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Out Hurler Donal Óg Cusack Accused Another Team of Rampant Homophobia. They’re Not Sorry

When Donal Óg Cusack, the Irish hurling goalkeeper, came out in his autobiography in October, it meant the end of his own mother attending his games, because she couldn’t stand all the slurs aimed at her son. Now some 10 months after the Cork player in print went after the Kilkenny team’s fans, for being the most homophobic in the league, the team is finally responding.

In his book, Cusack wrote of Kilkenny: “The abuse coming down on me from the terraces is among the worst I can remember. It’s poison, but there is such glee in it. We are the unforgiven. They just don’t want us beaten, they want us torn limb from limb. The more disorder there is in Cork, the more Kilkenny likes to be thought fondly as the land of milk, honey and contentment. The GAA’s version of the Stepford Wives.”

I guess that translates as rilly harsh in Ireland? So here’s Kilkenny’s response:

Kilkenny have now responded through their former GAA president Nickey Brennan and former forward star Eddie Keher. Brennan stated Cusack’s comments about Kilkenny were “ungracious” and “totally unnecessary” while Keher said that he would not touch the goalkeeper’s book “with a forty foot pole.”

[…] Brennan said, “Donal Og Cusack’s book and his ungracious (and to be honest totally unnecessary) comments about Kilkenny hit a nerve, not just with the players, but with Kilkenny supporters at large. “Those ‘Stepford Wives’ comments from the Cork custodian will continue to haunt him for as long as he is involved in Cork and Kilkenny clashes.

Sounds like a … threat? Exactly the sort of thing Cusack was writing about?

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