The list of the fallen is not an extensive file, so when All-Ireland champions come to Wexford and get toppled, the achievement is significant. In the gloom of Wexford Park on Sunday, that achievement was being duly celebrated.
It was the highest-quality scalp taken by the county’s champions in club competition since Oulart won Leinster 10 seasons ago. There was further relevance for St Martin’s in having overturned a close enough defeat a year ago when they previously played Na Fianna, then on the road to a first All-Ireland.
The neutral’s view is unwavering in treating an advance for Wexford hurling as ‘a good thing’. It brings out crowds and raises the energy levels, particularly in an increasingly moribund Leinster.
The club scene is of course different. There are neither huge crowds nor warm, sunny afternoons on offer, but any upbeat development in the southeast is welcome.
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As well as dethroning the champions, St Martin’s were drawing strength from what the Dublin club had accomplished, moving on from a first county title to the All-Ireland within 15 months.
Rory O’Connor, the club’s best known player, paid tribute to Na Fianna for empowering clubs in other counties.
“They certainly paved the way for a lot of teams in Leinster that aren’t, let’s say, the Kilkenny champions. I think they give a lot of hope to the Wexford champions, Kildare champions, the Meath champions, Laois champions, that you know what, you can really do this and it’s got no affiliation to how good a county team is or how they’re ranked in the county sphere.”
For a county that, in modern terms, is second only to Kilkenny in the province, Wexford have failed to replicate that status at senior club level.
Only one All-Ireland has been won in the 55 years of the championship, in 1989 by Buffer’s Alley with their generations-spanning attack, specifically Tom Dempsey and Tony Doran, who scored goals in the county’s sixth and fifth All-Ireland wins, respectively, even though these were separated by 28 years.
Oulart are the only provincial champions this century and you have to go back 27 years for the previous win by Rathnure.
Recent years have been even worse. After Oulart won Leinster, the challenge of Wexford clubs simply collapsed. Until last season, there had been just nine matches in Leinster for the county champions, including the blank year created by Covid in what would have been the 2021 championship.
The county’s representatives won just two of those fixtures, against Camross and St Rynagh’s.
Martin’s beat Naas last year before taking on Na Fianna. This month, they do it the other way around and having beaten the champions will take on the Kildare side – unencumbered this year by dual commitments – who were favourites to beat them 12 months ago and will not be a reduced challenge in two weeks.
It gives a great opportunity for both clubs to reach a provincial final, something neither have yet managed.
St Martin’s always had the air of a club that had ambitions to impact more widely than simply on the county, and that made their comparative underachievement all the harder to stomach.
The club has six Wexford titles but until last year managed to beat only Meath’s Kilmessan in four attempts in the province. Winning back-to-back in the county is a new experience, as is winning the Leinster quarter-final both years.
The past two seasons have also coincided with the county’s decision to no longer operate on a split-season basis. From the Covid year of 2020 to 2023, Wexford first played off their hurling championship in full and followed it with the football.
Initially, this made sense for a heavily dual county, but it meant that whoever won Wexford could be kicking their heels for up to three months before playing in the provincial championship. Worse, they could be spending that time kicking a football and losing their hurling touch altogether.
Assisting the county’s hurling representatives in Leinster wasn’t the sole reason for switching back to an alternating championship – promotion of the game’s biggest names, who mostly ended their hurling year in early August, was also a consideration. But it has undoubtedly helped Martin’s in the past two years.
For instance, it persuaded Rory O’Connor to give up football in a club with a strong dual ethos.
“I can’t play 17 weeks in a row,” he said after last year’s county final. “My body won’t take it. That’s just personal. I can’t do it so I’m enjoying the two weeks on, two weeks off and being able to rest and recover.”
His fully-charged presence has been a crucial factor in the club’s improved hurling fortunes.
This weekend, eight days out from the semi-final against Naas, St Martin’s play Westmeath’s Tubberclair in the Leinster intermediate football championship. Fourteen of the starting team from their county football final win over Ballyhogue on November 1st were involved in last Sunday’s hurling quarter-final against Na Fianna, 10 lining out.
O’Connor’s cousin Barry, a former AFL recruit and son of Wexford legend George, whose hemisphere hopping commute from Sydney in the last two years has also been a great addition to the side, acknowledged the club’s dual culture but conceded it was “a bit of a whirlwind at the moment”.
St Martin’s have the bit between their teeth and are one match from a Leinster hurling final, albeit that the shadow of the province’s most powerful club, Ballyhale Shamrocks, looms in the other semi-final.
Either way, they are now up and running and looking to make their own history.
