GAA: Something unusual about this St Patrick's Day at Croke Park. It was cold but it didn't rain on our parade. The wind didn't skin us. And the club hurling and football finals had no romance or novelty attached to them. Birr won. Nemo Rangers won. The strength of the brand leaders in either code was reaffirmed. Business as usual.

So no mighty little parishes dragging every sinner in the town to Dublin, just the brisk efficiency of the thoroughbreds.

Birr won their fourth All-Ireland club hurling title in nine seasons and did so with an ease that reflected the day. The weather held, Croke Park was a spacious and perfect napkin. Birr's crisp first-time hurling was made for such occasions.

They stretched Dunloy and then tortured them a little before running our winners by double scores, 1-19 to 0-11. It was the Antrim side's second All-Ireland final defeat at the hands of Birr. For Birr, the pre-eminent club in Offaly hurling for the last decade or more, it was an occasion to savour in more ways than one. Becoming the first side to win the title four times was something they relished but a large part of the pleasure came in the manner in which the baton was handed on.

Success has been built on a hard-core of players who broke through with Birr having grown up together in the green and red. That group are all on the wrong side of 30 and are on the verge of dissolution. What impressed yesterday was how the younger players carried the burden.

This was the day when Rory Hanniffy and Gary Hanniffy dominated down the spine of the pitch, when much of the touch and skill that made the difference came from Paul Molloy. The day when Stephen Browne was introduced to hit two insouciant points.

Birr are keen on winning a fourth county title in a row this year. If they keep developing new talents they might have enough to extend their ambition to a third All-Ireland title on the trot.

Gary Hanniffy articulated the cool, level nature of their ambitions as a group.

"Last year having won the All-Ireland our big motivation was to come back and win four," said captain Hanniffy. "We tried to keep that out of our heads but it was our motivation to win four and go top, to be the only club on four All-Irelands.

"It's a great feeling. At the beginning of the year this is where I wanted to be, what I wanted to do. So it's a great feeling."

In the football game which followed Nemo Rangers extended their record of All-Ireland wins to seven but were inclined to stutter about it. Having lost the last two All-Ireland finals it looked for long periods as if they would leave this one behind as well.

Crossmolina ducked and dived and looked a good deal the better side for much of the game. Kieran McDonald ran matters from the centre-forward position and such were the Mayo side's advantages in terms of speed and movement that even when Nemo lumbered back into contention anything other than a Crossolina win looked unlikely.

Instance the last few minutes when the crowd of 26,235 woke up to the fact that the game inexplicably had become a cliffhanger.

The teams were tied on 0-12 to 1-9 with Crossmolina, champions two years ago having squandered some extravagantly easy chances. Colin Corkery suddenly had three quick chances to put his side ahead and each one went astray, bringing his personal wides total for the game to seven.

And then from outside the 45-yard line he found himself in possession again and launched a spiralling shot which just floated high and dreamy over the bar causing the big man to merrily jig his way back into position.

Joe Kavanagh, similarly alienated from scoring positions, popped up to add a second point and suddenly it was all over.

Alan Cronin, one of the Cork team's success stories on the day, summed up what the day meant to Nemo Rangers in performance terms - it was getting out from under a rock.

"Now that we're not under as much pressure maybe we will go on and play better football."

In other words, sufficient unto the day was the win thereof.