LAST Thursday morning, as Joe Baldwin readied himself to watch Cavan’s recent challenge game with Armagh, he tells me that he is currently nursing a broken foot and he’s in a ‘soft’ cast for another three weeks. Not ideal for a man that lives in Coleraine and has to travel two hours to and from training sessions in Fermanagh but it hasn’t stopped him, so is the dedication of the man and his unwavering love for the game of hurling.
The conversation with the Fermanagh hurling manager went on to touch on many things, his new captain, his hopes for a new season, players in and players out, things that you’d expect to talk about but what I never expected was where the conversation went next.
Unbeknownst to me, just over nine years ago, Joe Baldwin’s life was torn apart. Every parent’s worst nightmare became his reality. On Christmas Eve 2012, he lost his beautiful son Conál, aged only 12 years old. An underlying heart defect was detected, the medical term for it is myocarditis, Joe tells me, whereby the muscle of his son’s heart was expanding and contracting and on that fateful day in December 2012 his first born lost his fight against this rare condition.
I’ve chatted Joe many times over the last year about hurling but in those fleeting conversations about the game you rarely go beyond that. Last Thursday, I got off the phone feeling a mixture of emotions. As a mother of two, my heart broke for what he has had to endure, no parent should ever have to bury their child but I also couldn’t help but feel privileged to have been given an insight into the beautiful, kind, talented, GAA loving child that Conál was.
As Joe recalled endless stories, most of which revolved around hurling, I could hear the emotion in his voice as he told me about his first night as Antrim camogie manager;
“We were setting up the cones and he came running over to me and said, ‘Daddy, I can’t believe we’re the Antrim managers, ‘we’,” laughs Joe as he relives those precious moments and his son’s zest for life and love for the game. The thing was, it was never just Joe, wherever Joe was, so too was Conál.
“He would always go to the All Ireland final with me” recalls Joe, “one All Ireland final hurling day we were in the escalator and Ken McGrath got in behind us, a Waterford hurling legend, I knew it was Ken McGrath but Ken McGrath must have recognised us because we used to go into his shop when we were down home in Waterford, and he tapped Conál on the back of the head, as cool as you like, Conál turned around and said “well Ken” as if he was his best friend, he laughs, “any other child would be in awe.”
Joe was born in Waterford but his family relocated to Kilkeel in County Down when he was three years of age. He had two sons, Conál and Darragh and as Joe says himself, they were completely different in terms of their interests. Conál was a GAA fanatic, he played football and hurling for An Ríocht and he was an “exceptional hurler”, winning the Féile Skills competition with a 100 per cent score the year before his untimely death.
Darragh on the otherhand has no interest in football or hurling but is now a showjumper, a love of animals that led him down that path to a sport he now loves.
As Joe recalls memories of Conál like they were yesterday, he openly admitted those very memories are what keeps driving him on today, next week, next month and beyond.
“I could’ve done one of two things, I could’ve quit and never got involved in it again or you feel like it drives you on. Even though he was only 12, the passion he had for the game was unbelievable and that really does drive me on.”
Following Conál’s passing Joe says he found out his son had a Twitter account and when he looked at it, his bio read;
“I’m from Kilkeel, GAA is my life”
A poignant reminder of his son’s great passion.
Last year Joe managed Fermanagh to Lory Meagher Cup success, a feat they hadn’t managed since 2015. As scenes of jubilation erupted, Joe recalls the moment the final whistle blew;
“I became very emotional because obviously he (Conál) was first and foremost in my thoughts because many times me and him had been in Croke Park. Conál’s passing certainly drives me on in the same way that Shane Mulholland would be in the thoughts of all the Fermanagh hurlers.”
Indeed, Fermanagh’s opponents Cavan, have only just experienced a huge loss themselves. Just a week ago the Breffni county said goodbye to one of their own, Cillian Boyle, a talented young club hurler from Cootehill. His passing was foremost in Joe’s mind as he expressed his sympathies before he looked ahead to the game.
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