Cashel King Cormac's
All-Ireland Club Hurling Quarter-Final, London, February 2, 1992
When Cashel won the county senior hurling championship of Tipperary in 1991 it was the first time the club achieved this honour in its 101 years history. During that long period it contested four other finals. Three of these were played in 1937, 1939 and 1940, and the fourth in 1989.
A team from Cashel did contest a county final before 1937. This was in 1910 when a team from the parish, Racecourse, beat Toomevara in the county final by 3-0 to 2-2. The losers objected and Racecourse counter-objected. Eventually it was decided that the final be replayed and Racecourse decisively won by 5-2 to 0-3. Toomevara again objected, claiming that no fewer than seven of the Racecourse team had played with other teams in the 1910 championship. The north side were awarded the match but the verdict wasn't well received in Cashel, where Toomevara were referred to as the 'paper champions.'
The Cashel Gaelic Club was founded in 1888 after a few abortive earlier attempts. The first chairman was Dr. Tom Wood, the father of the present chairman of the Cashel U.D.C., Richard Wood. One of the rules of the new club was that the members pay one penny per week to meet the expenses.
Since the west division in the county wasn't formed until 1930, Cashel played either in the south or the mid divisional championships. The club won the south senior hurling championship in 1913 and 1914, and a junior hurling championship in 1924. In the latter year Cashel also won a mid junior football championship. The west division came into existence in 1930 and since then the club has won 14 senior divisional championships in hurling. Leading the roll of honour with seven senior medals is Mickey 'The Dasher' Murphy.
The first players from the club to win All-Ireland medals were Mick Devitt, Tom Connors and Mick Dargan. They were on the Tipperary team that won the first junior football All-Ireland in 1912. Tom Connors son, Michael, has spent the last 40 years of his life in England and is presently living in Didcot. He is the proud possessor of his father's medal.
The first All-Ireland senior hurling medal winner was Jimmy Hickey, who was on the Boherlahan selection in 1925, having won a junior medal the previous year. Later winners were Jack Gleeson in 1937, Jim Devitt in 1945 and 1949, Peter O'Sullivan in 1964, 1965 and 1971, and the Bonnar brothers in 1989 and 1991.
Probably the greatest period of success in the club's history, before the present time, was in the seventies, when there was tremendous success at underage level. For some reason this never translated into senior success until the present and it is significant that six of the current panel first achieved success at county level over twenty years ago. At the present time the club has won county titles in all grades except in intermediate and senior football.