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Irish Times
2 days ago
- Sport
- Irish Times
Poignant success in Galway festival feature for Alan O'Sullivan aboard Filey Bay
The death of renowned trainer Edward O'Grady made for an unusually sombre start to the 2025 Galway festival on Monday evening where Filey Bay delivered an evocative success in the featured Connacht Hotel Handicap. The JP McManus-owned 7-1 shot justified significant market support to win the biggest prize of the year for amateur riders under jockey Alan O'Sullivan. It was a poignant success for O'Sullivan whose older brother Michael tragically died in February from injuries sustained in a fall at Thurles in an incident that devastated racing and beyond. After cooly guiding Filey Bay to an ultimately smooth defeat of Mon Coeur, with Ragmans Corner in third, O'Sullivan looked to the skies before paying tribute to O'Grady who passed away on Sunday. READ MORE Like all riders on Monday, O'Sullivan (21) wore a black armband in memory of the 75-year-old former champion trainer who had been a mainstay of Irish racing for more than half a century. Coming just months after the loss of his Cheltenham Festival winning older brother, it was a heartfelt message that chimed with popular delight for the big race winning rider and his family. Owner JP McManus, jockey Alan O'Sullivan and trainer Emet Mullins after winning with Filey Bay. Photograph: Morgan Treacy/Inpho 'My goal at the start of the year was to be good enough that someone might want me for this [race]. He was looking down on me, I think,' said O'Sullivan. 'I probably went the brave man's route, but I thought it's what Mikey would have done. I got a dream run and he galloped all the way to the line.' Filey Bay was a second winner on the day for McManus which felt apt in the circumstances. Back in the 1970s it was O'Grady that nurtured McManus's racing interest beyond gambling and bookmaking into becoming the most significant owner in jump racing history. He saddled McManus's first Cheltenham Festival winner, Mister Donovan in 1982, and continued to train for him until his death on Sunday aged 75. The renowned businessman was in Ballybrit and fondly remembered his old ally as 'something special'. He said: 'When Edward fancied a horse, and gave you the office, you didn't need to have money; all you needed to have was credit, because you always felt he would deliver.' Filey Bay's trainer Emmet Mullins is rapidly carving out a similar reputation and won the big race for a second time in three years. He saddled three in it and although another of his hopes, Toll Stone, was weak in the betting, market trends pointed to confidence in the winner. 'It was meant to be and I'm a bit lost for words,' he said. 'It was Michael's saddle that Alan was using today. Michael rode a few times for me here and I think we hit the crossbar twice, so Alan steadied the ship.' Jockey Alan O'Sullivan celebrates winning with Filey Bay. Photograph: Morgan Treacy/Inpho O'Grady trained the Day One feature winner, Kentucky Charm, 20 years ago, part of a festival CV that also included three Plate victories in four years between 1978-1981 and a Galway Hurdle in 1979. McManus's opening winner was the regally bred odds-on shot Davy Crockett whose trainer Willie Mullins pointed to how his former colleague's Cheltenham Festival tally of 18 winners set the bar for him and others in more recent years. 'He was the foremost trainer going to Cheltenham, when no one [from Ireland] was having runners or winners in Cheltenham. He was having one or two of them every year,' said Mullins who nominated the Royal Bond at the Fairyhouse Winter Festival as a target for the winner. There was an even shorter priced winner of the two-year-old maiden when Constitution River landed 1-5 odds with ease under Wayne Lordan. However, there was some reprieve for bookmakers when Jerrari scored in the handicap hurdle. British based trainer David Loughnane returned to his native Galway to saddle a first festival winner with It'sneverjustone, successful in the seven-furlong handicap. 'It'll take a while for this one to sink in. It's magical. I grew up on the hurdy gurdy's across the road looking in on this place and the noise of the horses galloping past. I don't come from racing. This was my Everest for a long time now. It's very special,' Loughnane said. Monday's opening festival attendance of 18,472 was up almost eight per cent from last year's tally of 17,074.
Irish Independent
21-07-2025
- Entertainment
- Irish Independent
Tipperary All-Ireland homecoming: Oasis tribute entertains as fans await hurling heroes
Oasis tribute band Acquiesce are now on the main stage in Semple Stadium for the big homecoming, and the crowds are getting soaked with rain. Typical Irish weather – the umbrellas are out but the rain can't dampen this party. Next up is Thurles singer songwriter Una Healy of The Saturdays fame, but the line up may be changed due to weather and other factors. It's understood that the main speeches, from Tipperary captain Ronan Maher and manager Liam Cahill, currently scheduled at 8.01pm and 8.15pm respectively, may be later than advertised, and go ahead instead at around 8.30pm. Excitement was building in Semple Stadium throughout the day for the homecoming of Tipperary's triumphant senior hurling team which put Cork to the sword in Sunday's All-Ireland Hurling Final. The estimate is that around 30,000 fans from across the Premier County are flooding into the FBD Semple Stadium, with around 15,000 already on the pitch before the main stage at 6.30pm. Queues formed at the front gates from 4pm with Tipperary band Seskin Lane coming on stage to perform first. Seskin Lane bass guitarist and band member Shelly Martin is the granddaughter of Paddy Kenny, who won four hurling All Ireland finals with Tipperary. Paddy lived in Thurles, in Croke Street. Fans and families are around the main stage at present, listening to Tipperary trad band Cailíní Nua. The atmosphere is electric and the craic is ninety. Sport at its finest. We want to see your matchday and homecoming photos! Send them to us using the form below.
