JANUARY IS A time for planning for the GAA player.
Pick out a destination for the year ahead. Now map out the route to get there.
Ideas for preparation had to be parked in James Barry’s mind as 2022 was starting to get up and going. There was too much being thrown at him off the field.
His daughter Mila arrived on 24 January, the first child for himself and his wife Shannon.
He had started the New Year with a new job at Boston Scientific in Clonmel.
Then at the end of January he went for a scan, a necessary undertaking every three months, since the time in April 2021 when he underwent surgery in Limerick for testicular cancer.
The operation was a success and in the aftermath Barry sought to spread awareness. He harnessed his hurling profile, a career that had yielded a treasure trove of golden accolades as he reached the peak of the game. The All-Ireland and All-Star winning full-back in 2016, sharing another Liam MacCarthy Cup triumph with the Tipperary crew of 2019.
That October he handed in his papers as a county hurler but it did not sever the connection and he did that interview with the Tipperary Supporters Club in May last year, designed to encourage men to check themselves regularly and seek medical advice if they discovered a lump.
🗣️"Whatever way I put my hand down to feel, I felt this small little lump"@TipperaryGAA's two-time All-Ireland SHC medallist @jamesbarry90 has been speaking about his recent testicular cancer diagnosis
— Tipperary Supporters Club (@TippSupporters) May 13, 2021
The news after the scan this year was different.
“You basically go in to see how things are going and one of my lymph nodes was after growing bigger than they wanted it to, down near the bottom of my spine.
“So after more consultations throughout February and the start of March, they wanted me to go for four rounds of chemo to see if that would shrink it. I only got one round last year.
“I started chemo the middle of April up until the first week of July, when I had the last bout of treatment. I was up in Tallaght this time, the way it worked, you go in for six nights, then sent home for two weeks, then back in for six nights and that’s the way the cycle goes.
“By the time cycle three and four come around, you’re fairly sick and energy levels are completely gone. That finished up in July and it took maybe four to six weeks for energy levels to come back to somewhat normal.
“It was a rough few months, I’m just glad to be on the field now at this stage.”
James Barry celebrates Tipperary's 2016 All-Ireland final win. James Crombie / INPHO
James Crombie / INPHO / INPHO
***
If there was a sporting setting the 32-year-old thought he would be in this autumn, he could scarcely have imagined this.
The twin communities of Upperchurch and Drombane are having the time of their GAA lives, a wondrous journey that began in the summer and now in the autumn is showing no sign of halting.
Last Sunday the parish was in Golden, watching their senior footballers reach the county final for the first time as they toppled the champions Loughmore-Castleiney, chiseling out a one-point win.
This Sunday afternoon they will all take their seats in Semple Stadium, a senior hurling semi-final showdown with Kilruane MacDonaghs awaits as they bid to reach a first final since 1894 and maintain their improbable double dream.
And 24 hours before that on Saturday, there is the county junior hurling semi-final against Moyle Rovers in Boherlahan with James Barry set to take up a starting position in attack.
“We’re that kind of small, tight-knit community where sport does mean a lot to us. Most of the parish is at these games. You see the kids after the football game last Sunday and the applause the players got off the field. A lot of the older players with Upperchurch played for years and never got a chance to play at the latter stages of the county championship.
“Colm Ryan, Matt Ryan, Paul Ryan and Paudie Greene are the only survivors from our last hurling semi-final. There’s a whole tranche of young lads that have come through. We’re always lucky as a club in that way, we do seem to constantly bring a couple through every year.
“To be able to play and tog off and give any sort of help towards any team in the club is great really.”
His own playing ambitions when he returned to hurling were modest.
“I wasn’t even sure I was going to be able to play this year. So I just paid the membership just in case the lads were still in it and I was able to even have a target for myself to get back on the field to some degree, even to just do some bit of training with the lads.
