Barry Foley back on top with Partickswell at 39

Barry Foley didn’t hurl senior with Patrickswell in 2014. At 36 years young, he was content to “tip away” with the club juniors. It was, he believed, the beginning of the end of his time in the blue and gold.
Barry Foley back on top with Partickswell at 39

On Sunday afternoon, 39-year old Barry Foley hit two points from midfield to pocket his seventh Limerick SHC medal. It was, he says, the sweetest of them all. And as for his decision to return to the club’s flagship team, well, that was one of his better judgement calls.

Mind you, it was a return heavily influenced by Ciarán Carey’s appointment as Partickswell manager for the 2015 season.

“Ciarán called down to me when he got the job to ask me would I be interested in coming back. He kind of half forced me,” he recalls, before adding, “you don’t say no to Ciarán Carey.

“I wanted to know had he a plan for me. He had, he put it on the table and he said, ‘you’ll be playing’. That was good enough for me. I had something to work towards, something to aim for. The year I gave it up, I had it in my head I would never get back playing senior hurling ever again. I never envisaged playing in another county final.”

On top of regaining the number three shirt, Foley was handed the captaincy by his former Limerick team-mate last summer. The fairytale comeback, though, didn’t materialise. Kevin Downes took him for 1-5 in last year’s decider as Na Piarsaigh eked out a one-point win.

There was a change of management during the winter and Foley again wondered if he’d seen the end.

“I’d say at the start of this year the new management didn’t know what to do with me. I didn’t think they saw me as a full-back. They threw me out midfield for a couple of games and I held onto that position. It ain’t easy because I have to do a share of fitness work on my own. The older you get, the more willing you are to make sacrifices. It is tomorrow when I’ll be in trouble. I won’t be able to walk.”

He credits Dermot Hickey, a fitness instructor at AVC gym on the Dock Road in Limerick, for keeping him in honest shape.

“Ciarán introduced us to him last year and I meet with him a couple of times a week. I’ve been doing that since the beginning of last year. It is high-intensity interval training. It is only a 45-minute class, but you work for the 45 minutes. I find it very beneficial.

“I’m playing against guys who are 23 and 24 and who are at peak fitness. If I don’t do the little bit extra then I will be looking in at them. I couldn’t handle looking in at them. I want to contribute.”

His midfield partner during Sunday’s 19-point dismissal of neighbours Ballybrown was Jack Kelleher, the latter not even born on the afternoon Foley annexed a first county medal at Adare’s expense in 1993.

“The young lads motivate you. They are a great bunch of lads. There is a great spirit in the camp and it is great to be up training with the likes of Cian Lynch, Diarmuid Byrnes and the O’Briens. If you want to contribute with these guys on the field, then you have to be at a certain level. They definitely bring me on.”

Missing from his collection is a Munster Club medal. That, surely, is his next target.

“We saw how far Na Piarsaigh went last year and we’re not that far away from Na Piarsaigh. I think they got the rub of the green in the county final and they then went on to lift the All-Ireland. We’ll put the heads back down on Wednesday night and see where that takes us.”

He concluded: “This is my sweetest win of the lot. I’ve been waiting so long and when I started out, you came onto a good team and you slotted in. It just happened. It is the effort that went into this one. It takes a lot to play midfield in a county final at the age of 39.”

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