Mary Hanniganreflects on the passing this year of great characters, from various codes, at home and abroad

Ferenc Puskas, Dr Kevin O'Flanagan, Floyd Patterson, Fred Trueman: just some of the celebrated figures who died in 2006, all of them leaving lasting and cherished memories after richly successful sporting careers. Others, though, like the young Irish trio of Caroline Kearney, Dary Cullen and Sherelle Duke, were taken before they even reached their prime, all of them in tragic accidents.

Caroline Kearney (24) was Ireland's leading female triathlete and was training full-time to achieve her ambition of qualifying for the 2008 Beijing Olympics. The young Dubliner was based at the Montpellier Triathlon Club for the past two years and it was in France that she died after being struck by a car while training with a group of cyclists near Nice.

Amateur jockey Dary Cullen, from Newbridge, Co Kildare, was just 20 when he died in April after a fall at a point-to-point in Wexford.

It was also a fall from a horse that resulted in the death in August of the 28-year-old Sherelle Duke of Armagh, one of Ireland's leading three-day eventers.

A glorious year for Munster rugby was overshadowed by the sudden death of Conrad O'Sullivan (25), a talented hurler before he focused his attention on rugby, going on to play for Munster and Cork Constitution.

Hockey, too, lost a young player in April when Glenanne's Colin Cunningham died in a road accident, just a year after starting a hockey scholarship at UCD.

May saw the passing of one of Irish sport's true legends, Dr Kevin O'Flanagan, the former rugby and soccer international who played for Arsenal and was also an Irish athletics champion.

Born in 1919, O'Flanagan was also a long-time member of the International Olympic Committee (IOC) and would have competed in the Olympics but for their cancellation in 1940 and 1944 because of the war.

Three months later Irish rugby lost another of its most famous sons, Ken Goodall, who died at just 59. A product of the City of Derry rugby club, Goodall made his Ireland debut as a 19-year-old in 1967 and went on to play for the Lions before switching codes to rugby league with Workington Town.

Another great Irish sporting all-rounder, Noel Hamilton Lambert, better known as Ham, died in August at the age of 96.

Injury ended Lambert's international rugby career after he had won just two caps but he went on to win 11 international referee caps and represented Ireland in cricket. He was also an international badminton trialist as well as a Barton Cup-winning golfer.

The GAA, too, saw the passing of several renowned figures, including Simon Deignan (84), one of the last surviving members of the great Cavan football team that won the All-Ireland final in New York in 1947. Deignan also went on to become one of the top referees in Gaelic football.

The death also occurred of Christo Hand, who was left half back on Meath's first All-Ireland-winning senior football team in 1949. And Mayo GAA mourned the loss of the legendary Johnny Mulvey (85) in September.

The year also saw the passing of one of Ireland's finest distance runners, Martin Egan (86), and one of the country's greatest ever amateur riders, Bunny Cox (81), who also had a successful career as a trainer.

Internationally, the great Ferenc Puskas died last month at the age of 79; the Hungarian was regarded as the finest footballer of his generation,

The man voted in 2002 as Celtic's greatest ever player, Jimmy 'Jinky' Johnstone, one of the Lisbon Lions who won the European Cup in 1967, died at the age of 61 in March.

English football lost its former international manager Ron Greenwood (84), as well as another former West Ham manager, John Lyall (66), and the Chelsea legend Peter Osgood (59) died from a heart attack in March, a month before the passing of the former Brazil manager Tele Santana (74).

Two of boxing's most renowned figures also died in 2006: Floyd Patterson (71), who became the youngest world heavyweight champion at 21, and Willie 'Will o' the Wisp' Pep (84), the former world featherweight champion.

Golfing great Byron Nelson (94), who won five majors and was best known for winning 18 tour titles (11 of them in succession) in 1945, also died, as did Tiger Woods's mentor and father, Earl (74).

The former snooker world champion John Spencer (71) lost his battle with cancer in July, as did 28-year-old Paul Hunter in October.

The same illness resulted in the death of cricket legend Fred Trueman (75), the Yorkshire and England fast bowler, in July, a month before a heart attack caused the death of one of horseracing's great characters, the former jockey and trainer David Nicholson (67).