RTÉ News
21-07-2025
- Sport
- RTÉ News
Tipperary team set for Thurles homecoming after All Ireland final win
Tipperary fans will welcome their All-Ireland senior hurling champions home to Thurles this afternoon after their triumph over Cork in yesterday's final. Tipperary County Board PRO Jonathan Cullen said the celebrations will get under way at around 4.30pm in Semple Stadium, with a large crowd is expected to attend the event. Speaking on RTÉ's Morning Ireland, Mr Cullen said the players will hopefully arrive with the Liam MacCarthy cup at around 7.30pm. "We'll have live entertainment from 4.30pm like the 2 Johnnies, Una Healy and seeing as Pat (Shortt) is going to be there he might pop up onto the stage as well, you never know," he said. He added: "The players are here this morning, some of them are up already, and the enthusiasm about them getting back to Thurles and meeting the supporters is unbelievable."
Times
19-07-2025
- Sport
- Times
Tipperary v Cork was the summit for me and my dad. I'll be thinking of him
The thing I'll miss from this All-Ireland final is the phone call. The one that came after every match from wherever my father was, at home or in hospital when his health began ebbing away, his portal to a world he couldn't reach anymore. And if Tipperary had just been in combat with Cork, the chat could eat up most of the road. Because in our world, Tipperary and Cork games became for us like a trip to St Peter's Basilica for the committed Catholic. Hurling was my father's addiction, going to school in Thurles and hurling at home in Ballycahill in the 1960s when Tipperary were in full pomp. He would tell stories of watching Jimmy Doyle pucking a ball alone off the back wall of Semple Stadium and jousting with John Doyle in club matches unseen by the rest of the world. He loved the stylists, abhorred the dark arts and adored Tipp, no matter how much I insisted those two opinions couldn't be held simultaneously by any Tipp supporter. He moved to Cork in the early 1970s and suffered the twin horrors of Tipperary's wander through the wilderness till the late Eighties while Cork won All-Irelands hand over fist. The slagging in the old sugar beet factory in Mallow where he worked was hilarious and merciless. All that pain intensified his devotion. Instead of being reared on the pure drop of Cork club hurling I was educated at the killing fields of mid-Tipperary and beyond. Even if the games weren't great, they were only the hook for everything that really mattered. In those car rides up we talked, maybe about hurling first, then other things. My father would talk about the importance of throwing everything into a match but how it was equally important to let all that go once the game was over. He often talked about the old men in Ballycahill who might go to three matches on a single Sunday, sometimes leaving before the end. It was the hurling they travelled for, they always said, not the outcome. There was a reason we loved hurling that went beyond winning, but Cork-Tipp was always the sharp end of all that. The best days? The 1990 Munster final when Cork stunned Tipperary and my father declared his biggest worry as the rain fell that morning was how to keep his pipe tobacco dry. The 1991 Munster final replay when Tipp won a mind-blowing game and I squeezed in by pushing an old friend of the family in his wheelchair. I spent that day behind the Tipp dugout, enthralled and distraught and thrilled all at the same time. Any time I see highlights from 1991 now, I realise I'm still not over it. One side-effect of growing up through that time was any All-Ireland title for Cork without beating Tipperary has never felt fully-dressed. So, imagine what Sunday means. No game, no sporting event, will ever feel bigger. None of this is anything unique either, or some teary form of hurling exceptionalism. Millions of other matches and pairings across the sports will evoke the same feelings for people. It's a feeling that transcends sport, too, the common ground where people could meet and connect and find the best of each other. Tipp-Cork was the day that always took us by the hand to somewhere else. Tipp-Cork was the day we always waited for. It's nine years now since my father died. Sometimes it feels like a long time. On days like this, not so much. In the weeks before his death we had time to say to each other everything any father and son might wish to say. But I remembered one day that always bothered me. In 1987 the Munster final between Tipperary and Cork went to a replay in Killarney. We couldn't get tickets, leaving us at home listening on the radio as Michael Doyle from my father's parish scored the goals that finally beat Cork in extra time and won Tipp their first Munster title for 16 years. I can still see him lying on the bed, whooping and cheering as I stood in the doorway, ten-years-old and unable to hold back the tears. For years it had bugged me that I pulled him out of that place of supreme bliss to console me, so I said sorry. He stared blankly at me. 'What match?' he said. 'The Munster final in Killarney,' I replied. 'Michael Doyle's goals.' He looked at me and threw his eyes to heaven. All he remembered was beating Cork. What else mattered? He'll be thinking the same today, wherever he is.