“That mentally was a help to have something to look forward to throughout the whole thing. It’s surreal. When I was going through treatment, even if I got to come on for a few minutes in any game this year, that was kind of my target.
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“It’s surreal to be in this position now.”
Before he could consider hurling again, he needed to rest during the breaks from those bouts of chemotherapy and his home environment in Thurles facilitated that.
“It was great to have Mila. She was probably too young to realise at the time I was gone for the couple weeks. It’d be different now I’d say if I was to go away for two weeks, she’s crawling and trying to figure out how to walk now.
“The time I was home during chemo, I wasn’t able to do much, I was just lying on the couch resting. But even just to have her there, mentally you can come away from the hospital and forget about it and just focus on her.
“Shannon’s just been unbelievable, keeping the whole show on the road for us all year and getting all of us through it. To have the two of them here to come home to was just great for the weeks off out of hospital.”
Sport provided something else to focus his mind. There were no objections on the medical side to a return to play when he first floated the idea.
“They say it’s up to yourself. They said no reason chemo would stop you from hurling. I was just told I’d know myself energy wise after a couple of weeks. That’s how I started. A walk around the town, then maybe go for a jog.
“I’d three or four weeks of my own stuff done before I even attempted to go down to the field. I wanted to have some base of fitness done, not completely panting below in the middle of the group. I judged it myself.
“The juniors and seniors were both winning, still training, so to come back into that group was great.”
He had some experience of mounting a comeback from last season. After his surgery and one round of chemo, Barry rejoined the Upperchurch-Drombane hurling ranks. When they exited the senior hurling stage in the quarter-final against Kiladangan, Barry came on as a 45th minute substitute in Semple Stadium.
This year was a contrast. His body had endured more punishment and trying to make a swift recovery to senior level was not feasible.
“Last year my recovery was probably quick enough. This year was a different kettle of fish. I got quite sick around rounds three and four in hospital. Obviously your system, there’s only so much you can keep fighting it off.
“The first couple of weeks in August I might only do the warm-up and then step out, watch from the sideline. The management have been great. They’ve left it completely up to myself in relation to what I could or couldn’t do. It’s not like a normal injury, people understand if you’ve a torn hamstring or a broken hand.
“It’s no problem in relation to impact or challenging for a ball, it’s just your energy. It’s like going into a championship game with no pre-season done. The legs are gone and your lungs are blowing for air.
“When I came back and saw the pace senior training was at, I didn’t have half enough done to be considered for that panel. I’m happy enough tipping away at junior level and getting the miles into the legs.”
The comeback took place on a Saturday night in Drombane in late August.
A Mid-Tipperary junior A hurling quarter-final against Loughmore-Castleiney was a low-key setting, a remove from the high-pressure situations Barry occupied for years with the Tipperary rearguard but the significance was not diluted.
He was only back training a fortnight and given the option of starting or being eased into action off the bench. He chose a spot from throw-in, pitched in to the half-forward line and figured he could be withdrawn if exhaustion overcame him. The game was a personal and collective success.
“I was able to get through it and every week since then, I’ve been improving fitness levels. Thank God, the last couple of games have been fine.
“It was grand going back to the junior level, you can go to midfield or the half-forward line and find pockets of space and go at your own pace.”
The wins have flowed and Barry has made his own contribution, chipping in with points in every game.
One outcome transcended the result on the scoreboard. The true meaning of the Sunday 10 September win over Thurles Sarsfields in Littleton could not be concealed.
For years Barry hurled on Upperchurch-Drombane teams trying to win a divisional senior hurling championship. It is a success that has eluded the club, one-point losses in the finals of 2014, 2017 and 2019 heaping on the agony.
A Mid-Tipperary breakthrough arrived at junior level and was savoured.
Growing up at home there was a photo of his father Seamus with a young James after such a local triumph.
It was a constant reminder of something to aspire to emulate.
The moment in 2022 provided neat symmetry with Mila present as the next generation.
