HURLING RUNS A river course, covering curious stretches far from tradition’s high ground. Naas has long been a convergence point for modern Ireland where city modes meet country ways. These suburban blends create their own confluence. Within the GAA club, new tributaries have emerged. This year, the hurlers captured four Senior titles on the spin. 2019, their breakthrough win, closed a 17 year gap. Success speaks plain.

Here lies a hurling confluence that wants to be a delta. As the game developed at underage level, Naas outgrew their county boundaries. They looked outside for competition. First, they sought new challenges in Dublin. Then they ventured to Kilkenny. Each time, a door was held open.

For all their recent successes, 2015 remains a signature marker. With each retelling, the story of their U16 league final triumph against Ballyhale Shamrocks glows brighter. Naas held all the aces that day, racking up 6-12 on their way to comprehensive victory.

Consider not the scoreline but playing personnel. The Shamrock’s teamsheet pulses with talent: Adrian Mullen and Eoin Cody now rank as household names, each since heralded as Young Hurler of the Year – twice over in Cody’s case. Of that 23 strong group, nine have graduated to Senior championship level with the club. The Naas count? Four featured in the 2022 County final.

Sport loves symmetry. This year’s draw for the Leinster Club championship contains repeat possibilities. Ballyhale Shamrocks, naturally, are favoured to beat Castletown Geoghegan on Sunday. The Kildare men have it all to do today against Offaly champions Shinrone. They yet could meet.

Success has many fathers, though Naas was once an orphan. For 42 years, until 1994, the town went without a Senior title. Even then, their success was greeted with indifference – a handful of supporters turned out to welcome them home. The revolution would not be televised.

John Holmes came to Naas in 1989. His sales career with Maxol had taken him across the country, north and south. At every turn, a GAA connection: indoor sticks from a hurler in Clonkilll; a Sligoman selling hurleys out of Newry; soft sliotars from another contact in Dublin. Since boyhood days playing on the streets of Marino, Holmes has been moving to this beat.

“We used to live for the hurling and the football,” he recalls. “We used to take lumps out of each other.”

His formative years were coloured by St Vincent’s of the 1950s, proud and defiant as a club where only Dublin born players could make the grade. Holmes still remembers the pep talks from stalwarts Christy ‘Buster’ Leaney and Paddy Donnelly: ‘Just remember, boys, it’s 31 against one.’

Vincent’s, preeminent in the capital, produced an extraordinary number of GAA visionaries. Kevin Heffernan was transformative as player and as manager, Tony Hanahoe the same. The Foleys, Des and Lar, were just as renowned. Football made them famous but all excelled as hurlers. Holmes learned from that environment and the links with Vincent’s continued when work as a rep took him into North Leinster.

Des ‘Snitchie’ Ferguson, another club titan, was living in Kells. Holmes put in a call. Snitchie came back with word: he knew of a house available to rent.

“There’s one condition,” he told him. “You have to play hurling with me.”

Soon, Holmes was crossing both sides of the border. His football continued with Virginia, County Cavan. Gael Colmcille became home for hurling. Ferguson played full forward, putting his new recruit in charge of the other square.

“Snitchie did great coaching with us in Kells,” explains Holmes. “He had a way about him with the players. He knew all the tricks of the trade. Des was the first person I had to have any structure to a session. All about ball work and first touch.”

Recollections of that time remain sharp: “I remember in a county final, I marked Paddy Kelly from Kiltale and he was wearing a peak cap. Des said to me beforehand: ‘All you do is put the hurley around him and hold it on the other side. Don’t let him go.’ Paddy was their dangerman and he was screaming his head off at the ref but the ref ignored him. Whether Des knew the ref or not, I don’t know.”

These rich influences began to permeate Naas, where Holmes discovered like minded men. His youngest son was at school in St Corban’s, the local boys’ primary, when the daily news struck a chord: “Mr Lawlor said we should take up hurling.”

John Holmes: 'We used to live for the hurling and the football.'

Morgan Lawlor would later manage Naas and Kildare at Senior level. Back then, he was busy on the ground with the late Denis Hanly, a beloved figure who modernised the club. Through Hanly, Holmes came on board, if only after a false start.

The same week his son told him about Mr Lawlor, Holmes spotted a note in the parish newsletter: ‘Hurling meeting, 8:30pm in the GAA Hall.’

Holmes takes up the story: “I was there at 8:20pm and the place was locked up. Nobody there. I sat in the car. 8:40pm, this guy arrived in.

“I said: ‘I hope I’m in the right place. A hurling meeting in Naas at 8:30pm?’

