Nickey Weir reflects on a lifetime"s service to his beloved Raharney

The surname Weir has been synonymous with Raharney hurling for many generations and few, if any, have contributed more to fostering the ancient game in the locality than Nickey Weir.He recently stood down after 40 years as secretary of his beloved Deelside club.Last weekend, Nickey went down memory lane with Gerry Buckley, recounting the many highs (and very few lows) in a lifetime"s devotion to the club as player, mentor and administrator, even belatedly disclosing the odd bit of skulduggery, which will surely be overlooked by the DRA after all these years!Nickey comes from a family of nine (four boys and five girls), all of whom are alive and well with the exception of James (Jimmy), whose death earlier this decade devastated not only the extended Weir family but the entire community in Raharney. His other brothers, Anthony and Sean also shared the family"s love of hurling from an early age.Naturally, Nickey came up through the ranks wearing his beloved blue and white colours in juvenile grades. He recalls the great work done in promoting hurling in the area by Seamus Brennan. 'He was our schoolteacher and he really got the hurling going. For years he also brought lads to games and he was instrumental in getting Joristown Park for the club, along with the likes of Noel Weir,' Nickey recalls of the Mullingar native, before adding, tongue-in-cheek, 'then he would send us off with a big load of lessons for the night!'Indeed, when the hurling archives from the club in the 1950s are eventually uncovered, Nickey jokes that there may be the occasional incident of an overage player or two togging out. 'There were three or four Weirs in it and they didn"t know which was which,' he states, before a period of sustained laughter.Ironically, for a man associated over the years as an opportunist forward, Nickey"s adult career began in goals. 'I went down to see the lads playing in a junior game against Clonkill, our friends,' (more laughter) 'and our goalie didn"t turn up. I agreed to play there, with Justin Graham as full back. I kept pulling on balls,' Nickey recalls, and despite Graham"s unhappiness with his new cúlbáire"s unorthodox style, Nickey continued to argue, 'sure aren"t the balls going back out?' A very fresh-looking Nickey laughs out loud and adds: 'I won"t tell you my age but you can go back 53 years anyway and I was only 16 or 17 then.' Do the sums yourself!After graduating from the junior ranks, Nickey in time established himself as an integral part of the Raharney senior team, who were there or thereabouts at the top table of Westmeath hurling throughout his lengthy club career. He recalls the disappointment of being part of the squad which lost to Pearses in 1962 by a point, a game in which his brother Anthony started and Jimmy came on. 'I was on the line eating grass and mad to get on that day and we lost in a gale-force wind. We should have won but that"s the way it goes,' Nickey reflects on the last occasion that the biggest hurling prize in Westmeath came to its capital town. Indeed, in later years, Nickey played against the latest Mullingar club, St. Oliver Plunkett"s and he enjoys the regular banter with one of that club"s stalwarts, Tony O"Donoghue, a former Raharney colleague.However, revenge was sweet five years later. Nickey remembers: 'In 1967, we were all lined up for the National Anthem and James was getting a bit of stick from one of the boys and I gave and took plenty of stick myself. I was revved up and I think I scored three goals that day. Pearses were favourites, but we won convincingly'(4-12 to 1-8). Raharney regained the Westmeath Examner Cup in 1973, defeating Castlepollard by two points.Nickey smiles when he recalls how he untypically gave less than a 100 per cent to the Raharney cause in a tournament game against the same opposition earlier in the year. He explained to his forward colleague, Mick Flanagan, that he was not unduly worried by that ten-point defeat 'because we"ll beat them in the county final'.He has particularly fond memories of defeating Clonkill en route to that county final when he chipped in with a personal tally of 3-5, including the all-important match-winning goal. 'The more they poled me that day the more I liked it,' he says with a smile.The following year, a much-cherished trip to London came to the club because of their county league success. 