Legendary hurler from four-in-a-row All-Ireland winning team
CONNIE “SONNY” Buckley, a legendary Cork hurler, who has died aged 93, was the oldest surviving All-Ireland-winning hurling captain.
A native of Blackpool, on the north side of the Lee and the quintessential heart of Cork hurling in his day, he played with his local club Glen Rovers and also with the Cork senior team throughout the 1930s and 1940s, hurling alongside Christy Ring and former taoiseach Jack Lynch.
Educated at the North Monastery, he first tasted success as captain of the school’s Harty Cup winning team and won his first county title with Glen Rovers in 1934, going on to be the only player that featured in the club’s remarkable achievement of eight wins in a row, from 1934 to 1941.
He grew up in Roman Street and married a local girl, Catherine Buckley, who played camogie with Glen Rovers.
With Tipperary and Kilkenny barred from playing due to an outbreak of foot-and-mouth disease, Cork found themselves in an All-Ireland final after playing only one game in the 1941 championship. Aged just 25, Connie captained the team on the first Sunday in September, recording a 5-11 to 0-6 victory over Dublin, the start of a record-breaking run, with his younger brother, Din Joe, playing in all four-in-a-row winning teams. His brother Jack also won an All Ireland medal in 1942.
A veteran of the famous 1939 thunder-and-lightning final, when Kilkenny beat Cork with a last minute point on the day Hitler invaded Poland, Connie later had the honour of captaining Cork in 1941 when Glen Rovers won their sixth of eight county titles on the trot.
His answer to Kilkenny's current dominance of the game was ground hurling. "Kilkenny have always been good hurlers, always and ever," he said in an Irish Timesinterview in 2006. "But the way to beat them is to get low hard ball into your forwards because if you play it in high, they'll just pick it out of the air."
Critical of the modern game, he deplored the change from first-time pulling to a more controlled running, passing game. “Yerra, there’s too much picking the ball nowadays – if you went to pick it long ’go, ’twould be whipped off you,” he said.
“You had to strike the ball first time. There was no such thing as twisting or turning: you hit the ball – you had to hit the ball or you’d be hit.”
Connie retired from club hurling in 1942.During his career he also won two county senior football medals with St Nicks.
Predeceased by his wife Catherine, he is survived by sons, Tadhg, Jack, Donal, Terry, Paul and Fergus, daughter, Enda, brothers, Din Joe, Mick, and sisters Eileen and Phil.
Connie “Sonny” Buckley: born November 24th, 1915; died January 27th, 2009