ALL-IRELAND HURLING SEMI-FINAL: Tom Humphries recalls the tale of Locky Byrne, who played for both Kilkenny and Waterford in the 1930s.

The county boundary, the sacred dividing line between one GAA tradition and another, has been the saving of the association and in some places the ruination of it. Lines scribbled on a map by some Elizabethan clerk in the 16th century have determined, for instance, whether a hurler lives in the hurling graceland of Kilkenny or the neighbouring wasteland of Carlow.

And that Elizabethan clerk gifted to feature writers down through the ages a staple fodder of summers when no players are talking to the meejah: the border town feature. Hamlets that nestle up to the border between two successful counties or, better still, towns that straddle a border become metaphors for the fury to come. Neighbour against neighbour, father against son, brother against brother and so on.

You tread carefully though. The memory of ancient hurlers is not to be tampered with. In 1995, this scribbler went to Tubber in Clare for the choice border feature of that summer. The towns of Tubber and Beagh are on opposite sides of a hill. Beagh is in Galway. Tubber is in Clare. Galway and Clare were playing each other in the All-Ireland semi-final.

In the course of a fine and pleasant day the talk with the Gantley's of Beagh included passing reference to one Locky Byrne, who as a result of maybe the best border story in GAA history played for both Kilkenny and Waterford in the 1930s. Joe Gantley, grandfather of Finbarr and Rory Gantley of the current Galway panel, reckoned that in 1938 Dublin played against Locky Byrne twice. Once as a Kilkenny man. Once as a Waterford man.

All this had to do with the plight of Clare hurling down through the years, but it sparked a small firestorm. Stern letters began to arrive in this office from Ferrybank and Mooncoin. A man called Aidan McNamara, then living in Clontarf, called in personally and handed over a sheet of notepaper on which in dense green ink he had filled out the life and times of his old friend Locky Byrne.

The hinge of the dispute was the summer of 1938, an occasion of celebration in Waterford. By that summer Waterford were in a slough of quiet desperation. Since winning a minor All-Ireland back in 1929, the county had been dawdling at the threshold.

Several times it was close but no cigar. The Waterford team of 1931, who drew with the great Cork team of that era in the Munster final, had 14 Erins Own men in the Waterford colours. Cork, obliged, as always, by the gods, got eight minutes of extra time in which to find the equalising point, having conceded four goals in the first half. Another goal, scored by one Locky Byrne, was disallowed.

Ah, Locky. He was a slip of a 17-year-old then and was plucked from the minor side to spark the Waterford attack. He would become a beloved legend, a vagabondish hurler who played his hurling wherever required. He lined out for Ferrybank, Mooncoin, Slieve Rua and Mount Sion. He won an All-Ireland playing with Kilkenny but is best remembered and best loved still in his native Waterford.

Loughlin Byrne has almost faded into the blankness of forgotten history by now, but he was 17 then and the next big thing. He'd been on the successful Waterford minor team of 1929 as a 15-year-old. The previous year he'd won a Waterford minor title with Ferrybank. He wasn't big, but he was wiry and quick.

He was born in the Glen area of Waterford, where his father was a railyard worker, but raised in Ferrybank, that schizoid town where a hurler need only walk across a bridge to find himself in a different GAA fold.

Ferrybank has always been a contentious GAA area. Just across in Kilkenny lies a triangle of thriving clubs, Mooncoin, Slieve Rua and Glenmore. That's not the problem, though. The problem is the way in which Ferrybank grows. The local club's pitch has one goal in Kilkenny, the other in Waterford. Waterford County Council has been known to build houses on Kilkenny land, because Ferrybank is Waterford even if it nibbles at the place next door.

And in the past Ferrybank has been devoured by Kilkenny for GAA purposes. Not long after the 1931 championship the town was transferred from Waterford to Kilkenny for GAA needs.

Nobody can really say why that happened, but Locky Byrne was beamed into a Kilkenny jersey. He played for a while with Slieve Rua and then moved on to Mooncoin.

Mooncoin were on the verge of a county championship in 1936 when the GAA reversed its decision. Locky Byrne was swept away into Waterford again. The previous year he had won an All-Ireland medal with Kilkenny playing alongside the storied Lory Meagher.

BACK in Waterford, a great era was beginning. John Keane, Johnny Fanning, Willie Barron, Charlie Ware, etc, all wearing the county colours. Locky Byrne was an addition.

Their path intersected with Clare's progress in controversial circumstances in the Munster final. Clare had been beaten by Tipp at the semi-final stage, but were prevailed upon to object to the result because of the presence on the Tipp team of one Jimmy Cooney, an Army man, who had been suspended earlier that year for playing a rugby game with the Southern Command. Clare's heart wasn't really in the objection, but come the day of the Munster final glory beckoned. They led the game in the closing minutes.

A goal from Locky Byrne stole it for Waterford, but they lost the All-Ireland final to Dublin, the last All-Ireland to come to the capital.

Locky Byrne's allegiance was by now with the Mount Sion club in Waterford. Founded in 1932, they were already becoming the dynastic club of Waterford hurling. The 1938 county final is remembered for an early intervention on Locky Byrne's part. His county team-mate Charlie Ware, playing full back for the legendary Erins Own team of the time, announced his presence in time-honoured, physical fashion. Locky Byrne stepped in and issued an injunction. Mount Sion won and went on to do three-in-a-row within the county.

By the time of their third win, Locky Byrne was dying. He got injured playing a match against Portlaw one day and came off with a coat wrapped around himself and sat in the wet grass on the sideline for the remainder of the game.

Different days. He caught TB, the grim irony being, as Aidan McNamara explained it, that Locky's father, Dashy Byrne, was well known in Waterford for being almost obsessive about the danger of sitting in damp grass. He was forever patrolling sidelines, getting subs and mentors up off their backsides.

By the time the county final of 1940 came around Locky Byrne was wasted to the tune of three stone. He played nevertheless. Played at centre forward, where the going was rough.

Not long afterwards a fellow Mount Sion man, Pat Fanning, met him on the quays in Waterford. Locky was just out of the doctor's. The news was bad. Locky met it with a shrug.

He died in January 1941, and he was just 27. Another seven years and he would have been a veteran on the first Waterford side to win an All-Ireland. Who knows, with a little luck and with Locky Byrne playing Waterford might have slipped past Cork in 1943.

He was the first playing member of the Mount Sion club to die and the impact on the club was considerable. For decades afterwards the club marched in procession to his graveside every year on his anniversary. A Fianna Fail cumann in Ferrybank was named after him.

His legend endured, especially in the borderlands. There will be old men in Croke Park tomorrow, the last of their time, and they'll turn over the stones of that old argument from the summer of 1938 once more.