On Monday the 30^th of September, Clare hurlers Cian Galvin and Davy Conroy came to the school to celebrate their victory in winning the All Ireland Hurling Championship this summer. They arrived at around 10 o’clock in the morning. We all gathered outside at the back of the school with our chairs. After a few minutes, we saw them coming and we gave them a big cheer when they arrived! Mr. Curran introduced them and they started talking about their victory. People then started asking them questions about their lives as hurlers. Some of the questions were ‘When did you start playing hurling?’ or ‘When did you play your first match?’ One person also asked what hurley they used when they won the final! Cian used a Clancy hurley and Davy used a Torpey hurley.

We spent a few more minutes asking them questions and then Mr. Curran told us about a challenge that Cian used to try to achieve when he was a pupil in Knockanean N.S. The challenge was to try to hit the ball from left to right, against the wall of the school, and to catch it again, and to see how many times he could do this in 30 seconds. When he was younger, his record was 17 times. Cian then tried to beat this challenge on the day and he got 25 so he beat his record! There was also another challenge where they had to hit the middle pole in the school shed. Both Davy and Cian tried this challenge as well on the day and were able to hit it once! After these challenges, we lined up in our class groups and took photos with the Liam McCarthy cup. We also got the chance to hold the very heavy cup! After that, we got signatures from Davy and Cian. Some people got their jerseys signed and some even got their shoes signed! It was great to get to see the hurlers in person and to hear about their busy lives and all the training that they have to do. We enjoyed the day and our favourite part was getting to lift the Liam McCarthy!

By Alex O’Donnell, Finn O’Dwyer and Dara O’Connor.