Burning passion hard to quench

Interview/Jimmy Murray: Keith Duggan talks to legendary Roscommon footballer Jimmy Murray, the man who captained the county to their first All-Ireland senior football title in 1943

The football used in the 1944 All-Ireland final between Cavan and Roscommon hangs from a metal chain on the dark wooden ceiling in Jimmy Murray's pub in Knockcroghery. It is blackened and a bit battered and all the more powerful for that. One night in 1990, a fire broke out in the pub, burning half the counter and destroying some of the All-Ireland photographs and memorabilia that Jimmy had placed around the room.

The ball was suspended from a piece of string then, and in the heat and tumult it fell to the flames, destined to be cinders. A crowd had quickly gathered in the village trying to fight the fire, and one man dashed into the melting room only to reappear, triumphantly shouting: "I've got the ball. I've got the ball!"

"I said something like, 'forget the ball and quench the bloody shop'," laughed Jimmy Murray during the week. "But it would have been a shame if it had gone all right."

Murray captained the 1943 team, the first time that Ros' lifted the Sam Maguire and the beginning of a remarkable period of achievement that becomes more luminous the further into history it retreats.

Roscommon won the All-Ireland championship in 1943 and 1944, buckled in 1945 and rose again to produce what Murray believes was their best season of football before losing to Kerry in the All-Ireland final after a replay.

Kerry would defeat the Primrose County in two further successive September showdowns, those of 1962 and 1980, the last appearance by Roscommon on All-Ireland final Sunday.

And, as the country feels the tremors of another football championship, Roscommon's record seems a perfect example of just how difficult and elusive the ultimate prize is for all counties other than the eternal giants of the game.

With a small population - the 2002 census had Roscommon at just over 53,000 - less than half that of Galway and Mayo and smaller than Sligo, the county has 19 provincial titles to go with five All-Ireland titles and those immortal back-to-back All-Irelands - a feat that frustrated all contemporary teams.

And as Murray says, "People here were stone cracked mad on the football then and they are today, too."

Roscommon are undeniably a thoroughbred football county, and yet they are available at odds of 200 to 1 to emulate the feat of the men from half a century ago.

No reactionary, Murray is full of praise for the style and speed of the modern game and agrees the business of winning the All-Ireland has become tougher than ever.

"It has all levelled out," he remarked, dapper and nimble and sitting by a pleasant afternoon fire in the family livingroom at the rear of the pub - three hardback scrapbooks packed with photographs and newspaper clippings lie on the table. "In my time, Ulster was Cavan. All the Northern teams have got fierce strong and there are few really weak teams now. There isn't much between most teams on a given day."

When Murray began playing for Roscommon in 1938, the county were graded junior and they lost in the first round of that year's championship to Galway. "It meant our first pick wasn't even good enough to beat Galway's second pick. That was my introduction to Roscommon football."

Bleak as the beginning was, it makes their transformation into a team that would leave an indelible impression on an entire generation all the more impressive. The funny thing is that, in identifying the reasons for their success, Murray hits upon the very reasons that are regarded as vital today - cutting-edge training and a dominant personality.

"Dan O'Rourke, no matter what they say about him. He was a politician and a Fianna Fáil TD, as everybody knows, but a great football man. Now, I never voted in my life, but as far as Gaelic football went, he was number one with me. He was a hard man, very strict, a Pioneer, but would smoke away and was a great GAA man. I would say he spent thousands on the GAA.

"We were inside at collective training in the old hospital in Roscommon, it was vacant at the time. The wards were there with beds and a kitchen, so it was ideal. He got in a cook and a trainer, and that was all we needed. The GAA eventually banned the collective training because it got too professional, and they were right, too. You left your job for it.

"Now, it was tough and enjoyable, but it was a bit professional. You would head down to the pictures in the evening and you would have young lads carrying your boots or your bag for you.

"But Dan's first collective training was in his own house. He had about two big bedrooms and he had a big garage where he kept his cars. And they cleaned it out and brought out 15 beds and we stayed there.

"Dan's family - his wife and daughters - fed 20 young lads for two weeks a good breakfast, dinner and supper. And by God, we were well fed. Better food than some of us were used to. He was obsessive, and he had an All-Ireland in mind from the beginning."

The team's ascent was slow and formidable. They won the Connacht junior title in 1939 and the All-Ireland a year later. At senior grade, they lost successive Connacht finals to Galway in 1941 and 1942, but had won minor titles in 1939 and 1941.