James Barry
James Barry
“It was something I always wanted to do. I got a photo with Mila after the semi-final against Moycarkey but to get one with a cup was extra sweet after the final.”
Growing up his father was a constant hurling companion. Seamus Barry played during the ‘70s for Tipperary, a fallow period, but watched his son turn out for teams that enjoyed relentless success.
A Croke Cup with Thurles CBS, two Fitzgibbon Cup honours with UCC and a unique set of All-Ireland medals in Tipperary colours spanning the four grades of minor, U21, intermediate and senior. His contemporaries are some of the most dominant figures in modern Tipperary hurling history – the Mahers, Seamus Callanan and Michael Cahill all around his age. His hurling relationship with Noel McGrath stretches all the way back to a Primary Game team in 2001.
James Barry lifts the Liam MacCarthy Cup in 2019. James Crombie / INPHO
James Crombie / INPHO / INPHO
For all those medals collected, last month’s win was elevated.
“That was my first ever adult hurling championship medal with the club. My father is selector now with the juniors, so it was great to have that link. He was always over the teams when I was underage, coming up along. The last time he was involved in an Upperchurch team was when we won the U21B county final back in ’07.
“When I told him I was thinking of going back playing junior, he got involved with the juniors as well. We haven’t been part of the same setup for years. It’s a nice moment for the both of us to enjoy with the Upperchurch-Drombane colours.”
To share in this giddy, feel-good atmosphere that the club is wrapped up in, is something to be cherished.
For years they looked on with envy at nearby hurling powerhouses like Thurles Sarsfields, Drom & Inch and Borris-Ileigh lifting senior crowns or observed with wonder as to how Loughmore-Castleiney managed to be such trail-blazers in both codes.
Now Upperchurch-Drombane are managing the juggling act deemed impossible – 16 players featured at some stage in both of their recent county quarter-final wins.
“Having the two of them going well is a great buzz. We always looked at Loughmore, they were pulling from a very small bunch of players as well.
“When Conor O’Dwyer came in, he’s now the county football chairman, he got involved back with the intermediate footballers around 2013, there was definitely an emphasis put on.
“Before that there was never as much of a focus on football, hurling was always the prominent sport. When Conor got involved the focus was more on trying to be a dual club. Then you’d a younger bunch like Paul Shanahan, Ger Grant, Jack Butler, Gavin Ryan and a few more, they’re serious footballers.
“They would have been young on the team in 2015 when we won the county intermediate and only got beaten by St Mary’s of Kerry, Bryan Sheehan’s club, in Munster.
“It’s great the lads are able to balance it, having the two going on gives you that mental break.”
When the ‘Church last contested a Tipperary hurling semi-final, Barry was the prodigy at centre-back, a teenager directing defensive operations.
His senior role is different now but he is content to have maintained an involvement.
“I can’t play but obviously hoping to help out in any sort of way I can. Doing water, just being around the dressing-room, maybe give advice to some of the backs.
“Even just to support the lads is great. I missed being at their opening games this year because I was getting treatment, it’s so brilliant to see them winning now.”
Former All Star, 2 time All Ireland winner and local hero James Barry is here to remind you about our bonus draw for €1,000 cash which takes place on the 30th of September. pic.twitter.com/qL3IJFfihA
Next January will bring the requirement for another operation.
“You go for a scan after the chemo and see how big the lymph node is. The chemo stopped it growing but it didn’t shrink it. So they just want to remove it completely, I basically have to go back in January to do it. The safest way to put my mind at ease is to remove the lump completely. They said the operation will be straightforward enough and it’ll be four to six weeks of bed rest after that. They’d prefer to get it done rather than monitor it the whole time.”
For now it’s early October and he’s feeling good.
“I only joined the new job in January and they were very understanding as well in relation to time off I needed. I’m blessed now to be able to look back and having gone through it and no further problems since.
“All my family, my parents and sisters have been unbelievable support. Most of all Shannon at home in getting us both through it.
