West Clare. Football heartland. Traditional music Mecca. Hurling? Meh. The odd dabble. St Joseph’s are the big club in the town – Clonbony are also based there – and they are a one-code outfit.
On the walls of the pubs, you’ll find photos of the Munster-winning football team of ’92 hung at the same height as those of Ger Loughnane’s 1995 and ’97 teams.
One of those – Michael A’s on the main street – used to be Cleary’s.
Two years ago, Conor Cleary captained the Clare hurlers. His twin brother, Eoin, held the same role with the county’s footballers. A distinction for any club, any town, in any county. Particularly one as football-centric as Miltown Malbay.
Truth is, they hadn’t realised they had a hurler on their hands until Conor started making Clare minor teams – he hurls with Kilmaley. Both the Cleary twins were always, and still are, exceptional footballers.
Straight in, they guided St Joseph’s to a Clare intermediate title in 2013, their first year as seniors together. The club hasn’t slipped as low since and they’ve won three seniors since then.
But in St Flannan’s, Conor took strongly to hurling. That much was inevitable. Flannan’s is one of those places where hurling is opt-out rather than opt-in. He was in the same class as Tony Kelly. They weren’t long graduated when Kelly became Hurler of the Year in 2013.
“I was up in the top of the Hogan that day,” Cleary recalls of the 2013 final replay and all that ensued. “I was 19, just out of minor. I would’ve been the same age as Shane O’Donnell.
“It did light a fire under a lot of lads to push to get onto the panel and come through to play hurling.”
Captain of the last of Clare’s three-in-a-row All-Ireland U-21 teams in 2014, the transition to seniordom wasn’t quite as smooth as it had been for Kelly, O’Donnell et al.
All the while, in Miltown Malbay, they were asking would he not be better off with the footballers? A guaranteed starter? Could Eoin not have a word with him?
They needn’t have worried. Displays of faith don’t come much more compelling than being handed the Clare number three jersey from Brian Lohan.
“Initially in Brian’s [Lohan] term, we had some fairly poor games and poor losses,” Cleary says now. “From player performances but his big thing was always to get better every time.
“Every session we went to was about getting better and getting better. Coming back from them Munster final losses, the whole thing was we have a chance, we’re not out of the competition, and just to keep getting better.
“That’s really what he’s driven within the group. Even in the off-season, it’s always about working on your own game. We never saw any of them games as a final destination. Especially after the Munster finals, we knew that you’ve another chance.”
This is a tricky thing to measure. Getting better is generally reflected in results. For all their obvious development, Clare’s had stalled. They had pitched a tent, albeit at a fairly high altitude.
Limerick in the Munster final. Kilkenny in the All-Ireland semi-final. Nothing easy about either. But sport is sport. Eventually, to get where they wanted, Clare would have scale the North Face.
“We went up to Croke Park in ’22 and ’23 and were beaten by a better team,” says Cleary of the two losses to Kilkenny. “The first year they destroyed us, really, and the second year even though we played a bit better, we still didn’t get over the line.
“If we had dwelt on those defeats it probably would have been a different story, but the management were very good in the sense that, ‘Right, the last day is done’.
“That was especially the case after this year’s Munster final, we had a huge amount to learn from it and I think we brought that into the last two games,” he adds.
Ideally, Clare won’t need to serve the same apprenticeship in All-Ireland finals. Historically, they don’t get this far too often. The profile of the squad would suggest they might not have too many cracks, at least in the current collective.
“We know from watching Sunday’s game [between Cork and Limerick], Ken [Ralph, selector] would’ve remarked already that it was a level up on our performance. If we perform the way we did [in semi-final], Cork will have an easy day.”
And if not? Miltown Malbay might get to put on a second major festival this summer.
