Keith Dugganmeets Frank Canning, who talks of the clan's exploits with the Portumna, Galway and even London hurlers going back 40 years and more

WHEN HE was 17, Frankie Canning represented Galway hurling at minor, under-21, intermediate and senior. This was in 1967. He made his senior debut in an autumn league game against Cork in Ballinasloe, shaping up against Justin McCarthy at midfield – the kind of illustrious company he wanted to keep.

Cork, experienced and accomplished, won easily that day, but for the Portumna teenager that loss hardly seemed to matter.

Years of hurling in maroon beckoned. Canning couldn’t have known, as he left the pitch that afternoon thrilled and sore, that 13 years would pass before he would play for his county again. And that, by then, Galway’s place in the hurling ascendancy would have changed beyond recognition.

To find Frankie Canning nowadays, you drive through Portumna and head for Scariff. Gurteeny is a village located along the forbiddingly quiet flat lands along the Clare and Galway border. Canning’s pub is one of those handsome, early 19th century two-storey houses that seem indifferent and superior to the building trends that have come and gone over the decades since.

The family name is cut in light grey stone above the main doorway and the lounge is of the kind that is fast disappearing, with a curling bar and open booths, small round mahogany tables and walls decorated with photographs and other Gaelic games memorabilia. It is a proper pub.

“I have to be careful,” Frankie grins, resting a hand on a beer tap and looking at the display of photographs. “We are close to Portumna but this parish is part of the Tommy Larkin’s club. In fact, I hurled with them for the last part of my career. I felt it was only right to play with the local club. So I have two clubs to shout for now.”

In recent years, the Canning name has been central to the fabulous rise of Portumna as a modern and seemingly peerless hurling team. For over a decade, the consistent excellence of Ollie in the back divisions of successive Galway teams ensured the family name was nationally known in hurling circles.

And in the last few years, the supernova displays of Joe, broad-shouldered, dazzlingly skilful and blessed, it seems, with that rare ability to hurl as if he has all the time in the world, has thrust the name into an unimaginably bright light of expectation. But those with longer memories recall the original Canning brothers, Seán and Frank, and how naturally and effortlessly the game seemed to come to the younger of the two.

In the mid and late 1960s, Galway hurling was strong in places but made only a moderate impact against the holy trinity of Cork, Kilkenny and Tipperary. Frankie Canning recognises now he was obsessed with the game in that unconscious way kids often are with sport, carrying a hurley everywhere.

“Always in our hand. Even going out driving cattle in the evening, you would carry one.”

It might be counted as a stroke of luck for Portumna that Fr Jack Solan, then chairman of the Galway board, was moved to the parish as curate in 1966. The Whitegate man earned his reputation in Gaelic games on the Clare senior hurling team that won the national league in 1946, but his role in vitalising the game across the border was immense.

An accomplished track man, an excellent golfer and a good rugby player, he hurled only six times for Clare, as ordination ended his career. After that, he busied himself bringing other hurlers through and would have spotted the Canning brothers among a group of promising hurlers attending Portumna technical college in the mid-1960s.

“Jack Solan did a lot for hurling in east Galway. The first job he did, I remember, was to give out hurleys for free into the schools. That was a big thing at the time. He always seemed to be bringing us to matches. He happened to be over a lot of the teams I was involved with.

“There was a load of us travelling in his cars. He had a great club man called Gerry Hackett too, who was there to bring us because there weren’t that many cars at that time. But Jack was in charge of the Galway minor teams that I played on, along with another priest, Fr O’Grady, and he had a huge influence on my hurling.”

Galway were playing in the Munster championship during that period. Canning played minor in 1966 and 1967. The team contained players of the pedigree of John Connolly and Michael Bond and caused a stir during his first year, beating Tipperary in the semi-final. Cork awaited them in the Munster final, he recalls.

“It was a big experience for us, running out onto the Gaelic Grounds because we had never encountered a crowd like that. Cork were in the senior final too and most of the crowd were already in so there was a massive roar you could feel going through you. It was a bit unnerving, I suppose, really, for a young lad.