'A prize of a trip to London was as good as winning the championship then,' Nickey reflects, adding with a guffaw, 'nowadays you would want to be going to Honolulu to excite fellows!' In those days, Raharney used to play in the Riverdale Tournament.'There were 13 or 14 of us working in Riverdale and we got a great kick out of it. Very few of us drank or smoked and we lived for the hurling. I remember Kevin Lynch nearly being killed when a tractor almost cut the ear off him. People said he would never play hurling again but the next match he played a stormer; he was as good as ever,' Nickey says with pride.Nickey inevitably dropped to the junior ranks as wear and tear took its toll, but he is very proud of his county medals won in that grade. He laughs heartily when he recalls being deprived of a hat-trick of junior medals in 1983 when the Deelsiders lost the final to Castletown-Geoghegan. Future County Board chairman, 'Seamus Whelan ran 15 yards with the ball and pegged it into the net', is how Nickey remembers that particular setback! He continued to hurl with the club until an advanced age (in hurling parlance!), thus playing over an astonishing five decades, all told.For the last two of those decades, Nickey doubled up as club secretary. 'I had helped out James, who was secretary for the ten years before me, and the likes of Brendan Swords and Tommy McKeogh in trying to get out teams and keep them moving. I took over in 1969 as my good wife Olive was very interested in the club also. She was treasurer for 25 years up to the mid-1990s,' Nickey reflects.He is full of praise for the help received from Olive, in those pre-email days when among the many laborious tasks of a club secretary was to write up individual postcards which were sent out to players informing them about fixtures etc. He was particularly delighted to be secretary when 'we swept the boards in Westmeath in Centenary Year in 1984.'Nickey recalls trying a bit of Gaelic football with Killucan but 'hurling was my game'. He even turned his hand to refereeing the odd game but is quick to point out that 'the last evening I reffed above in Joristown, I pegged the whistle into the trees after the game - it"s an impossible job trying to keep everyone happy, especially if your own team is playing.'He played occasionally for the Westmeath senior team but has less than fond memories of being drafted in at the eleventh hour for the county"s ill-fated All-Ireland quarter-final defeat by an emerging Galway team in Athlone in 1975. 'I don"t know why I was selected that day; I wasn"t even training with them and it didn"t turn out great, but Raharney was my first love.' Like so many of his fellow-countymen, he regrets the disallowing of Michael Cosgrove"s infamous "square ball goal" in the 1986 National Hurling League quarter-final against Kilkenny in Portlaoise. 'That was the best Westmeath team we had in a long, long time,' he says, ruefully.Nickey is reluctant to rhyme off the countless folk who have also given invaluable service to the Raharney club, for fear of leaving people out.'Fellows like Mickey Cannon, Michael Doyle, John Donoghue, Sean Greville (who would have got his place as goalkeeper on any county team) are very genuine. The juvenile committee are looking after young lads very well and I hope that they will keep away from drugs and drink. If you get involved with those, you can forget about it,' Nickey opines.Nickey is very pleased with the current state of hurling nationally, while conceding that the present Kilkenny side are 'a gear above everybody else'.He is saddened by the recent impasse in Cork and wonders why 'they can"t get around the table and sort it out'. Overall, he accepts that the GAA is a very healthy state as it commences its 125th anniversary celebrations, but adds that 'it"s grand spending all that money on fireworks (in conjunction with the Tyrone v. Dublin National Football League tie) but a lot of clubs could do with it.' Like all right-thinking Gaels, he is concerned that 'clubs" expenses have rocketed, as the cost of physios and the like are becoming out of reach. Players that are genuinely injured must get looked after, particularly in the first week off work.''My wife came first and hurling second; sometimes she"d say the other way round,' Nickey jokes. He and Olive have one son, Nick, who is heavily involved in hurling in the locality. Their five daughters, Olive, Gemma, Helen, Nicola and Jacqueline have tasted varying degrees of success as camogie players. One of their eight grandchildren, Pearse acted as mascot for last year"s county final and Nickey visibly beams with pride when the six-year-old enters the living room, even if it is a Nintendo rather than a hurley he is seeking out!Nickey is confident that his successor as secretary, Brendan Shaw 'will give it 100 per cent. My door is always open, anybody who comes to this door doesn"t knock, they walk in. The club is in good shape and Eamonn Gallagher did great work to win the two recent championships.' Olive then chips in: 'He may be finished as secretary but he"ll still be there to give a word of advice.''Only for fellows volunteering, the GAA wouldn"t exist,' concludes Nickey Weir, the epitome of a Gaelic games volunteer.