How family ties have shaped the Limerick hurling legacy through generations

A QUIZ question to start off:

What Limerick player lined out alongside both a father and his son over the course of his inter-county career?

The answer is Tommy Quaid, who lined out alongside Pat Heffernan and later his son, Pat Jnr, in the green and white.

Tommy’s son Nickie has inherited the number one jersey in a Limerick side bound by strong family links.

Quaid, Barry Nash, Sean Finn and Gearoid Hegarty are among those following in the footsteps of fathers who represented the county with distinction.

It is a tradition Pat Jnr knows better than most.

“These boys are well ahead of us in what they have achieved and the success they have got,” said Heffernan, who played in the 90s alongside Quaid and Nash Snr. “We have two Munsters in that golden era and two National Leagues titles in ‘92 and ‘97 so for those five years it was a good era for Limerick supporters even though we didn’t win the All-Ireland, they were memorable years.”

The Munster Championship provides some of the Blackrock clubman’s earliest memories.

“I can remember losing the Munster final in ‘75 in Limerick, I was only five, and being at it,” he recalls. “It was tough at the time, similar to now, it was three games in a fortnight. They drew with Tipp in the semi-final, won the replay, and then the Munster final in ‘75 was in the Gaelic Grounds – my dad was playing that day.

“He was involved in ‘76, ‘77 and ‘78 so I can remember all those years.”

1975 and ‘76 saw Heffernan introduced to the Limerick-Cork rivalry with the ‘Rebels’ coming out on top both days. The Kilfinane man had more success against the Leesiders in his playing career though, scoring two goals in the Munster quarter-final win over their rivals in 1994.

“Luckily enough, we had Cork at home in the first game in 94,” Heffernan recalls. “Cork had won the league in ‘93 against Wexford in three games. Tipp were the dominant force that time and Clare turned Tipp over the week before we played Cork. So that result gave us a huge boost of confidence. Because Tipp had been the bogey team since I had come on the scene in ‘89, really. For those couple of years they’d beaten Limerick.

“We were outsiders on the day. I can remember the build up to it on the Thursday beforehand having a good ol’ chat with the late Eddie Wade – he was the county vice-chairman – and a good bit of craic. Eddie was a great player’s man at the time and I remember him saying to me ‘you know if we could get a result Sunday, things could open up’.

“Because if you look back at our team then, there were six of us that played in the ‘91 Munster final, we’d lost to Cork. And there were another four or five guys involved that had won the All-Ireland (U21) in ‘87. So it was those two teams that were the backbone for the ‘94 team, really.”

The Limerick-Cork games always carried an extra edge for Heffernan.

“I would have known a good few of the Cork lads, I spent five years in UCC so I would have hurled with a good few of the lads on Fitzgibbon teams,” he says. “So there would have been a connection there with a lot of
lads.”

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