“Cork had a good team – lads like John Horgan, Frank Norberg and Donal Clifford played on it. I got a belt that day myself. I had a couple of teeth knocked out when someone swung a hurley back.

“There was only about 20 minutes gone. I was in extreme pain, but the match had to be played and I wasn’t brought into the hospital until it was all over. So I was in bits with it. I remember I just lay on the sideline for most of the game.”

The following year’s vintage was paler, and, after Limerick knocked Galway out of the championship, Canning was quickly ushered through to the under-21 team, along with fellow Portumna men John Joe O’Rourke and Mossy Walsh. Cork were beaten by 4-9 to 3-7 and, in Nenagh, they overcame Waterford in a 10-goal thriller.

But they never managed to win a final in Munster.

“I am not too sure about how much they respected us or rated us as much as they would other Munster counties. But in 1966, I would say Cork were sort of scared of us that day because we had beaten Tipp and we were coming strong.”

That July, they met Tipperary in the Munster under-21 final. They were down 2-5 to 0-3 at half-time and, after being moved to full forward, Canning scored two goals as the Galway men mounted a revival.

“Tipp won by about four in the end. But they were a fine team. They went on to win the All-Ireland.”

That same summer, both Seán and Frank played intermediate for Galway, losing to Limerick in a one-sided match. After that, Frankie was invited on to the senior panel, and although he was spared the realities of senior championship hurling, his selection at midfield – alongside Mossy Walsh – for that league match against Cork was a glowing endorsement of his potential.

“I enjoyed that match. I won’t forget the joult I got from Justin in a hurry,” he laughs now. “I ended up stuck to the wire for a while. He was all there, a solid man. I was big, but I was young.”

He was young. And life was asking questions. After finishing school, the awkward business of finding something to do began to press home. Some of his friends were going to try for the guards. Tynagh mines would not open for another year.

“A few of my mates got in but there were not all that many places going. Others were going for jobs in male nursing in the mental hospitals. They seemed to be the only jobs going.”

Shortly after his Galway debut, he went to London to stand in for his niece at her christening. He intended to stay for a week to see his sister and then return home. But he met people, found work and, most importantly, met up with hurlers from the St Gabriel’s club. Within weeks, he had several sound reasons for staying in London. Just like that, the direction of his life changed and his Galway hurling career seemed consigned to the past.

“It is likely that both Canning and Walsh would have played on that (Galway) team for many years were it not for the scourge of unemployment,” wrote John Joe Conwell in Hearts of Oak, the definitive history of Portumna GAA club.

Canning worked the building sites and then started managing bars and hurled every weekend. They trained on a pitch near Wormwood Scrubs prison, but St Gabriel’s was not so much a club rooted to one part of the sprawling city as a network of contacts that made London seem smaller and conquerable.

It had strong Galway connections. Canning won six London championships with the club and hurled intercounty with London teams in the All-Ireland championship. Hurling brought him home regularly – in 1973, he scored 1-1 in a stunning quarter-final victory against his native county, a match that set up an All-Ireland semi-final date with Limerick in Ennis.

It was played just a week after the Galway game: some of the exiles remained in Ireland, others had returned to London for work and got caught in the airport for five hours during a baggage handling strike. It was a strange match, with Limerick desperate to bridge the 30-year gap since their last September win and pressured by the immense expectation that they would come through this match easily.

In one of the quirks of the day, the Rea brothers marked one another, Gerry manning the London square, Ned trying to pilfer goals off him. In the end, the favourites pulled away – the 80-minute game did not suit the visitors – but it was a fraught afternoon for Limerick.

“The game in London was hard but the standard was quite high. Certainly, if you were classed as good at all, you might get away for a couple of games, but they would watch you then. I think there were a couple of years when London got a bad name and then the county board stepped in and banned a few teams and upped the quality of refereeing, and after that, it never went back to the old days. So I do feel it got a bit of bad name for the wrong reasons because there were some marvellous games there.”