“To be in the position now in the hurling, it seems surreal. It almost feels like the treatment never happened at all, which is great that there’s no long-term effects.
“It’s been such a strange year with everything. When it all stops and the hurling comes to a finish and we get to December, I’ll look back over the 12 months and it’ll have been a fair whirlwind.”
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'They said there's no reason chemo would stop you from playing' - A Tipperary comeback
JANUARY IS A time for planning for the GAA player.
Pick out a destination for the year ahead. Now map out the route to get there.
Ideas for preparation had to be parked in James Barry’s mind as 2022 was starting to get up and going. There was too much being thrown at him off the field.
His daughter Mila arrived on 24 January, the first child for himself and his wife Shannon.
He had started the New Year with a new job at Boston Scientific in Clonmel.
Then at the end of January he went for a scan, a necessary undertaking every three months, since the time in April 2021 when he underwent surgery in Limerick for testicular cancer.
The operation was a success and in the aftermath Barry sought to spread awareness. He harnessed his hurling profile, a career that had yielded a treasure trove of golden accolades as he reached the peak of the game. The All-Ireland and All-Star winning full-back in 2016, sharing another Liam MacCarthy Cup triumph with the Tipperary crew of 2019.
That October he handed in his papers as a county hurler but it did not sever the connection and he did that interview with the Tipperary Supporters Club in May last year, designed to encourage men to check themselves regularly and seek medical advice if they discovered a lump.
The news after the scan this year was different.
“You basically go in to see how things are going and one of my lymph nodes was after growing bigger than they wanted it to, down near the bottom of my spine.
“So after more consultations throughout February and the start of March, they wanted me to go for four rounds of chemo to see if that would shrink it. I only got one round last year.
“I started chemo the middle of April up until the first week of July, when I had the last bout of treatment. I was up in Tallaght this time, the way it worked, you go in for six nights, then sent home for two weeks, then back in for six nights and that’s the way the cycle goes.
“By the time cycle three and four come around, you’re fairly sick and energy levels are completely gone. That finished up in July and it took maybe four to six weeks for energy levels to come back to somewhat normal.
“It was a rough few months, I’m just glad to be on the field now at this stage.”
***
If there was a sporting setting the 32-year-old thought he would be in this autumn, he could scarcely have imagined this.
The twin communities of Upperchurch and Drombane are having the time of their GAA lives, a wondrous journey that began in the summer and now in the autumn is showing no sign of halting.
Last Sunday the parish was in Golden, watching their senior footballers reach the county final for the first time as they toppled the champions Loughmore-Castleiney, chiseling out a one-point win.
This Sunday afternoon they will all take their seats in Semple Stadium, a senior hurling semi-final showdown with Kilruane MacDonaghs awaits as they bid to reach a first final since 1894 and maintain their improbable double dream.
And 24 hours before that on Saturday, there is the county junior hurling semi-final against Moyle Rovers in Boherlahan with James Barry set to take up a starting position in attack.
“We’re that kind of small, tight-knit community where sport does mean a lot to us. Most of the parish is at these games. You see the kids after the football game last Sunday and the applause the players got off the field. A lot of the older players with Upperchurch played for years and never got a chance to play at the latter stages of the county championship.
“Colm Ryan, Matt Ryan, Paul Ryan and Paudie Greene are the only survivors from our last hurling semi-final. There’s a whole tranche of young lads that have come through. We’re always lucky as a club in that way, we do seem to constantly bring a couple through every year.
“To be able to play and tog off and give any sort of help towards any team in the club is great really.”
His own playing ambitions when he returned to hurling were modest.
“I wasn’t even sure I was going to be able to play this year. So I just paid the membership just in case the lads were still in it and I was able to even have a target for myself to get back on the field to some degree, even to just do some bit of training with the lads.
