discussing it with players and ex-players in all parts of Ireland where the game is played: a much tinier area than those who think in terms of county boundaries realise.

One of the most memorable of these discussions occurred on the night we joined the Common Market, when I was one of a group that listened to the Taoiseach, Jack Lynch, talking hurling. I have never heard anyone to equal his lyrical description of how the texture of sod and grass changes from spring, to summer into autumn.

He was one of the great ones, and I was lucky enough to have seen him in his prime. I notice that he has his own special entry in The Oxford Companion to Sports and Games where his political as well asbehind them”.

Hurling is a tough game and a highly-skilful one, and it is one that calls for heroes. Ring was the outstanding example of the man who could win a game off his own stick when all seemed lost.

All-Irelands are emotional occasions and there can have been none more so than the final of 1954, when Christy Ring won his eighth All-Ireland medal and was shouldered off the pitch by Wexford players. And if I were asked to name the team that gave a new impetus to hurling during my own lifetime, I would immediately nominate that same Wexford team. It was their stature that first amazed us, allied as it was with a rare sportsmanship.

And again, when one thinks of Wexford one thinks of the Rackards (and