Six days and counting for the ultimate Rebel
As Frank Murphy faces the final curtain after 46 years as secretary of the Cork County Board, he will be remembered by some as a divisive figure while others will argue he was driven by an unstinting loyalty to the Rebels’ cause
IN SIX days’ time, it will come to an end. The astonishing, powerful and frequently divisive reign of Frank Murphy will enjoy its final day next Saturday at Cork’s County Convention. There will be a welter of tributes to a man who has been the county’s full-time secretary for 46 years, a span that has seen the construction and reconstruction of Páirc Uí Chaoimh, nine hurling and four football All-Ireland Championships, and three truly bitter player disputes that were, each in their way, unprecedented in Gaelic games.
In a meeting room in the Páirc, he will be near-universally hymned. It is in committees and on procedural business where Murphy the public figure has always seemed in his preferred habitat, where his command has been sure and rarely questioned.
But beyond delegates and officials, and the former players and administrators who would attest to his kindness and to the good he has done for Cork GAA, there is the story of a man often accused of holding the county back.
At a time when Dublin look certain to assume more power than any unit of the association ever has, Cork should be their natural rival, as the county with the most extensive playing resources on the island.
Instead, their hurlers are about to start their 14th season without an All-Ireland title, the footballers are as unloved as they have ever been within their own borders after a 17-point Munster final defeat to Kerry.
Murphy’s champions will defend to the last the expertise they say he has brought to governing an enormous county that is viable in both codes. He was the inspiration behind the decision to use Páirc Uí Chaoimh for concerts in the 1980s, helping manage the costs of the initial project and establishing a revenue stream that remains vital to this day.
His detractors point to the untrammelled joy with which Kerry footballers rule the province, and the rise of provincial hurling rivals as well as the fresh memories of Kilkenny’s recent magnificence.
They also highlight the chronic weaknesses and small-mindedness exposed by the strikes, and the decision of the county board to resist the opening of Croke Park in 2005 against a significant demand among the clubs to join a move towards neighbourliness that became unstoppable.
It was the strikes that brought the only significant questioning of Murphy’s law, but he endured that, too. In the autumn of 2009, months after the resolution of the last dispute, his intention to retire was first raised.
Tributes were paid but they were premature.
His contract was extended by a year, with the option of another year included. Then, in 2011, his term was extended again with the redevelopment of Páirc Uí Chaoimh cited in the decision.
Then, in 2012, he was given a five-year extension, and in October of last year, one final 12-month extension was approved by the executive of the Cork County Board.
The media were asked to leave the meeting when that matter was being discussed. It was fitting in one way that for a man accused of prioritising committeeroom scheming throughout his reign, his last year in power was confirmed away from the public gaze.
The extensions are done now. Kevin O’Donovan takes over as CEO from tomorrow week, December 17, and with his arrival comes the certainty of major change.
O’Donovan has been a voice of change within the county for years, and his appointment was made by an interview panel that, according to the official announcement, included ‘a number of high level GAA representatives’.
This was after the recruitment process was run by the GAA’s human resources department, at Cork’s request.
The sense that radical change was being willed by practically everyone connected with this transition is unmistakable.
Having no Frank Murphy at the pinnacle of power in Cork GAA will, in itself, be a remarkable jolt. He has been in the job since 1972, and one point all, defender and detractor, are agreed upon is the central role of Gaelic games in his life.
He started refereeing at the age of 16, as he explained in a very rare interview in 2014. ‘I was at home a day when the late Michael O’Flaherty knocked at the door and said he had a city division juvenile Under 16 match (and) would I do it,’ he told the Irish Examiner.
‘I said I would, even though I was only 16 myself. It went from there. I got really carried away with refereeing.’
Murphy refereed the 1971 hurling final between Tipperary and Kilkenny and, even after becoming Cork’s full-time secretary a year later, he continued to take charge of games, including the 1981 final between Offaly and Galway, as well as a number of Cork county finals.
Now 74, he retained the interest in rules and regulations that steered a teenage boy from the Blackrock club towards officiating.
It was his command of the GAA rules that became famous – and notorious. It was often on display at Congress and, more infamously, in helping to spirit Cork players who were facing disciplinary censure out of bans that looked inevitable.
That loyalty to Cork, that willingness to test the rigidity of rules to their absolute limit, was not overlooked by some of the players with whom he would be locked in bitter disputes.
Five years after the first players’ strike, and only months before the second, Cork’s three most famous players were sanctioned for their part in the Semplegate tunnel row with Tipperary in 2007.
