It'S 10 years this week since Ger Loughnane realised something was up.
The calls and texts were coming through. Congratulations on another big one. Enjoy the big day. Remember, 60 is just another number. He was puzzled. His birthday is on September 23 but it soon became clear that, online, his date of birth is down as January 27, 1953. So maybe it's fitting for one of the High Kings of hurling. He's like royalty in having two birthdays...
That familiar booming laugh rumbles like thunder. "It's up there and there's no point fussing about it. That's the way it is, and away you go." That landmark is coming down the tracks, though. These days, 70 isn't old but there was a very real chance that Loughnane wouldn't reach 60.
On a crisp, bright June day in 2011, he was out hunting with his beloved beagles when he found himself short of breath.
Initially, it was put down to a flu but it quickly became apparent that Loughnane was seriously ill. His bone marrow was 60 per cent leukaemia. Loughnane was in the biggest battle of his life. He came through the other side but the treatment in St James's Hospital took its toll. Four separate extended stays when he could see no visitors. Left alone for hours on end with his thoughts, and there was one day when he thought he wouldn't come out on the other side.
"I was in James's and got this double infection along the line that they put into my stomach, and that's when my system was at an all time low.
"I'll never forget it, I was lying on the bed and the consultant and different doctors were all around it. Some reading was 83 and I heard one of them say we can't let it go below 80. "I can't remember anything after that, slept for 14 hours, and that was a real danger point. But I didn't feel panicky or anything. Once I recovered from that, I thought I would get out.''
"In the old days, reaching 70 was a big deal. You were seen as ancient, but it means absolutely nothing to me,'' he said.
"It doesn't register in any way as important. My real barometer for where my health is is hunting. If I can go out at 10am and cross fields and ditches and walls until the evening, then your birth date doesn't matter.
"I remember a few years ago going down to Cork for a day's hunting and went in over a ditch to search for a fox. I said to this fella 'are you not going in?' He goes 'do you not realise I'm 60, I can't be going into fields anymore'. And I was actually four years older than him!
"Your health and attitude are the things that decide what real age you are."
Loughnane took six months out from his job as a school principal for treatment and, soon after returning, he decided to retire.
He had 40 years done, he felt the time was right to hand the baton on.
"I loved teaching, I love dealing with kids. Even with the grandchildren now, I love spending time with them,'' he said.
"When I was teaching, I always loved the difficult children that were in the class. Trying to find some way to motivate them to get to a certain level where they wouldn't struggle in life later on."
When Loughnane thinks back to his own school days - and his first 10 years teaching - one word stands out. Violence.
"It was a huge part of teaching, even when I started. There were principals that were absolute brutes. I remember going to a meeting in the '70s where they were talking about getting rid of corporal punishment. "I was down at the back and there was a fella from the Department of Education speaking at the top of the room. When he finished, I whispered to the fella beside me - 'what is he saying?' He wrote down two words. Flake away.
"So it wasn't just the teachers, it was the Department of Education. When I was growing up, I boarded in Flannan's and I hated it, I really detested it.
"This Dean, or whatever he was, would come into the dormitory in the morning and, if you weren't up, you'd be brought to the library and get six flakes - three on each hand. "You'd go into Flannan's in the first week of September and not get out until Christmas. There was no going home at weekends. The only way out was sport. Then you got out for a little while to play games - so that was a huge incentive to get on teams.
"It was Dickensian. There were fellas who had no interest in sport and, because of that, they'd be flaked. It was terrible.
"I wouldn't look back on my time in Flannan's with any fondness whatsoever. At least I had the hurling but, for most people, it was a pretty grim life."
The recent revelations around sexual abuse in Blackrock College and other schools has led to conversations among some Flannan's old boys. "A few of us have talked about that. We have no memory of sexual abuse at all and, when you're a boarder, you would hear about things,'' he said. "It was clear that some of the priests hated their jobs and they took their frustration out on the kids.
"Violence was a huge part of the whole educational system. I never hit a child, never had a stick or anything like that. In the schools I worked in in Shannon, there was no violence. "There's always ways of getting the best out of kids, those savage beatings...that wasn't the way to do it. Violence was especially prevalent in rural schools. It left massive scars. There are so many people who were left permanently damaged by what happened to them in school. "You see, psychological violence was as big a problem as physical violence. I remember one girl who was subjected to the most vicious psychological abuse - and the reason the teacher picked on her was because she was adopted.
"She was looked down on, and suffered terribly afterwards because of that. Instead of supporting vulnerable children, the opposite was done. "It's changed very much for the better now. The weakest get the most attention, and that's the way it should be."
Loughnane grew up in a house in Feakle alive with traditional music and talk of politics and hurling.
The celebrated Tulla Céilí Band often had a Loughnane or two on board. Loughnane's father, John James, was an accomplished fiddler. So you might think that trad music is a staple in the Loughnane house now. You'd be very wrong.
"I detest it, hate it with a passion. It goes back to what they used to call the cuairt,'' he said. "There'd be music in a lot of houses and you'd be brought along and forced up to dance. "You know the way you go round and round in some of these Irish dances - it makes no sense to me, anyway...but I'd feel sick from it. It would be the same if I was on a roundabout.
"As a result, I've hated Irish music since I was a young age. From going round and round in a bloody circle, it turned me completely against it. "But I saw the great satisfaction that my father and other relations got from it."
As well as marking his 70th birthday, 2023 will mark another significant landmark for Loughnane. On June 24, 1973 in Semple Stadium, he played Championship hurling for Clare for the first time.
