We often hear of people giving a lifetime of service to some organisation or other and in some cases the claim would be exaggerated. In the Passage club a man who devoted his whole life to promoting hurling in his own town was Billy O’Sullivan. Proof of this is the fact that only two weeks before he died at the age of 83, Billy was making daily visits to Manning Park to check that all was in order in the field that he spent so much time in.

Probably the darkest period in the chequered history of the Passage club was between 1910 and 1915 when despite trojan efforts by Billy, in particular, the club was unable to field any teams. The year 1916 will always be historic for the insurrection in Dublin but Passage also witnessed a rising in that year when the white and green jersey again took to the playing fields of Cork.

Even though, by his own admission, Billy was not a hurler of note he was made captain of the team in honour of his efforts in reviving the club. In his later years he took great pride in that achievement. In the next thirty years he was involved in some capacity with every hurling team that the Passage club fielded (In 1919 the club fielded three hurling teams).

The high point in his role as a mentor came in 1945 when he trained the junior hurling team which won the South-East title and was beaten by one point by Midleton in the county when three key players were unavailable.

From this period on he was very active on various committees in the club and he will also be remembered for passing on his expertise in banding hurleys to the younger generation. Billy of course was a great and important source of information on the history of the club and when Matt Aherne was compiling the club history book relating to same he was very grateful for the notes that he had provided relating to the early years.