Passage G.A.A. Club Hall of Fame - John Barry
Despite the fact that Passage had produced many great hurlers from the time of the foundation of the club in 1885,it was not
until 1962 that a Passage hurler was selected on the Cork Senior Hurling championship team.
The player was John Barry, the venue was Thurles and the opposition was Waterford. A Waterford team that was reputed to be
it's best ever.
John lined out at right corner forward and in the other corner was none other than Christy Ring. An added bonus for the
Passage club was the diminutive 19 year old forward was listed among the subs. He was of course Johnny Coughlan who had
played on the Cork Minor the previous year. Unfortunately this was in the middle of the barren years for Corl hurling
and the team lost narrowly to the Decies.
John Barry was a prodigous talent as an under age player which is illustrated by the fact that in 1957 he was selected
on the Passage Intermediate hurling championship team against Youghal when he was just 15 years old.
He was an automatic selection on the Cork Minor team of 1958 and 1959 but once again it was an era when Cork Minor
teams were finding it difficult to progress outside of Munster.
After his Cork Senior debut in 1962 John was had established himself as a regular senior inter-county player and as
Passage were now operating in the senior ranks kept him very much in the limelight.
Unfortunately for John and Passage he suffered a fairly serious back injury, which originally curtailed his career
and eventually brought it to a premature end when he should have been in his prime.
Shortly before his career came to an end John did manage to win an intermediate Munster medal with Cork and everyone
was left to speculate what might have been for one of Passage's greatest hurlers.