Irish Times
15-07-2025
- Sport
- Irish Times
Liam Cahill and Tipperary target total vindication against Cork
Liam Cahill can't pretend it doesn't matter. When it comes to Tipperary hurling – the highs, the lows – he continues to puck every ball. The blue and gold flags and bunting are flying again around Thurles and Nenagh and beyond, but only a few months ago it seemed the wind had gone out of Tipp's sails. It wasn't quite a winter of discontent but few around the county believed they'd be scrambling for All-Ireland final tickets come July. Cahill's first two years at the helm of his native county were challenging – from eight championship games over 2023 and 2024 they managed just one win, losing four and drawing three. READ MORE When asked at the end of the 2024 championship whether he believed he was the right man to take Tipperary forward, Cahill defended himself robustly. Now, the difficult graft of three years is starting to play out for all to see inside the white lines. 'You have to understand that these questions have to be asked, too, when the performances aren't there,' concedes Cahill. 'It probably was warranted at the time. The reality of it is the county board had given me a three-year term to try to fix this thing the best I could. 'Yes, there was not much of a ship sticking out of the water and it didn't look like it was going to come back up any time soon, but I had huge belief in my ability to turn it around. 'I had huge belief in my coaching system, Mikey Bevans and Declan Laffan. I knew I had the right people around me, so it was a case of getting it fixed.' Liam Cahill with Noel McGrath after Tipperary's win over Kilkenny. Photograph: Ryan Byrne/Inpho Despite his unwavering belief, some of the criticism and barstool chattering doing the rounds did sting the man, who has managed the county to All-Ireland minor, under-21 and under-20 titles. 'I suppose the ones around that 'Cahill flogs his teams, his excruciating training sessions'. I felt it was disingenuous. Liam Cahill doesn't make it up as he goes along,' he says. 'People commenting on stuff like that, not knowing what exactly is going on behind the scenes is lazy and ill-informed. I felt, maybe not annoyed over it, but a little bit aggrieved that something so loose like that creates so much traction. 'There were other things such as 'Cahill plays with a sweeper'. Liam Cahill never played with a sweeper on his team in his life, ever. If it materialises it is because of the opposition forcing it. When you hear people talking about that, and 'Cahill's teams are not coached right'. I got really annoyed over that. 'It's hard not to, but it does give you the motivation to go ahead and try to prove people wrong.' Tipperary have been proving many of the doubters wrong this season. They contested the National League final in April and on Sunday will face Cork in the first ever All-Ireland SHC final between the counties. But some difficult decisions had to be made along the path to this stage: several experienced players either stepped away or were moved on while new players were introduced and given a shake. 'The reality of it is at the time I came in in 2023 most people in Tipperary knew that there was a big change coming. Unfortunately, we had a number of really top-class players for the last decade who were just coming towards the end of their intercounty careers, and the gap between what was needed to come in and replace them wasn't maybe fully ready at the time. Dáire English and Owen O'Dwyer helping Tipperary to an inspirational win over Kilkenny in last year's All-Ireland minor final. Photograph: Ken Sutton/Inpho 'The meetings I had, and the discussions I had, when I accepted the role would have been around absolutely having time, to be given an opportunity and a chance and having patience. But unfortunately when you're in a county as demanding as Tipperary not everybody sees that and understands that. 'It's not too different to Kerry from a football perspective, the demands are really high, so that brings added pressure as well. The county board agreed a three-year term initially and in fairness to them they stood by me and backed me.' Cahill previously referenced the inspiration taken from watching 13-man Tipperary beat Kilkenny in last year's All-Ireland minor final at Nowlan Park. He wanted his team to harness that spirit, and it manifested itself in the manner of their semi-final victory over Kilkenny two weeks ago. 'The minor win gave us a great sense of pride, but also a great sense of realisation as a senior squad and senior management team that we need to be doing that from where we're at, and the responsibility we have to the jersey. 'That has to come from the top down, we should be inspiring young fellows rather than they inspiring us. The players have seen what's now required, and have committed to it, and thankfully we're bringing it out ourselves in our performances to date. 'We've come through some really tough games with big performances and big moments in matches. So, this is not a flash in the pan from this group of players, they're doing it consistently throughout the 2025 season. I think we'll gain huge encouragement from that. 'It will be something important for us if we can bring this thing down to the last five or 10 minutes of the All-Ireland final and we're still in the hunt, I think we will have huge resilience and belief in our ability to get the job done.'
