure a starting spot in 1980. He was full back when they retained the title, with Pat Fox playing at left corner back. Almost a decade later they would find themselves together again but at the far end of the field.

By then the Bonnars were getting a taste of what the future held for the family. Colm was selected for the Tipperary minors in 1982 and won the first All-Ireland medal of what would become an almost complete collection. He played in the All-Ireland under-21 finals of 1983, 1984 and 1985, when he finally picked up a winner’s medal. He had also played minor and under-21 football for Tipperary but displayed the determination and meticulous planning that would mark his playing and coaching career when deciding in 1985 to concentrate on hurling. ‘I loved football, I still do,’ he explains, ‘but I felt then that if I wanted to play hurling at the top level I had to concentrate on it. There were so many good hurlers around at that time that if you started fooling around with football you could soon find that your place was gone.’

Cormac’s elevation to the Tipperary senior hurling team and subsequent unhappy experience mirrored the state of the senior team in the early part of that decade. The long wait for a Munster title was stretching every year as 1971 grew more distant. But at under-age level Tipperary were competitive. Between 1975 and 1985 Tipperary won three All-Ireland minor titles and four under-21 titles. ‘What happened at the end of the 1980s was no accident,’ insists Conal. ‘People seem to think it happened suddenly, but there was a huge amount of success at under-age level leading up to it. You had a big number of players who knew what it was like to win Munster and All-Ireland titles. They had no fears of Cork or Kilkenny or Galway. They had grown up winning. In Tipperary a different club was coming through to win the County Championship every year. It was all healthy.

‘When Tipp lost in the Munster Championship in 1986 it was a huge disappointment. The profile of the team needed to be raised. It needed to be made important to play senior hurling for Tipperary again. That’s where Babs
Keating came in. He was the man to put the structures in place. While the older players at the time were used to losing, the young players knew nothing but winning. Babs had to tap into that state of mind and create an environment where those players would come through to senior level.

‘He changed the approach. He set up the first supporters’ club in Ireland. He improved the way players were treated. We were the only team wearing suits to the first round of the Championship. We went on team holidays. There were no problems with expenses. We always had enough hurleys and enough sliotars. There was loads of gear for the players. It was important and good to play for Tipperary. And there were sixty or seventy players around that were of a very high standard. Babs helped everything come together.’