Treaty star is living life after cruelty of a career cut short
‘IT’S NOT LIKE YOU CAN SAY YOU WEREN’T CLOSE TO A BIG VICTORY’
HE tells the yarn without even a hint of sadness, but it is a reminder of how quickly the wheel of sporting fame turns. Last summer, as a hurling inferno took hold in the county, Andrew O’Shaughnessy was running a hurling summer camp for Kilmallock when one morning he was approached by a kid.
‘He came up to me saying, “And who are you”. I replied, “I am just running the camp”, and he goes, “Did you ever play hurling”, and I said, “No, I didn’t”.’
He could have advised his juvenile inquisitor that the previous time Limerick had reached an All Ireland final, he was their Cian Lynch.
A precocious underage talent, a two-time All-Ireland Under-21 winner who defied the step-up to senior by not even breaking his stride.
He racked up 2-46 in seven games when Limerick reached the 2007 All-Ireland final and received All-Star recognition in the process. At age 22, the hurling world was at his feet. Four years later, it would all be gone.
He could have told his youthful interrogator all of that, but sometimes how kids see the word makes more sense.
‘That’s life. It goes on, it comes in cycles and someone will always come along and replace you. That is no problem for me,’ he explains.
Diagnosed with Multiple Sclerosis in 2009 – a central nervous system disorder – he retired in 2011 at 26 when he should have been in his prime.
It is a tale, even at a decade’s remove, which still jars and one which will shortly be brought to the TV screen as part of the latest series of TG4’s Laochra Gael series.
The temptation is to view his story through the lens of his illness that has brought a premature end to his career, but that would do the 34-year-old a disservice because he has never let it define him.
‘I am happy and proud of my hurling career. With the MS, I am neither happy nor proud, I just deal with it. I don’t think about it too much. ‘There are so many other things that could happen. You could get knocked down crossing the road today. You are not going to worry about that, so why should I worry about this? ‘Don’t worry about what could happen. What happens happens for a reason.’ And his life is full to the brim right now. He is a high-ranking officer in the Army based in Collins Barracks, while he and his wife Eimear have two young children, Fionn and Meadbh. ‘I was going with Eimear since my Leaving Cert year 2002. Her brother was on the U21 panel with me so that is how I actually met her at the reception afterwards. ‘I am so proud of how she stood by me. She was an absolute rock and she still is. The cards I have been dealt are the same ones she has subsequently been dealt.
‘When you are growing up and you don’t have kids, you don’t really get the future but when you have kids your whole outlook on life changes. Kids are your life.
‘You go to work because of them and to get home to them, you make money so you can get them what they want and the pleasure that gives is hard to put a price on,’ he explains.
Of course, he would not be human if he did not think of what might have been if he had stayed healthy.
Seamus Hickey, his team-mate in 2007, was still on the panel last August while he watched from the stand. The truth is, he could hardly have been any prouder had he togged out as he saw Limerick end their 45-year wait.
‘I will never forget it. I go into work every day and it is there in front of me. I have one of those oldstyle calendars where you roll down the days and it is still on August 19th.
‘It is there for a reason. I was so proud. I grew up watching in 1994 and 1996 and being left in tears as a little boy.
‘Particularly in 1994, I was on the terrace that day and I remember with 10 minutes to go being down at the front and asking a steward would he open the gate after the match to let me on the pitch.
‘And I remember he was going, “But ye are not going to win this”, and I was laughing at him. I was involved myself in 2007, but to actually get there and see it was so special.’
Almost half a century waiting, but despite a history of false dawns and evidence of internal dysfunction, he never stopped believing that their day would come.
‘I trained a junior team last year and at the start I told them every team in the whole country, from the Kilkenny seniors down to the Tournafulla junior team are saying the same thing – they all want to go out and win, they all have the same goal, whether it is the All-Ireland or the county.
‘If you don’t have that ambition, you are never going to win it.
‘When I was playing we got to a National League final and lost to Kilkenny, we got to a Munster final and lost to Waterford and got to an All-Ireland final and lost to Kilkenny.
‘You can’t say that you were not close because you know you were.
‘Maybe we didn’t truly believe that we should have been there but I did.’
But there is little to be gained by looking back, or for that matter too far forward.
His prognosis is not something that consumes him.
‘I have not looked at it. I checked it out at the start but one of the first things my neurologist said, “Don’t check up anything online because you will end up finding what you want”.
‘Anyway, life is for living.’