‘What time is it now?’

‘It’s almost 8:45pm.’ 

‘Will you give them a chance!’

‘No,’ I said. ‘I was here at 8:20pm for an 8:30pm meeting. I’m going home.’

‘Jaysus,’ he said. ‘Give me your number?’

“So, I gave him my number. I was literally only in the door when the phone rang – Denis Hanly: ‘Will you come down Saturday morning?’

“I went down Saturday morning. There was about 25 young lads of all ages from 10 up.”

Anyone can preach about a game. How do you gain converts?

Holmes took his prompt from an old master: “I read a book years ago written by Tony Wall from Tipperary. He wrote: ‘If weaker counties like Kildare ever want to make the grade, you have to create a culture of hurling.’ I was trying to think what would attract kids down to play.”

At the time, computer games were the craze. To get the lads interested, they put up a prize: the chance to win a Super Nintendo. There were 575 pupils in St Corban’s; 280 came down.

“They were queuing out the door,” says Holmes. “We couldn’t cope. We called an emergency meeting. We booked slots on Wednesday nights and Friday nights and all Sunday afternoon.”

To get into the draw, you had to make 10 sessions. Each boy was given a membership card to mark attendance. One day, Holmes met a kid in tears: “He had a fist full of this yellow fluff. His mother had washed his trousers. He’d left his card in his back pocket.”

Then there were phone calls from parents: ‘You’ve got bloody indoor hurling on next week. We’re supposed to go to Cork and my son won’t go.’

But Holmes knew enough about family dynamics to win them over: “I was thinking that there was nothing a parent or a grandparent likes more than to see the child’s picture on a newsletter. So, I used to take pictures of the kids. It was real primitive when you think about it. I used to cut out the pictures and write out the newsletters, then make a photocopy.”

Tom Maher / INPHO Tom Maher / INPHO / INPHO

These values have taken them to some magical places.

2006, they connected with Na Piarsaigh in Cork city. Naas brought down their U10s, 48 players, for a full day of matches. Through their contacts in Irish Rail, the club arranged for the Dublin-Cork train to make an unscheduled stop in Sallins. From Kent Station, they made their way via Bus Éireann, having secured a discounted rate.

“Any friend of Na Piarsaigh’s is a friend of ours,” John Holmes was told. Turned out that John Gardiner’s father had been a bus driver.

After the day’s action, Gardiner and his county teammate Seán Óg Ó hAilpín met the group. Ó hAilpín spoke: “Remember, boys, hurling people are special.”

These years unspool through memory.

2008 took them to Cork again. Blackrock, this time.

John Holmes sets the scene: “At one stage, I coached in Killashee School, where they never saw hurleys. A few years later, this guy came to me up in the club and he said: ‘I just want to thank you for getting my daughter interested in camogie. Let me know if ever I can do anything for you.’

“I said: ‘Well, what do you do?’

‘I’m in charge of pilot training at Ryanair.’

‘What would it cost to bring a team to Cork?’

‘To be honest with you, I don’t know. But I’ll get my secretary to get in touch with you.’

“His secretary rang me a few days later: €10 return. And she said they wouldn’t charge us to bring the hurleys and helmets.”

The drive south would have been quicker. But that was beside the point: “Some of the lads had never been on a plane in their lives. They had a ball. We arranged a match against Blackrock and we got the 4pm flight back home. There was a Scottish club rugby team on the flight back. They’d sing a Scottish song and we’d sing an Irish song. Those kind of memories are priceless.”

Evan Treacy / INPHO Evan Treacy / INPHO / INPHO

The following year, Naas welcomed a group from Milwaukee. They played 25 a side under lights with two sliotars. Afterwards, both sides united for a céili. Only cost scotched a return trip to the States.

This weekend brings a new challenge. Last season culminated with All Ireland intermediate glory – the first Kildare club to hit that mark. Consolidation was an option, but they chose to move up. Since inaugurating an U10 tournament in 2000, Naas have been hosting the country’s best. Pushing on, now, at Senior level in Leinster, is a natural expression of deep rooted ambition.

Within local schools, the carousel continues. Even at 79, John Holmes still makes time for new introductions. Among Junior Infants, he finds his element: “When I bring the hurley over to them, I say: ‘Shake hands with your hurley. This is going to be your best friend.’ And the smiles on their faces! Then they say: ‘Hello, hurley.’ Whatever you ask them to do, then, they’ll do it.”

All these years later, the same gambit: capture young imagination.

Leinster club SHC quarter-final: Naas (Kildare) v Shinrone (Offaly), Newbridge, 1.30pm