*Johnnie McMahon with his grandson. Photograph: John Mangan
MILTOWN Malbay native Johnnie McMahon is really enjoying the build-up to Sunday’s All-Ireland hurling final.
Resident on Cork for over fifty years, he was back in his native Miltown last week for the annual Willie Clancy summer school of music. He was accompanied by many of his Cork friends and neighbours and “the banter and the craic was mighty”, he pointed out.
An avid sportsman, he has a particular love for gaelic games, attending games weekly.
A championship winner with his beloved St Joseph’s Miltown, he played for the Clare senior footballers for over a dozen years and was an outstanding team captain in 1976. “We were beaten by Armagh in the Division 3 final that year after a replay which I missed due to an injury I suffered in the drawn final. The late Bert McMahon also missed that replay due to injury while John McGrath was injured in the game. We had a very good team at that time”, he recalled.
McMahon went to college in UCC in 1971 and “I decided I wanted to spend my life in Cork, I enjoyed it so much. It’s a great sporting county,” he admitted.
He recalled playing “against the Gaels (Shannon Gaels) and it was one of the best games I ever played. I spent the week waiting for the Champion for the report which covered about two inches by one and a half inches. There was very little sports reporting then. I went back to Cork and got the Echo and there was a report of a junior B game in West Cork which ran the length of the page”, he quipped.
In 1983 John set up his own business, BCD Masko in Charleville. That business which he sold some years ago, celebrated its 40th anniversary last year and currently employees in the region of 400 workers.
John is currently the managing director of Platek in Charleville. He transferred from his native Miltown to Charleville GAA, a predominantly hurling club, for two seasons but he returned to his beloved Miltown for his final years as a player.
He told The Clare Echo, “Look, the successes achieved by Clare in the 90’s were marvellous. Being a football man, the ‘92 Munster final win was magnificent but we celebrated the 1995 and 1997 hurling wins as well. They brought great pride to the people of Clare, especially for those of us living in Cork where they always had a respect for Clare hurling. Look Cork is a great sporting county, Cork people love their sport and they are very balanced about sport”.
Charleville is on the Cork Limerick border and the semi-final between those counties brought plenty of excitement. “Not many predicted a Clare v Cork final as a lot didn’t see Limerick being beaten. The banter down here is mighty, in Clem Smith’s (former Limerick player) pub and in Pakie O’Brien’s, a great Cork hostelry. we have a lot of Clare people living here including Syl Barrett from Ballyea and it will be a great week leading up to the final. The thing now for us is for Clare to win. We love beating them. Having played with them and against them, it’s great to get into the psyche of Cork people and their love of hurling. You really can’t appreciate that unless you live amongst them”, he said.
No doubt John and his fellow Clare natives will delve more into the psyche of their Cork neighbours this week in the lead up to Sunday’s eagerly awaited final.