By 1943, O'Rourke's vision and the totalitarian training methods of Galway man Tom Molloy fell into perfect synchronicity. The county and colours were like a fresh breeze during the staid life in wartime and 63,000 made it to Croke Park to see them face the mighty Cavan.

"The grass looked so green as I ran on to the field and I felt so much alone that I glanced back to see if the rest of the lads were there at all," Murray once said about that moment. Once the game began, though, they played as if to the manor born.

They were feted all that autumn and returned fresh and with confidence soaring, felling giants Mayo, Cavan and Kerry on the way to retaining the Sam Maguire.

Their tired, first-round defeat to Mayo in 1945 was no great surprise after those two tremendous years, but 1946 still rankles.

"It was the one that got away, unquestionably. Six points up with a few minutes to go? I believe a lot of people had gone. Kerry people often told me afterwards they were on the Jones's Road when they heard the word. They got one soft goal and then a very good one and that was it. Kerry were Kerry. We beat them in 1944, but 1946 was the best football that Roscommon played."

In the finals of 1943/44, both the Cavan and Kerry centre backs were substituted, such was Murray's influence. Significantly, he was on the sideline when the Kingdom made their late comeback half a century ago.

"I got my nose smashed and I was all blood, watching the game from the sideline. So the St John's ambulance men came up to me and said, 'come here until we wipe that blood off you, you will be going up for the Sam Maguire in a few minutes'. They were convinced it was just a matter of getting cleaned up and going up for the bloody cup. Then, sure, disaster struck."

A year later, Murray's career was ended by a cruel knee injury. He was aged 30 and believes he had the disposition and fitness to play for another four years. "I was an addict for football, I lived for the bloody game."

He still does. At 89, Murray complains that his memory gets fuzzy sometimes, but his voice is as sharp and clear as a whistle, and he still sings a terrific version of The West's Awake. He has an historian's passion for the GAA and collected everything he could that was written about Roscommon during his playing days.

Murray's Bar has become a stopping point for celebrated GAA stars from across the country and he keeps a book of photographs of them all - Eddie Keher, John Connolly, Kevin Heffernan, Brian McEniff, Mattie Gilsenan and generations of Roscommon players.

Of the eight Murray brothers who grew up around this household, four won All-Irelands. Tony was a minor in 1939, Phelim and Jimmy won both junior and senior honours, and Oliver, the youngest, was on the victorious minor team of 1961.

It was an extraordinarily rich period, and the eldest of the Murray boys admits that he has often been perplexed and stunned over the years by how thoroughly it disappeared. The team broke up. Dan O'Rourke held his seat for 10 years and went on to become president of the GAA.

Murray does not believe O'Rourke's devotion and influence on Roscommon football helped his political ambitions, however. O'Rourke was honest and dogmatic and did not believe in buttering people up. But nobody could deny his importance to the county.

"We were delighted by what we achieved and maybe our heads got a bit swollen with it. But we never dreamt for a minute that Roscommon would go down so flat and never come back since. I always felt it was only a matter of years before we would come back. And we nearly did a few times."

He sat in the dressingroom in Croke Park before the 1980 final against Kerry, half offering advice and half hoping to pass on the winner's touch through some sort of clairvoyance. "For all the good it did," he laughs now.

But he refuses to lose all optimism, arguing with his son John that Roscommon were not so far away in Connacht last year, that they made a hash of two great goal chances which could have turned the game for them. He still ventures up the road to Hyde Park on fine days, talking easily with people who want to come up and shake his hand.

Captaining one's county to a maiden All-Ireland title bestows a lasting fame upon a man and Murray accepts it for what it is.

Not so long ago, he was introduced to the writer John McGahern, who politely asked for his autograph, being of the generation of children thrilled by the feats of Murray, Carlos, Keenan and McQuillan. Murray was equally keen to get McGahern's autograph, and so the pair swapped signatures.

There are not so many of the great Roscommon team left now, so there is something majestic about that wrecked, totemic football hanging in a bar on the main road from Roscommon to Athlone.

We spoke for a while about the likely conquerors in the upcoming championship, and Jimmy Murray shook his head as if it were a fascinating puzzle.

"Hard to know. Hard to know. The Northern teams will be strong. And you can never write off Kerry. You never can."

That much never changes.