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The Irish enjoyed a fabulous Cheltenham Festival in 1978: their trainers saddled three winners on the first day and another three the next.
Their star that Wednesday was undoubtedly the pony-sized six-year-old Monksfield, who had the heart of a lion and proved too strong for stable companions Sea Pigeon & Night Nurse in the Champion Hurdle.
Enterprisingly ridden by the 45-year-old Tommy Kinane for the Co Meath trainer, Desmond McDonogh, Monksfield was giving the Irish their first win in the race since Winning Fair back in 1963.
This was to prove the pinnacle of his career.
Tommy, the seventh son of 14 children, was born on
3 October, 1933, near Ballynahinch, (above) just outside Cashel in Tipperary.
His father, Jim, who worked for the council as a stonemason, was the son of a well-to-do grocer in Tipperary.
Jim's family disowned him when he married Annie, believing her not to be good enough for him. They couldn't have been more wrong.
Annie had access to just one acre of land; on this she kept 3 cows, 3 goats, 3 pigs and two Shropshire turkeys which were always ready for the Cashel market.
Aged 8, Tommy would milk the cows by hand.
Because of her diligence, she was able to feed her entire family from that one acre: the only thing she ever bought was tea and sugar. She made her own butter and bread.
Tommy, the third youngest of nine brothers, never met the eldest, Jack, who'd left for America before Tommy arrived on the scene.
Of the 14-strong family, only 3 were left in 2010 including Nancy, the first of the family to live beyond eighty.
Tommy's brother, Ned, had a leg removed through cancer.
Tommy spent much of his youth at the nearby farm of near Paddy Taylor. His two great loves in life, outside racing, were boxing and ballroom dancing, and it was Paddy who taught the youngster his first tentative steps.
Leaving school at 14, he worked full-time on Paddy's farm.
He left after being refused permission to attend the local Tipperary Foxhounds point-to-point at Tullamaine.
Tommy began work the very next morning for Grand National winning jockey Tim Hyde (Workman, 1939) who trained at Camas Park, not a stone's throw from Tommy's house. Other stable lads there included John Kenneally and Jimmy Bourke.
Tommy stayed with him for two and a half years.
Tim Hyde had about sixty horses of which twenty were showjumpers.
In July, 1951, Tommy gave his boss the leg-up on Heartbreaker before the start of a novice showjumping event in Clonakilty, west Cork.
In what should have been a fairly straightfoward clear round, Heartbreaker suddenly stopped approaching a double bank. Tim was thrown over its head and, somehow, the horse came down on top of him.
Tommy sprinted towards the stricken rider who screamed 'Don't touch me. My back's broken.'
Tim never walked again.
One of the many consequences of this tragedy was that Tommy was laid off.
Tommy decided to try his luck in England and, together with John Kenneally - who was to ride Purple Silk into second place in the 1964 Grand National - took the boat across.
He spent six months with Tom Pettifer at Letcombe Regis, just outside Wantage, before joining Tom Yates at Letcombe Bassett.
Although he was given a few rides, both on the Flat & over hurdles, he became disenchanted with the sport: unable to ride a winner, he quit racing and found work on a London building site. He also worked at Cadby Hall, Hammersmith, where the then famous Lyons Individual Fruit Pies and Swiss Rolls were made.
It was at the nearby Emerald Ballroom that he met Frances O'Brien: they were wed in St Thomas's Catholic Church (left) in Fulham in 1956. Their first child, Thomas was born on 8 July, 1975.
The couple returned to Ireland where Tommy worked for his trainer-brother Dan, whose stables stood at Mullinahone in Co Tipperary. This gave Tommy a 22 mile bike ride each Monday to get to Dan's stables. Tommy would return home each weekend if the stable wasn't too busy.
It was for his brother Dan that Tommy rode his first winner, Trade Union, in a handicap hurdle at Leopardstown in January, 1958.
Tommy was then aged 25
After a year, Tommy asked his elder bother for a rise (he was then on £2 a week and was in the process of buying a house). Surprisingly, Dan refused.
Tommy left, and, selling his house, found work as head man with Arthur Morris at his stables next to Clonmel racecourse.
Here, Tommy enjoyed his first real days of happiness and relative secuity.
Then - in the spring of 1961 - near disaster!
Tommy had three runners entered at Clonmel - he was to ride them all.
The first of them, Fall of France, was leading at the last when he hit the top of it and somersaulted. Tommy was thrown to the ground.
Groggily, he got to his feet, insisted that he was okay to ride again and, later, took Prince Gainmore down to the start.
It was here the an overwhelming feeling of light-headedness descended: Tommy violently slapped himself across the face and, somewhat revived, proceeded to win his race.
He declined to ride again and staggered home to bed.
The next morning after a visit and check-up from the doctor, Tommy was rushed to Cashel Hospital. He had suffered a broken vertebrae.
Tommy remained in hospital for many weeks: it took a full eleven weeks before he was race riding again.
In May, 1962, Michael Purcell hired him as head man at his Farney Castle stables near Holycross (between Thurles & Cashel).
Here, at last,Tommy blossomed, and, within two years and with many winners behind him, he was able to buy a 90-acre farm at Killenaule. This became the family home for the next twenty years.
Tommy had stability at last.
In 1976, Tommy rode Monksfield in the Daily Express Triumph Hurdle, finishing second to Peterhof (Jonjo O'Neill). Having been carried wide on the 28/1 shot, Tommy lodged an objection. Having looked at the camera patrol film, the stewards overruled it.
Back again the following year, this time for he Champion Hurdle, they again had to settle for second spot, this time behind Night Nurse who had also won the previous year.
Tommy was unhappy with the instructions he'd been given: left to his own devices he felt certain he'd have won, so the following year, when again contesting the Champion Hurdle, he asked not to be given any.
It was a good move.
Monksfield jumped the second last in front and held on by two lengths to beat Sea Pigeon with Night Nurse some six lengths back in third.
Tommy - and Monksfield - had arrived.
But Tommy was then 44 and almost certainly the oldest jockey to have won the race. Had big time success arrived too late?
In fact, that win on Monksfield was to be his greatest moment in the saddle.
Lady Luck turned her back on him just twelve days later: riding Kintai in the Irish Grand National, Tommy was brought down, crushing five vertebrae.
Dessie Hughes took over on Monksfield at Aintree and, beating Night Nurse, won the Templeman Hurdle.
Tommy would remain in hospital for a further three months.
He was back in the saddle on 24 February, 1979, when Monksfield went for the Irish Champion Hurdle. Disappointingly, they trailed in sixth.
The owner blamed Tommy for not using his initiative but Tommy would have none of it.
'I was told (by Dr Michael Mangan, the owner) to ride him the opposite to the way he was normally ridden.'
Tommy was then jocked off Monksfield in favour of Dessie Hughes in the Champion Hurdle.
When Dessie won, Tommy found it hard to take and is still bitter about it to this day.
And, of course, he was getting older: disillusioned, he finally quit the saddle in 1980 and began a training career which lasted some 22 years. He never reached the same heights he's scaled as a rider, one of his greatest successes coming with Smoke Charger in the PZ Mower Chase in 1982.
After a marriage which had lasted 48 years, his beloved wife Frances died in July, 2005.
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