Despite Canning’s prominence, there was little pressure placed on him to return home. Phone contact was occasional and minimal anyway then, and the idea of luring good players back home was rarely entertained. Work came first. He knew Galway were assembling a good team and must have guessed he stood a fine chance of being part of it. He was actually planning to return to Galway – he had bought the pub in Gurteeny in 1979 – when the county side made the breakthrough in 1980. He was in Croke Park – Jack Solan got him a ticket – for the immortal win against Limerick and Joe Connolly’s evocative speech.

“It was fantastic. Fr Solan was in tears when it was over. And I was delighted. Years afterwards, I did think about it and felt I missed the boat. Finbarr Gantley was a great old friend of mine in London and he got back in time to get his medal. He was back a few years before and came in as a substitute in 1980. But I just missed out.”

In the winter of 1981, he was just getting used to the early dark of south Galway and the realities of running a country pub when Cyril Farrell came looking for him. Frank was married now and the business was demanding. But the Woodford man persuaded him to come onto the Galway panel.

John Connolly had retired: the champions needed a full forward badly. Canning took to running the roads, sometimes with Farrell prodding him along, sometimes by himself. Thirteen years after his precocious debut, he was in line for a second senior match for Galway.

“I was 31 at the time and getting into that standard of training was difficult. It was hard – and on Mai too, as she was left with getting the pub and grocery started. I presume they were blending me in for full forward.

“In the final fling anyhow, I didn’t get my place because John decided to come back. And I didn’t mind that because I respected John so much. I was just happy to be part of the panel, and if I had got an All-Ireland medal, I would have been more than pleased. But it was great to be back playing with John and the lads I knew in the young days. You know, I put in one big year and if it worked, it worked.

“Unfortunately, I had to make do with the runners-up medal. I played a few games for Galway after the ’81 All-Ireland final but that was it then.”

He has no regrets. Although he retains fond associations with London, he got home in time to observe the stunning rise of his boyhood club and of his nephews.

Frank and Mai’s two girls played camogie and Seán’s sons come through at hurling.

“I knew they would be good – it is in their genes. Seán’s wife is from the Lynch clan in Kiltormer and her brothers Ciarán and Tommy were fine hurlers. But those boys were always hitting a ball around and got great encouragement. They got every chance.”

The Canning family gathers in Frankie’s pub every St Stephen’s Day. It has become a ritual. Sometimes he will look at Joe and marvel. When the youngster began drawing rave notices, he tried to study his game with a critical eye.

“Being his uncle, I suppose, thinking: he can’t possibly be that good. But I have no explanation for him. He is just magical. And he is an extraordinary lad, really, given the attention. Even on the annual pilgrimage here, he gives the whole day and will have kids in his arms – we have six grandchildren – and photographs taken and he is as kind and patient as anything with them.

“And the way he deals with the attention he gets from the hurling is remarkable, really. He is extremely cool about it all. He is unbelievable, really.”

Frankie is convinced this generation of Canning hurlers will win senior All-Ireland medals with the county.

His fervent wish is that it happens while Ollie is still playing. But either way, it has been a fabulous few years for Portumna. Their latest appearance in the Croke Park St Patrick’s Day parade seems almost inevitable now, and often Frank Canning sees similarities between this band of Portumna men and the generation of which he was part.

“I have no doubt that this Portumna team grew out of producing the same type of players that we had coming through in 1966.

“Then, we had six players on the Galway minor squad – Tony Burke, Lennie Burke, Gerry Flaherty, Des Holloran, Pat Slevin and myself. Along with that, we had Mossy Walsh, John Walsh and John Joe Rourke, all county men. So there were great prospects for us. These were fantastic hurlers and I have no doubt we would have gone places. But we all left. We all went different ways. We were wiped.”

Those were different times. He knows the chances of the latest Canning forward disappearing for a full 10 years are non-existent, and watching Portumna now makes him feel more or less as he did in 1967: that it is all ahead of them.