19-07-2025
How U12 rivalry helped forge one of the great Cork partnerships
O n a June evening in 2009 the Newtownshandrum under-12s came to the field in Milford to meet Sean Clárachs, Charleville hurling's youth wing, two parishes stuck together like the houses on Coronation Street, families and lives all mingled up together.
But distinct and different, too. Charleville was the big town hard on the Limerick border without any significant hurling tradition. Out the road, Newtown were the tiny village citadel of Ben and Jerry O'Connor, winners of county titles and an All-Ireland, crafting new ways of hurling that would change the game itself.
These were two places that usually hurled on different plains. Usually. Newtown had Tim O'Mahony, brother of Gerdy who won an All-Ireland minor medal with Cork and a cousin of the O'Connors, already tall and rakey and running the show. The Charleville under-12s were hunting their second successive league title. Darragh Fitzgibbon was their star, all skill and no size. Not yet.
