IT was history in the making for Newcestown in Enniskeane when they met St Finbarr’s in the county premier senior hurling championship, not that the St John’s club are strangers to making history on the Gaelic pitches of Cork.

BY TOM LYONS

This was the very first time a senior hurling club team from within the Carbery Division met a senior club from outside the division in the championship at a venue within Carbery itself.

If we exclude the Carbery senior hurling team itself, then senior hurling championship games being played within the Carbery division are a rarity in the history books.

Whether it’s the questionable view that there’s no hurling worth talking about west of the famous Viaduct, or that all Carbery pitches are looked on as football-only pitches by the fixture-makers, senior hurling club games in Carbery have been as rare as hen’s teeth since the championship began way back in 1887.

Maybe the senior clubs themselves had too much difficulty in navigating the road running west out of Cork city but, truth to tell, Carbery didn’t help itself by not having teams capable of hurling in the senior grade.

Bandon did their best to uphold the hurling standards in Carbery, dabbling in senior now and again, in the 1950s and 1970s, but more comfortable at intermediate. Kilbrittain had a stab at senior hurling, too, but only for a brief spell from 1996 to 1999, never playing championship in West Cork.

It was not until the rise of Newcestown that people began to take senior hurling seriously here in the West. Now and again, senior teams like Glen Rovers and St Finbarr’s would be invited to take part in  tournament games in places like Bandon and Clonakilty, a rare chance to see the best hurlers in Cork in action, before the arrival of television took away a lot of the mystique surrounding our stars like Christy Ring and Jack Lynch.

The very first senior hurling club championship game, not involving the Carbery divisional team, did not take place in Carbery until 2018 when Bandon and Newcestown were both involved in the old senior grade, before the premier grade was introduced.

The sides met in Clonakilty in the third round on Saturday, September 1st,  and a huge crowd watched Newcestown winning well by 4-13 to 2-8, being crowned the unofficial kings of West Cork hurling. Daniel Twomey hit 2-2 that day and Tadhg Twomey was man-of-the-match.

Having waited over 130 years for the first senior hurling championship game between two clubs to be played in Carbery, we didn’t have long to wait for the second as the two teams were drawn against each other the following year, 2018, in the first round.

Again, the game was played in Ahamilla on Sunday, April 20th, old backdoor system in operation, and it was sweet revenge for the Lilywhites as they emerged winners by a single goal, 1-17 to 0-17. Ronan Crowley was man-of-the-match that day with 1-10 to his credit.

Now, with Newcestown as the only premier senior hurling club team in Carbery, the likelihood of a repeat of those two local derby games is on the long finger, but on Sunday Newcestown made more history when they became the first senior hurling club team from Carbery to welcome a team from outside the division into Carbery to play them in a championship game.

It was only right and proper that the opponents were the legendary St Finbarr’s with their strong West Cork connection.

Since they first played in the county senior hurling championship in 1933, the Carbery divisional hurling team has played championship hurling within the Carbery division on 14 occasions.