"I find it incredible that it's nearly 50 years since that day. I remember telling Matt Nugent, the manager at the time, that I couldn't train for six weeks, that I had work to do to get my exams in St Pat's,'' he said. "I stayed on in Dublin and got the exams but that meant I couldn't start against Limerick in the Championship. The game was going on, anyway, and things were going bad and the next thing this fella behind us shouts out 'bring on Loughnane!'.
"The manager was getting more and more frustrated but, eventually, he gave in to your man and there was a big cheer when I came on. I was on Eamonn Grimes and we were only beaten by two points. Limerick went on to win the All-Ireland."
That was the way Loughnane's playing career with Clare went over 15 years. A couple of League medals but hints of Championship promise that came to nothing.
Everything changed when he became manager. A county dismissed as perennial losers became serial winners.
"It's funny, when all those anniversaries came around - like 25 years since the 1995 All-Ireland win - I'd get calls to go on the radio to talk about it and I never did,'' he said.
"The reason was that, unless you were there, you wouldn't know the impact it had on Clare. There was always talk about 1955 when I was growing up. You couldn't ignore the psychological impact that defeat had on Clare.
"To beat Tipperary and Cork and then come up against a young Limerick team who were completely written off in the Munster final. It was just going to be a matter of turning up to collect the cup...
"Clare were beaten out the gate. That led to a belief in Clare that they'd never win anything. Clare in Munster finals was very similar to the situation now with Mayo in All-Ireland football finals. Defeat after defeat after defeat. "So when it did happen, the atmosphere in the county was beyond words. We went around with the cup and you had to be in those parishes to see what it meant.
"It was just crazy. Absolute deliverance, and it did give Clare people a different view of themselves. They had a new confidence. "I watched Tommy Tiernan's programme about the west of Ireland and he said about Clare people in it - 'there's a wildness to them'. And I agree totally with him. "And what brought out that wildness was that era. When they came to Dublin in that era, they brought something totally different to what other people brought. Then you add in the music as well."
There's one story from that era that sticks in Loughnane's memory more than any other. It concerned the late Brian Lenihan, who bumped into him when Loughnane was bringing kids from his school on a tour of the Dail in the early noughties.
"Brian was passing and he recognised me and came over. He said I have to tell you something about the day of the All-Ireland final in '95,''
"Himself and his wife, Patricia, were on the way back to Dublin from Galway and listening to the game on the radio. He had no interest in hurling but they got caught up in the excitement of the game. "They pulled in to listen. Brian said that he told Patricia that, if Clare won and they had a baby girl, they'd call her Clare. And they did."
In everything he's ever done, Loughnane has always been true to myself. There is a directness to him that isn't about artifice, it was never about playing to the cameras or any kind of gallery.
That was something Waterford's Austin Gleeson found out for himself after being named Hurler of the Year in 2016.
He was at a function in Dublin one night shortly afterwards and got chatting to Loughnane. The Clareman pointed to Tipperary's Padraic Maher, who was standing nearby, and told Gleeson that the award should have gone to him. Not many operate that way.
"I always had that streak in me, it's probably hereditary. There's a famous story told about a granduncle of mine who was at Mass one day and he didn't think much of the sermon. He said to a fella outside that he'd rather listen to a dog barking,'' he said. "Didn't your man go off to tell the priest. The next Sunday, the priest got up on the altar and condemned him. My granduncle didn't care. Maybe that streak is hereditary!
"Even when I was playing, I'd always say what I thought at meetings. It's how you say it, a lot of the time. Like saying that to Austin Gleeson, it wasn't aggressive, it was just straightforward. I think people respect that."
After retiring from teaching, Loughnane took on some work mentoring student teachers from Mary Immaculate College in Limerick. But he gave that up when his daughter-in-law Bridget - married to Barry - was diagnosed with cancer. Bridget passed away last July. She left behind three children - Harry, Neila and Aaron.
"The way I'd describe the last few years is with the old Charles Dickens line - it was the best of times, it was the worst of times,'' said Loughnane. "The hardest thing was to see how hard Bridget fought to stay alive. She never let the cancer get the better of her, she wouldn't give in to it.
"She had stage four cancer but, no matter how sick she was, she'd still get up to dress Neila and to say goodbye to the children going out to school and the creche. "One morning, she came out of the room, hit off the wall, then off the banister, then off another wall, she was so weak. I was saying 'Jesus, Bridget, will you stay in bed?' No, she still came down to see the kids off. To see someone with that kind of courage and determination...
"The physical part of it was terrible, but what was the psychological part like? When she was diagnosed, Aaron was a baby, Neila was three and Harry was eight. For everyone connected to her, it was awful.
"The other side is the support that the family got, it was and is monumental. Like the support Barry gets from Mick Guinnee in Eli Electronics where he works is great. "Nothing will make up for the loss of Bridget, but you have to keep going."
Loughnane does a lot of the school runs now, and he loves the fun they knock out of each other.
No lover of the shortened intercounty season, he's looking forward to the return of the League, and he always has plenty on his plate. "The way I see everything is, I go in, do my best, and then get out. It applied to playing, managing, my teaching career and The Sunday Game too,'' he said.
"I did the 2018 All-Ireland final. Limerick won after such a long time and I felt it was the best time to get out. What people don't realise is that it was 40 years since I first covered an All-Ireland on RTE.
"I was on in 1978 with Pat Hartigan and Bill O'Herlihy, so that 40 year mark seemed a perfect way to leave.
"I have the dogs and getting them ready for hunting, and getting them fed and exercised, takes up a lot of my day too. I enjoy that routine. Between the children and the dogs, I'm kept busy,'' he said.
"Do you know Tom T Hall? There's a song of his that has the lines: 'Ain't but three things in this world that's worth a solitary dime
'But old dogs and children, and watermelon wine'.
"Well, I never drank watermelon wine but I'd agree with him about the other two."
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