50 ways TO LEAVE YOUR LOVER

Declan Lynch’s tales of addiction

Iwas driving through the County Wexford recently during the great weather, when I came to the village of Killanne, which I took to be the birthplace of Kelly, ‘the boy from Killane’, famed in the rousing ballad of the 1798 Rebellion, which starts: What’s the news, what’s the news, oh my bold Shelmalier?

I did not know that it was also the birthplace of the great hurler Nicky Rackard, the most legendary of the four Rackard brothers who played for Wexford, and for the Rathnure club, until that brilliantly sunny day when I passed the large building bearing the legend ‘Rackard’s of Killanne’ — the licensed retail premises which the family used to run, and which now seems like some kind of an understated national monument.

Passing through the village, for a few moments I felt that I had been transported into some version of The Quiet Man .In the mind’s eye, I could see the crowds converging on this place, which was clearly the centre of everything. I could sense the energy that was still somehow in the air, and it was a good energy, with none of the stereotypical darkness of Ireland in the 1950s about it, more that idealised vision of John Ford — yes, you could imagine how a legendary man had come from this place — indeed, two legendary men, if you include the storied Kelly, who was born on the site of the building later owned by the Rackards.

And perhaps another reason that I felt this strange energy in the air, was the fact that Nicky Rickard was not just a legendary hurler, he was also a legendary alcoholic. And he was not just a legendary alcoholic, he was also legendary for being a recovering alcoholic, who helped many individuals around the country to deal with their own addictions — his own public declaration in the 1970s that his life had been ruined by drink must have been truly sensational at the time.

For him to acknowledge the problem in the first place must have been a spectacularly difficult thing to do. Any alcoholic in Ireland at that time would need to be nearly dead to be seen as someone with a bit of an issue around his relationship with alcohol.

In a culture with an almost unlimited tolerance for alcohol abuse, it was a high bar. And higher still if you were Nicky Rackard, one of the great sportsmen of the age, remembered by the writer Lawrence William White as “gifted with exceptional speed, strength and athleticism and displaying a range of hurling artistry… renowned for exemplary sportsmanship… big-hearted and expansive, elegant in dress and generous to a fault…”

The man was a god, and for the gods, so much would have been overlooked; so many atrocities ignored or even indulged. Rackard had realised early in life that he had a weakness for the drink, becoming a Pioneer in order to devote himself fully to his hurling. But when the hurling stopped, so did the Pioneering, and with it eventually went his career as a veterinary surgeon, and his health.

Yet he was still the great Nicky Rackard, who could probably have crawled on his hands and knees into any public house in Ireland, so drunk he was barely able to speak, to ask the barman for anther drink, but still pretty sure that that drink would be forthcoming. And another one... and another...

To get past all that, to admit to himself that he was an alcoholic by joining AA, and then to admit it to the people of Ireland who had revered him — that was really something.

Nicky Rackard did not have long to enjoy his sobriety, or to help others to find theirs — he died of cancer at the age of 53. If you ever find yourself going through Killanne some sunny day, you may sense this energy of things that happened a long time ago. Sense his greatness.

“Nicky Rackard was not just a legendary hurler, he was also a legendary recovering alcoholic”