“That mentally was a help to have something to look forward to throughout the whole thing. It’s surreal. When I was going through treatment, even if I got to come on for a few minutes in any game this year, that was kind of my target.
“It’s surreal to be in this position now.”
Before he could consider hurling again, he needed to rest during the breaks from those bouts of chemotherapy and his home environment in Thurles facilitated that.
“It was great to have Mila. She was probably too young to realise at the time I was gone for the couple weeks. It’d be different now I’d say if I was to go away for two weeks, she’s crawling and trying to figure out how to walk now.
“The time I was home during chemo, I wasn’t able to do much, I was just lying on the couch resting. But even just to have her there, mentally you can come away from the hospital and forget about it and just focus on her.
“Shannon’s just been unbelievable, keeping the whole show on the road for us all year and getting all of us through it. To have the two of them here to come home to was just great for the weeks off out of hospital.”
Sport provided something else to focus his mind. There were no objections on the medical side to a return to play when he first floated the idea.
“They say it’s up to yourself. They said no reason chemo would stop you from hurling. I was just told I’d know myself energy wise after a couple of weeks. That’s how I started. A walk around the town, then maybe go for a jog.
“I’d three or four weeks of my own stuff done before I even attempted to go down to the field. I wanted to have some base of fitness done, not completely panting below in the middle of the group. I judged it myself.
“The juniors and seniors were both winning, still training, so to come back into that group was great.”
He had some experience of mounting a comeback from last season. After his surgery and one round of chemo, Barry rejoined the Upperchurch-Drombane hurling ranks. When they exited the senior hurling stage in the quarter-final against Kiladangan, Barry came on as a 45th minute substitute in Semple Stadium.
This year was a contrast. His body had endured more punishment and trying to make a swift recovery to senior level was not feasible.
“Last year my recovery was probably quick enough. This year was a different kettle of fish. I got quite sick around rounds three and four in hospital. Obviously your system, there’s only so much you can keep fighting it off.
“The first couple of weeks in August I might only do the warm-up and then step out, watch from the sideline. The management have been great. They’ve left it completely up to myself in relation to what I could or couldn’t do. It’s not like a normal injury, people understand if you’ve a torn hamstring or a broken hand.
“It’s no problem in relation to impact or challenging for a ball, it’s just your energy. It’s like going into a championship game with no pre-season done. The legs are gone and your lungs are blowing for air.
“When I came back and saw the pace senior training was at, I didn’t have half enough done to be considered for that panel. I’m happy enough tipping away at junior level and getting the miles into the legs.”
***
The comeback took place on a Saturday night in Drombane in late August.
A Mid-Tipperary junior A hurling quarter-final against Loughmore-Castleiney was a low-key setting, a remove from the high-pressure situations Barry occupied for years with the Tipperary rearguard but the significance was not diluted.
He was only back training a fortnight and given the option of starting or being eased into action off the bench. He chose a spot from throw-in, pitched in to the half-forward line and figured he could be withdrawn if exhaustion overcame him. The game was a personal and collective success.
“I was able to get through it and every week since then, I’ve been improving fitness levels. Thank God, the last couple of games have been fine.
“It was grand going back to the junior level, you can go to midfield or the half-forward line and find pockets of space and go at your own pace.”
The wins have flowed and Barry has made his own contribution, chipping in with points in every game.
One outcome transcended the result on the scoreboard. The true meaning of the Sunday 10 September win over Thurles Sarsfields in Littleton could not be concealed.
For years Barry hurled on Upperchurch-Drombane teams trying to win a divisional senior hurling championship. It is a success that has eluded the club, one-point losses in the finals of 2014, 2017 and 2019 heaping on the agony.
A Mid-Tipperary breakthrough arrived at junior level and was savoured.
Growing up at home there was a photo of his father Seamus with a young James after such a local triumph.
It was a constant reminder of something to aspire to emulate.
The moment in 2022 provided neat symmetry with Mila present as the next generation.
