Nickey Brennan mourns late hurling pioneer Tommy Maher

Former GAA president Nickey Brennan has paid tribute to the late Monsignor Tommy Maher, who passed away this week at the age of 92.

Brennan, an All-Ireland winner with Kilkenny in 1979, played under Maher in his early career and says that the coach contributed not only to hurling in his own county, which he took to seven All-Irelands in 18 years, but to hurling in general.

"He was one of those people who took a lead in developing skills and putting those skills down on paper in order to improve hurling as a game. It was himself, Donie Nealon, John Hanley, Dessie Ferguson, Ned Power of Waterford – they were the pioneers who took hurling from what you might call its raw state and made it a game about skill.

“Not alone did that make better hurlers but it made hurling a better spectacle. He would have been one of the leading lights coming from Kilkenny and, obviously, St Kieran’s College.”

Motivator

The passing of Mgr Maher on the same day that Henry Shefflin retired from inter-county hurling was an eerie coincidence for the county and highlighted the difference between the generations which had produced the two hurling icons.

Shefflin had to call a media conference to deal with the scale of interest. Maher, on the other hand, came from an era of less pervasive coverage and had been unwell for a number of years, fading naturally from the spotlight until Enda McEvoy’s marvellous account of his life was published three years ago.

Brennan emphasises that for all Maher’s contribution to the revolution that modernised hurling, he will be best remembered for his role in resurrecting his own county’s fortunes.

“When he got involved in 1957 and led them to that year’s All-Ireland, the county hadn’t won one in 10 years. People mightn’t appreciate that, and particularly in the context of recent times, but 10 years was a famine.

“Someone who was a cleric drew enormous respect. If he was telling you something, you listened to him. He knew what was necessary to make a great hurler out of an average hurler.

“He was also a motivator and he knew that to compete in the mid- to late-1950s and into the 1960s and ’70s there was a physicality about hurling and he was up front about telling people that you had to be able to take care of yourself in that department.

“It was the hurlers who could bring a high skill level to that type of robust play that would be successful and in Monsignor Tommy Maher’s time, Kilkenny were particularly successful because they could blend the two.”

His feats were all the more remarkable given the presence in those same years of the great Tipperary team of the 1960s, the Cork three-in-a-row side of the 1970s and a frequently menacing Wexford.

Since his first year in 1957, when by his own account he reluctantly agreed to take on the team, Kilkenny have won 22 All-Irelands whereas Cork and Tipperary have managed 11 and 10 respectively.

The All-Irelands that weren’t won under Maher’s baton were all conducted by his apprentices; every single successful manager, including Brian Cody, played for him.

His playing career was limited by the restrictions on clerics playing but, remarkably, his only senior county appearance was in the 1945 All-Ireland final defeat by Tipperary.