Canon law - double isn't won, it happens

The words of Canon Michael O'Brien were quoted at the Cork footballers' media night. As manager of the county's hurlers who won the first leg of the double in 1990, the canon was a suitable person to make the observation. "The double," he said (and I paraphrase), "isn't won. It happens. The footballers will be trying to win an All-Ireland. If they do, the double happens."

It was a fair point and one that went down well in a county where there is a sense that the footballers may be under additional pressure to deliver another double. Even in comparison with nine years ago, the hype is extraordinary.

There has been one advantage in that the hurlers' triumphant homecoming consumed the county for the first week of the fortnight preceding the football final. There may be another although it must necessarily remain virtually unspoken: that the county outside of west Cork is quite content to have won the hurling and anything else is something of an afterthought.

Winning a double is such a difficult task that the prospect of two in a decade seems outlandish. There must be something about these fin de siecle decades which encourages the whole process - two in the 1890s, maybe two in the 1990s and the other one in 1900.

Cork is one of the more obvious - if not the most obvious - county to achieve two All-Irelands in the one season. Yet until this decade there looked to be some stony fate which had set its mind against the possibility.

In the 20 years up until 1990, Cork had won a senior Munster title every year except two, 1980 and '81. Peculiarly, though, the county had never won the football and hurling in the same year. Within 18 years, 12 provincial hurling championships and six football had ended up in the county but never at the same time.

This phenomenon isn't restricted to recent decades. For instance, Jack Lynch's famous six All-Ireland medals in six years include one football success which cropped up anonymously in 1945, the one year when the hurlers slipped up in Munster.

On two occasions before 1990 when Cork were in a position to have a go at the two All-Irelands, the county managed only one title. In 1966, the footballers were edged out by a Galway team on the third lap of a three-in-a-row whereas the hurlers picked up a surprise hurling All-Ireland against favourites Kilkenny.

Ten years previously, Cork reached both All-Irelands only to lose the two of them: the hurling famously to Wexford and the football rather more prosaically to Galway.

The years when the double was achieved three times in 11 years were in many ways the pre-history of the modern GAA. It was a time when counties were represented by clubs - before the idea of amalgamating a representative team had fully caught on.

In 1890, Cork became the first county to win both All-Irelands. This honour might equally have gone to Wexford who contested both finals that year. Castlebridge and Aghabullogue met in the hurling whereas the Blue and Whites club from Wexford town played Midleton in the football.

En route, Midleton defeated Laune Rangers from Killorglin who were trained by the famous athlete and GAA pioneer J P O'Sullivan whose son Dr Eamonn became the legendary Kerry trainer who oversaw four decades of All-Ireland success between the 1920s and 1960s. Hurling appears to have been a faster sport in those days as well - that code's final took place on November 16th 1890 but the football equivalent remained unresolved until June 1892, a few months after the 1891 final had been won by Dublin.

Not that the hurling was free of controversy. Aghabullogue's captain Dan Lane took his team off the field in protest against Castlebridge's approach, described contemporaneously as "a reckless game". The Cork team were leading 1-9 to 2-2 at the time but the referee must have been in agreement with their protest because he awarded Aghabullogue the match.

Five years later, there was a historic conclusion to the championships when the All-Ireland finals were played at the Jones's Road venue which was to become Croke Park for the first time. Tipperary won the double of 1895 titles but inevitably these weren't contested until 1896, on March 15th.

Three years ago, two commemorative matches were staged at Croke Park to mark the 100th anniversary of finals at the venue. The famous Tubberadora club from Tipperary took on Tullaroan of Kilkenny and Navan O'Mahonys from Navan played Arravale Rovers. The Meath side had created a fuss in Leinster when refusing Dublin's Isles of the Sea permission to replace an injured player. ("This may be just but is it manly or sportsmanlike?" agonised one contemporary report.)

Mick Maher was captain of Tubberadora and was to become the first man to captain a side to more than one All-Ireland and one of only three men to captain three wining teams (Christy Ring and Kilkenny's walking libel action `Drug' Walsh being the others).

Maher was a particularly forceful personality. Later Carbery (P D Mehigan's alias when writing for the Cork Examiner) described the Tipperary legend as the one of the "100 odd All-Ireland captains I have seen" to whom he'd "give the palm". His nephew, also Mick, was full back on the rampantly successful Tipp teams of the 1960s.

Tipperary's second double in 1900 was recorded in a year thick with recriminations and objections. The All-Ireland finals were also marked by the fact that the GAA, in a fit of eccentricity, had declared England a province of Ireland so London teams contested both finals.

Clonmel Shamrocks had an easy enough run against London Hibernians and won by 3-7 to 02. The losers featured Sam Maguire whose eponymous trophy is at stake on Sunday and his brother John in the full-back line.

In the hurling, however, Two-Mile Borris had a terrible fright and were trailing London Desmonds by a point in the dying minutes, 0-5 to 0-6, before scoring a goal from a free and sticking in another straight from the puck-out.

Finally, on a sombre note, the weekend brought shocking news of the attack on P J Delaney of Kilkenny and Johnstown. So many acts of casual violence take place that it seems almost futile to dwell on any one. If P J Delaney's celebrity explains the shocked public reaction it appears also to have been a factor in the assault which left him seriously ill in hospital.

That he should have been set upon outside Hayes's Hotel in Thurles is a sour irony: the venue where Cusack's idealism took root being the spot where one of the more prominent heirs to the same ideal was viciously attacked, just because of a talent for hurling.