“It was something I always wanted to do. I got a photo with Mila after the semi-final against Moycarkey but to get one with a cup was extra sweet after the final.”
Growing up his father was a constant hurling companion. Seamus Barry played during the ‘70s for Tipperary, a fallow period, but watched his son turn out for teams that enjoyed relentless success.
A Croke Cup with Thurles CBS, two Fitzgibbon Cup honours with UCC and a unique set of All-Ireland medals in Tipperary colours spanning the four grades of minor, U21, intermediate and senior. His contemporaries are some of the most dominant figures in modern Tipperary hurling history – the Mahers, Seamus Callanan and Michael Cahill all around his age. His hurling relationship with Noel McGrath stretches all the way back to a Primary Game team in 2001.
For all those medals collected, last month’s win was elevated.
“That was my first ever adult hurling championship medal with the club. My father is selector now with the juniors, so it was great to have that link. He was always over the teams when I was underage, coming up along. The last time he was involved in an Upperchurch team was when we won the U21B county final back in ’07.
“When I told him I was thinking of going back playing junior, he got involved with the juniors as well. We haven’t been part of the same setup for years. It’s a nice moment for the both of us to enjoy with the Upperchurch-Drombane colours.”
To share in this giddy, feel-good atmosphere that the club is wrapped up in, is something to be cherished.
For years they looked on with envy at nearby hurling powerhouses like Thurles Sarsfields, Drom & Inch and Borris-Ileigh lifting senior crowns or observed with wonder as to how Loughmore-Castleiney managed to be such trail-blazers in both codes.
Now Upperchurch-Drombane are managing the juggling act deemed impossible – 16 players featured at some stage in both of their recent county quarter-final wins.
“Having the two of them going well is a great buzz. We always looked at Loughmore, they were pulling from a very small bunch of players as well.
“When Conor O’Dwyer came in, he’s now the county football chairman, he got involved back with the intermediate footballers around 2013, there was definitely an emphasis put on.
“Before that there was never as much of a focus on football, hurling was always the prominent sport. When Conor got involved the focus was more on trying to be a dual club. Then you’d a younger bunch like Paul Shanahan, Ger Grant, Jack Butler, Gavin Ryan and a few more, they’re serious footballers.
“They would have been young on the team in 2015 when we won the county intermediate and only got beaten by St Mary’s of Kerry, Bryan Sheehan’s club, in Munster.
“It’s great the lads are able to balance it, having the two going on gives you that mental break.”
When the ‘Church last contested a Tipperary hurling semi-final, Barry was the prodigy at centre-back, a teenager directing defensive operations.
His senior role is different now but he is content to have maintained an involvement.
“I can’t play but obviously hoping to help out in any sort of way I can. Doing water, just being around the dressing-room, maybe give advice to some of the backs.
“Even just to support the lads is great. I missed being at their opening games this year because I was getting treatment, it’s so brilliant to see them winning now.”
*****
Next January will bring the requirement for another operation.
“You go for a scan after the chemo and see how big the lymph node is. The chemo stopped it growing but it didn’t shrink it. So they just want to remove it completely, I basically have to go back in January to do it. The safest way to put my mind at ease is to remove the lump completely. They said the operation will be straightforward enough and it’ll be four to six weeks of bed rest after that. They’d prefer to get it done rather than monitor it the whole time.”
For now it’s early October and he’s feeling good.
“I only joined the new job in January and they were very understanding as well in relation to time off I needed. I’m blessed now to be able to look back and having gone through it and no further problems since.
“All my family, my parents and sisters have been unbelievable support. Most of all Shannon at home in getting us both through it.
“To be in the position now in the hurling, it seems surreal. It almost feels like the treatment never happened at all, which is great that there’s no long-term effects.
“It’s been such a strange year with everything. When it all stops and the hurling comes to a finish and we get to December, I’ll look back over the 12 months and it’ll have been a fair whirlwind.”
The 2022 journey keeps going.
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