JP McManus wants a Limerick All-Ireland win ‘most of all’

NOTHING would make Limerick businessman JP McManus happier than if the county’s hurling side finally won an All-Ireland after a 45 year wait.

That’s according to his former retained jockey Tony McCoy.

In September 2014, a few weeks after Limerick had lost a thunderous All-Ireland semi-final to Kilkenny, JP McManus hosted a dinner for the players and management at his mansion in Martinstown.

Among the guests was champion jockey McCoy.

“So I said to the Limerick hurlers, ‘He has invited you here because he wants to acknowledge the fact that you’ve done well,” he recalled in an interview months later. “But believe you me, if you don’t do well next year, you won’t be back. If you win an All-Ireland,  then you will make him happier than any of us will ever make him.

“Because I know. That’s the one thing that he wants most of all. So I said, “Lads, if you do that – you’ll be treated like kings. But if you don’t … He’s the most generous man I’ve ever met, but he wants to win. Don’t be confused by him having you here after you made it to the semi-final. Don’t be thinking that he’s just a happy-go-lucky bloke, that he’s not a competitive man.”

The interview with McCoy, which was conducted by former Limerick Leader editor Alan English, formed the basis of an extensive feature on McManus by Denis Walsh  in The Sunday Times at the weekend.  

“I’ll tell you this much – he’s more competitive than me or Paul O’Connell,” said McCoy. “ You can write that – and if he doesn’t like it, he can lump it. Because I’m just telling the truth. People mightn’t think it, but that’s the way it is.”

When asked how he came to realise that Limerick winning an All-Ireland would mean that much to Mr McManus, McCoy replied: “I just know. He’s a very, very proud Limerickman. And I know that from everything about him.

“The way he speaks about Limerick, his demeanour, the way he told me about his Good Friday clean-up. Limerick winning the All-Ireland? I’m telling you, it would be a big, big thing in his life.”

Mr McManus, who is the official sponsor of Limerick GAA, was in attendance with his wife Noreen at the Gaelic Grounds on Sunday for Limerick’s win over Waterford. His brother Gerry is the financial backer of the Limerick underage  hurling  academy, which many people credit with sowing the seeds of the current good run being enjoyed  by the senior hurlers.