Mulcahy’s couple of appearances off bench in 1975

THERE IS a sharp contrast between the numbers of footballers and hurlers from other counties who donned the Wexford jersey in competitive fare after arriving in the south-east. While ‘outsiders’ were warmly welcomed in both codes up to the end of the 1950s in particular, the paths diverged at that point to a large degree.

Since then, there has been a much heavier emphasis on football imports rather than hurling, and I guess that’s understandable for many reasons.

Ease of transport nowadays means that players are less inclined to leave their home county for playing purposes anyway, unless they are coming from a distant corner of the country.

And given that Wexford rank among hurling’s top ten elite counties, it stands to reason that unless a new arrival comes from a place within the same bracket, he is unlikely to draw much attention from county Senior selectors.

That makes the achievements of Kerry native Fr. Martin Casey - as outlined here last week - all the more laudable.

With Wexford operating at a lower level in football than hurling over the years since the fifties, and with more counties playing the former code to an acceptable standard - many better than ourselves - the contrasting numbers shouldn’t come as any major surprise.

Still, until I researched the topic thoroughly, I would have thought that more than just two non-Wexford natives played hurling with us through the 1970s.

If Fr. Martin was the first, then who was the second? That question was posed elsewhere in the ‘Seen and Heard’ column last week, and Ed Rowsome was quick off the mark when he sent me a text with the answer.

In fairness, you would need to be up very early in the morning to catch the Monageer-Boolavogue man out on a hurling teaser.

If some readers are still wondering about the identity of the second man, it’s time to put them out of their misery.

I was referring to Pat Mulcahy, whose arrival in Wexford town as a member of An Garda Síochána led to a very brief involvement with the county Senior hurlers for the 1975 Leinster championship.

He replaced Dave Bernie in the 1-29 to 1-18 semi-final win over Offaly in Croke Park on July 13, and came on for Seánie Kinsella in the 2-20 to 2-14 loss to his native Kilkenny in the decider at the same venue three weeks later.

And that was that - there was no league appearance either before or after, ensuring that only the most knowledgeable of Wexford hurling fans would have thought of him instantly when the query was posed last week.

In order to learn a bit more about Pat’s playing prowess, I delved into the Kilkenny section of my large library of Gaelic games books over the weekend.

The Noreside city’s three clubs - James Stephens, O’Loughlin Gaels and Dicksboro - are all powerhouses in their own right, and my first port of call was ‘Up the ’Boro’, the history published to mark the latter’s centenary in 2009.

I learned that the Palmerstown-based outfit actually didn’t field at any level between 1962 and 1968, but a youthful Pat was part of the Dicksboro revival in ’69.

Still a Juvenile, he came on as they beat Dunnamaggin to win the Kilkenny Minor championship, and they later completed the double with part one of a football three-in-a-row.

When Kilkenny C.B.S. won their first Leinster Senior ‘A’ hurling title since 1936 in 1970, Pat scored the second of two late points that clinched the 3-6 to 3-4 victory over city rivals St. Kieran’s.

Tom Ryall’s ‘Kilkenny - The GAA Story 1884-1984’ notes the county suffered a major setback before the All-Ireland Minor final loss of 1971 to Cork when ‘Pat Mulcahy, star of earlier rounds, was unable to play’.

Three years later, Tom wrote the following about the All-Ireland Under-21 win over Waterford: ‘Kilkenny made a vital move in the second half, bringing on Pat Mulcahy. He threw himself into the fray with great gusto, and apart from scoring a point, he initiated several rewarding moves.’ More to follow on Pat’s club career next week...