A RECENT Irish Timesreview of Dermot Keogh's biography of former Taoiseach Jack Lynch was accompanied by a stirringly evocative photograph. It shows Lynch leading out the Glen Rovers hurling team in parade before the 1940 Cork county final against Sarsfields. Immediately behind the clean-cut are two stalwarts wearing flat, wide caps, writes Norman Freeman.
Caps have long been discarded or replaced by helmets. But they had their day and they had their aura. Somehow the wearing of a cap seemed to give a player an impression of indomitable grit and toughness. The big tweed brim and the wide peak made him look like a well-seasoned veteran.
The cap seemed to say: "Don't get in my way, if you know what's good for you." And often beneath it was the grim face and tight-lipped mouth of the hardened battler.
There were hurlers who actually wore the cap backwards, in the manner of some of the men in the brigades of the old IRA. Perhaps they felt it signified their fighting spirit and warned opponents not to tread on their toes.
Of course there were practical reasons for the wearing of caps. Big games like county finals took place in late September or later. If the sun was shining, it slanted across the field of play at a low angle, especially in the second half, dazzling the eyes of those facing it. So the cap helped keep the sun out of the eyes of the hurler as the ball came flying towards him.
However, it was known that unscrupulous opponents sometimes waited behind the cap-wearer until the last split second before the ball arrived and then tipped the cap forward with fingers or handle of hurley so that it came down as far as the nose of the rival and he was unable to see what was happening. This trick carried risks. The vengeful cap-wearer might wait for the next time the ball came their way and then pull the hurley across the shins or knuckles of his deceitful adversary.
The cap might not be as protective as the latter-day helmet, but it could cushion blows when hurleys flailed, especially under the dropping ball. And there are tales of melees in which players used their caps to swipe at opponents, holding the brim so that the hard peak became the outer edge of this impromptu weapon, giving them an advantage in reach and effectiveness. I have read somewhere an account of a player being cautioned after firing his cap, spinning like a Frisbee, at a referee who made a controversial decision.
In those years some men rarely went anywhere without wearing a cap. It was part of their daily attire, whether they worked on farm or in factory, in city or town. Some even wore their cap in the house, taking them off - with a certain solemnity - only when they sat down at table or went to bed. They would have felt incomplete without it outside the home, including on the playing field. The cap was part of their being.
Famous hurlers wore caps. There's a photograph of two legendary players, Lory Meagher of Kilkenny and Eudie Coughlan of Cork, shaking hands before the All-Ireland final of 1931. For the benefit of the camera both have taken off their caps and are hold them in their left hands. They look a little uneasy, as if removing their headgear has put them at some disadvantage.
Hurling lore has stories about caps, most of them hard to authenticate. One is about a hurler whose cap disappeared in the dressing-room just as the team was getting ready to go out on the field to contest the county final. He was one of those men who never went anywhere without his cap and never played a game without it. He got very upset. He felt bereft. Worried club officials looked everywhere - under seats, in the toilets, on the nearby pathways, at the turnstyles. Some felt it must have been stolen; they went about looking with suspicion among the crowd of hangers-on in the immediate area.
The cap could not be found, but at least a temporary solution was. The club chairman took off his own cap and gave it to the distraught hurler. "We have more or less the same size of cloigeann," he said. "You'll be fine." The hurler played well that day. And the club delved into its meagre funds to provide the player with the price of a new cap - this in an era of hard poverty, when copper coins were valued.
Another story concerns the cap of a famous club hurler that was part of a collection of memorabilia - old, browned hurleys, big, weathered sliotars, faded game programmes - kept in a small room in the clubhouse. This was long before the advent of well-organised GAA museums such as that in Thurles or the Lory Meagher Centre in Tullaroan.
One day it was found that the famous cap had disappeared. The committee held a meeting to discuss the matter. It became rancorous. The responsibility lay with the club secretary but he didn't take kindly to criticism of his stewardship.
"I'm not going to the gardaí to report a stolen cap," he declared. "And I'm not going round the highways and byways looking for it either, meeting some fellow coming along on a bicycle on a lonesome bog road and stopping him to ask: 'Where did you get that cap?' "
No doubt, in years to come, a fund of stories about helmets will begin to accumulate.