In a statement released in June of that year, with the controversy from the row still blazing, Dónal Óg Cusack, Seán Óg Ó hAilpín and Diarmuid O’Sullivan claimed that ‘we believe that there has been a general anti-Cork bias displayed in this matter… and a bias against the GPA… and a bias against our county secretary, Frank Murphy’.
Murphy’s commitment to defending the players united them – but it would be what divided the official and the most outspoken squad of players in GAA history that made them all national figures way beyond the sports pages.
The public profile of Frank Murphy was largely shaped, in fact, between 2001 and 2009.
The latter date marked the year of the final, decisive agitation by the players.
The first year, though, propelled him into public discussion as part
‘HIS COMMAND OF THE GAA RULES MADE HIM FAMOUS – AND NOTORIOUS’
of the controversy around the opening of Croke Park. In April 2001, Congress voted down a Roscommon motion to make the ground available to the IRFU and FAI; it fell by only two votes as a twothirds majority was needed to carry it. Roscommon immediately requested a recount but Murphy argued such a move would be unprecedented. This was despite the conviction of some of those in attendance that such a narrow margin justified it, especially as the vote was taken on a show of hands.
The day became notorious for the dozens of delegates who didn’t vote either way, visiting the toilets when the time for voting was upon them.
Cork had been among the opponents of the move to open, and they maintained that stance four years later, when Seán Kelly famously piloted the decision through Congress.
It is celebrated now, rightly, as one of the great enlightened days in GAA history. Back then, a large number of Cork clubs supported it, but their ambitions to make it the official policy of the county at Congress were ruled out of order on a technicality.
This was cited as an example of Murphy’s technical expertise trumping a palpable desire among the membership to do the right thing. But Cork’s opposition was washed away on a famous day.
By then, he had already been through the first, gruelling players’ strike. From the autumn of 2002, the discontent of the Cork hurlers became public knowledge. They were frustrated about a number of grating issues: insufficient food after training, perceived meanness on the part of the board in providing gear to the players, and the gena eral attitude of officialdom to the hurlers.
Under one of those GAA traditions that look remarkable from this remove, he had been a selector on the Cork hurling team that year, as a nominee of the county champions – his club, Blackrock.
The issue of his dual mandate as secretary and selector was raised at one meeting between the players and the board, and it reportedly drew a furious response from him.
‘If anybody in this room is as good GAA man as me, he’s a great GAA man,’ he was said to have declared.
The dispute was quickly reduced to shorthand: ambitious players versus the iron rule of Murphy. The players won, but his power was not greatly diminished.
At one board meeting in the early weeks of the first strike, one member of the executive defended his secretary. ‘People are always looking for the worst side of Frank Murphy, and there is no worst side,’ he said, a curious compliment in itself.
Cork would win two hurling titles in the years after that first strike, in 2004 and 2005, and the victories were distinguished by enlightened managers happy to empower their players.
That meant a reduction in administrative influence, though. For instance, board officials were expected to leave the dressing room at a certain point before games. That must have wounded him, given his penchant for fiery rhetoric in dressing rooms.
When the second strike erupted in October 2007 over the determination of the board to reclaim their right to appoint a manager’s selectors, the scent of revenge was pungent.
It was seen as a power play inspired by Murphy. The players were adamant this was the case. ‘Did you watch Star Wars?’ Ó hAilpín asked one interviewer. ‘This episode is The Empire Strikes Back.’
Breaking that dispute required the intervention of the country’s most famous industrial negotiator, Kieran Mulvey, as well as Páraic Duffy, then recently appointed director general.
The entente lasted only months before the reappointment of Gerald McCarthy in October 2008 flared the fury once more.
Yet again, the players protested against what they saw as a power grab led by Murphy. And yet, again, they emerged victorious.
This was the most damaging of the three strikes for Murphy: McCarthy eventually resigned when the clubs of the county met among themselves, outside the board’s sphere of influence.
It was the strongest signal of discontent of Murphy’s reign and, for a while, it looked like the appetite for change would only be sated by dramatic events.
A clubs’ forum was instituted, and among its proposals was a term limit for officials. That, though, was nine years ago and he remained in place.
The footballers’ All-Ireland in 2010 was a victorious interlude, and the decision to redevelop Páirc Uí Chaoimh was used to justify his continuing in the role, even after he reached the then-retirement age of 65 in 2009. The ground reopened in the summer of 2017, and it will be centrally placed in the tributes to Murphy over the coming days.
Filling the place with teams capable of competing and winning at the highest levels of hurling and football will be the responsibility of his successor. Cork remain one of the great powers in the games. Harnessing it to best effect is the task now.