Claire Stakelum hoping to continue family tradition with All-Ireland junior final win

Claire Stakelum is talking Tipperary hurling when she is asked to detail precisely the role her various relations have played in the county’s greatest successes.

A Garda Siochana member herself, she smiles. She wouldn’t dream of hitting the most troublesome of offenders with such a probing and dense question. But she is game and gives it a go.

There’s Pat Stakelum for starters, she says, her grandfather’s brother, who won three All-Irelands and captained the county to success in 1949.

Back when they used to give out All-Time All-Star awards, he got one in 1993, a sort of nod to those who would have received an All-Star if they’d existed at the time.

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Then there was Pat’s nephew, Richie, who famously declared in 1987, upon skippering Tipp to a first Munster hurling title in 16 years, that “the famine is over”. It had been 16 years without a provincial win.

“That would be Dad’s cousin in Dublin,” explained Claire, the Dublin aspect explaining just how Richie popped up as one of Anthony Daly’s selectors when the Sky Blues won League and Leinster titles in 2011 and 2013.

Her father, by the way, is Ger Stakelum.

“I think he stayed with the club, didn’t feature with the county.”

Richie’s brother, Conor, won his All-Ireland in 1991, on the same panel as his cousins, Bobby and Aidan Ryan. In 2016, when Tipp won the All-Ireland again, Conor was part of Michael Ryan’s back room team. Ever drive through Thurles and notice the Stakelum name on the storefront? That’s him.

“There’s the hardware store and the bookstore as well, that’s owned by Conor,” said Claire.

Conor Jr has played for the Tipp seniors as well, and netted in the 2018 All-Ireland Under-21 final.

Turns out Claire has several more boughs to add to her extensive family tree. Padraic Maher and Ronan Maher are her cousins too. The real clinker though is the last cousin she rhymes off, Limerick’s Declan Hannon. How exactly did that one come about?

“His Mam and my Dad are brother and sister, so Declan’s a first cousin,” she said.

All of which means that, in any given year, Claire can be fairly certain that there will be an All-Ireland celebration of some sort to look forward to, or a major day out in Croke Park at the very least.

In the last eight All-Ireland hurling campaigns, the Maher brothers or Hannon have come out on top in seven of them.

Hannon won his fifth All-Ireland medal last month though the injury that ruled him out for the semi-final and final wins was a personal frustration.

“That news breaking through was hard, it’s hard for anyone but when he’s family it hit that bit closer to home,” said Claire. “The other 15 lads stepped up of course and did what they did. It was great that he was still able to get the opportunity to go up with Cian Lynch to lift the cup.”

Claire was there last month on All-Ireland final day to witness Limerick’s second-half tour de force and the famous four-in-a-row win, achieved at the expense of Kilkenny.

“I was cheering on as much as I could, as much as I begrudged it in some ways,” she laughed.

The thing is, the family dynamic will change considerably this weekend because Claire will be the one to take centre stage at Croke Park as joint-captain of Tipp’s camogie team in the All-Ireland junior final.

If Tipp can pull it off, and beat a fancied Clare team, she and Ciannait Walsh will be the first from the county to lift an All-Ireland camogie trophy at Croke Park since Joanne Ryan led the seniors to success in 2004.

Stakelum played with Ryan for the Tipp intermediates for a while and can step forward now herself on a potentially landmark occasion for the county. That she has got this far is no surprise really.

“I wasn’t given an option really,” she said of her embrace of the family past-time. “Born and bred! There was never a phase where I never wanted to be playing or anything like that. It was always something I wanted to be doing. And I’d have to emphasise that – it’s something you want to do. Because everyone is saying, ‘Oh, it must be a massive commitment’ and this, that and the other but if it’s something you want to do, it’s no issue. It’s more than a hobby to me. I’m blessed to be involved as much as I am.

“For family and friends, it would be massive, even though they have seen plenty of big days with both Tipp and Limerick. I’m honoured to be getting the opportunity to potentially walk up the steps of the Hogan Stand.”

Opponents Clare have displayed thunderous form throughout the championship, however, winning their first four games by cricket scores before overcoming Armagh, the beaten 2021 and 2022 finalists, at the semi-final stage.

Tipp, meanwhile, have played two games less, beating Wicklow and Cavan in their three-team group to advance directly to the Championship’s last four.

To draw some sort of direct form line between the Tipp and Clare teams, Tipp beat Roscommon by 10 points in their All-Ireland semi-final whereas Clare previously beat Roscommon by 23 points in their group.

“Clare are a serious outfit,” acknowledged the Holycross Ballycahill forward. “I suppose both Clare and Tipp, they’re both names that scream GAA backgrounds.”

The names alone on the Tipp team scream history and lineage; Stakelum, Ryan, Sheedy, Cahill, Maher. The biggest names of all may be the ones sitting in the stand. Keep an eye out for Hannon and the two Mahers.

“Hopefully, I don’t know who is planning to go, we will have to do a bit of bribing,” she joked.

There’ll be none of that needed. Estimates are that as many as 30,000 could be on hand to witness Sunday’s triple header of junior, intermediate and senior deciders.

Stakelum has promised high quality, whatever game you might take in. She came up through the Tipp underage ranks herself, winning All-Irelands with many of the players who blitzed the Munster senior championship this year.

She is ambitious about returning to play among those players at some stage too though equally believes that splitting up the groups, who now train separately, was an important move too.

“I think it was two years ago that a decision was made that the teams would go their separate ways,” she said. “It was obviously very hard on management, trying to be in both places at the same time basically. It was probably the best decision we could make because now we have two separate management squads that can concentrate on both different teams. I think it has definitely paid off.”