FROM THE ARCHIVES:GAA correspondent Paddy Downey went to Cork to see the county's young hurling team's (and supporters') preparations for their first All-Ireland final in 10 years in 1966: they beat Kilkenny to win their first title since 1954.
– JOE JOYCE
CHRISTY RING is in the square and Jack Lynch is also there . . . Someone hums a line of the old, endless, loveable pub song which is still as obscure and as exclusive to Cork as the “Holy Ground” was before the Clancys made it another wireless ditty for the masses.
Nostalgia, or the wish as father to the memory? Christy Ring is no longer there: he chose to follow Jack Lynch and the others into retirement and legend. A new generation of hurling followers will alter verses of the old song, inserting the names of the men who now tread the square of Cork’s adversaries.
“Charlie Mac is in the square, Seanie Barry’s also there; here’s up them all says the boys of Fair Hill.”
The warmth of an August evening brings millions of midges buzzing over the Athletic Grounds and a half moon hangs above Ballintemple where a late arrival to the crowd watching Cork in training for the All-Ireland final against Kilkenny says he has seen Ring working in his garden. Sunset and evening star . . .
A motorboat burrs its way up the Lee to Parnell Bridge: a tourist, returning from a trip in the harbour, oblivious of the activity and the build-up of atmosphere on his left hand . . . or a Corkman who knows and loves the thrill of it again and later will make his way to Joe Dignam’s or some other tavern for an hour or two of pleasurable talk about hurling.
Night falls and the players with their silver-haired trainer, Jim Barry, and coach, Jim O’Regan, leave the field to the midges and two youths who crack a ball up and down in the moonlight. The laughter of high spirits comes from the dressingroom, drowning the burr of the engine on the river.
The onlookers filter into the night. Each evening they come down the Marina in hundreds – young men who were only knee-high boys when Cork last trained for an All-Ireland final; children holding their mothers’ hands; middle-aged men and old men, retracting well-work footsteps. Cork hurling is on the march once more and the fever of the occasion embraces everyone.
Here and there one recognises an old county hurler, remembering an evening just like this one, 20, 30 or 40 years ago. On the embankment under the stand Father Con Cottrell, midfielder of the 1940s, looking well again after his recent grave illness, talks with Bill Murphy, corner back of the same era, now a selector.
There are here so many associations evocative of Cork’s hurling history that, when all have gone, one lingers for a minute or two expecting to see the ghosts of the teams who won the county’s 19 All-Ireland titles troop silently onto the field . . . the whole litany of famous names . . . and maybe the ghost of the young Ring would come down over the hill from Ballintemple.
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