Limerick hurling win: Family matters most on a day sent to us from heaven

We arrived ticketless in Dublin, just a few hours before our Limerick heroes ran out at Croker. Outside the Gresham Hotel, a tout saw us and was all over us like a rash.

“Are ya buyin’ or sellin’?”

“Buying – maybe.”

He drove a hard bargain, because he knew desperate men will pay a premium when the clock is counting down on All-Ireland final day. My father handed over the necessary. It was the first of September, 1974. I was nine years old and about to see my first game of hurling: Limerick, the All-Ireland champions, versus Kilkenny.

Outside the Cusack Stand, Dad lifted me over the turnstile – no questions asked. Back in the days before health and safety, a father and son could get into the ground on the strength of one ticket.

Forty-four years on, the match is a blur – all I can remember is Eddie Keher putting the ball over the bar from everywhere. Mostly, what I remember from that day are moments with my father, and the excitement of seeing Dublin for the first time.

Six months ago, we buried Dad. His final resting place is St Nicholas cemetery in Adare and I took my mother there on Saturday morning. The day before the big match was her 54th wedding anniversary.

No headstone has been erected at the grave yet; there’s just a simple cross with his name on a brass plate – ‘Tom English, Died 12th February 2018, Rest in Peace’. There was something different about the cross this time, though: a flash of green -and-white near the top. Somebody – we had no idea who – had tied a braid in the Limerick colours around it.

Thanks to the kind person who put this on my Dad's grave on Friday  - whoever you are. 45 years is a long time and many of our loved ones didn't live to see the day when Limerick won another All-Ireland - but we feel their spirit strongly now on this day of days  #LuimneachAbú pic.twitter.com/HHHfZeEDRF

— Alan English (@AlanEnglish9) August 19, 2018

What moved me most was that it had been done it with such care and obvious love. On a weekend when emotions ran high for all of us who have Limerick in our hearts, this simple gesture reduced me to tears more than 24 hours before the MacCarthy Cup was decked out in green-and-white ribbons, and then lifted in triumph.

We wondered what kind person had done this lovely thing, and we made phonecalls to family members. But nobody knew; it was a mystery.

A big part of me wanted to see it as a lucky omen for Limerick, ahead of the big game the following day. But when you’ve spent 45 years knocking on the door to the promised land, you learn to keep your hopes in check.

Dad was always one for anniversaries. My first day as Limerick Leader editor – March 5, 2007 – was a proud one for him. Every year, on the first Monday in March, he would call me.

“Five years today, Al.”

“Nine years today, Al.”

I once asked my predecessor, Brendan Halligan, what the highlight of his 36 years in the editor’s chair had been. He didn’t hesitate: “Limerick winning the All-Ireland in seventy-three.” His front-page headline was simple, but perfect: ‘It’s Ours!’

Brendan spent the next 33 years hoping for another front page like that – in vain.

In my first year in the editor’s chair, the hurlers made their first All-Ireland final in 11 years. In the week of the final, I made sure the Leader threw the kitchen sink at it. I dreamed about producing a historic front page the following week, a thing of beauty like the one from 1973, with a headline that captured the mood of the county.

THE WAIT IS OVER!

AT LAST!

IT’S OURS – AGAIN!

Kilkenny stood in our way, as they did on that September day in 1974. And Kilkenny prevailed, again.

I’ve moved to a wider role at the Leader now, but thankfully I can still get stuck in at the coalface on the biggest days, helping the paper to tell the stories that matter to the people of Limerick — and writing the headlines that go with them.

Sadly, Dad didn’t get to see Limerick make another final. Walking around the St Nicholas graveyard on Saturday, Mam and I saw the county colours here and there: a flag placed tenderly alongside fresh flowers, a Limerick cap resting against a headstone. You couldn’t help but feel the longing for a Limerick win, or be reminded that families the length and breadth of the county were deeply invested in the outcome of what would play out the next day.

Above all, Sunday was all about family. In the back room of the Palace Bar in Fleet Street, there were fathers and sons in Limerick jerseys, the young boys hanging out of their dads three hours before the throw-in for their first All-Ireland final. You could say it took me back.

The older generation was well represented too, Limerickmen who have waited and waited for the great day to arrive. I met ‘Jackonville Joe’ Graham, who has flown home every summer since 1966, hoping to see his beloved county lift the Liam MacCarthy again. Joe, 82, was having a quiet pint with his brother Arthur, four years his senior and a man who hurled with Mick Mackey.

I couldn’t help but notice that Joe and Arthur were both wearing, around their necks, the same braid I’d seen on my father’s grave the previous day.

At 8.37pm on Sunday night, as we were making our way home to Limerick after one of the greatest days of our lives, a WhatsApp message came through from my sister Sinead. The mystery had been solved, she said. The braid had been put there by Dad’s grand-niece Olivia Lynch, aged six.

She had played her part in a day sent to us from heaven.