Books: Memories of day I was confronted by Ring after I struck him with a sliotar

On the afternoon of Friday, March 2, 1979, Stan O’Brien, the sales manager of the Cork Gas Company, came across a gathering of people on the pavement at Morrison’s Island in Cork city.

As he passed, he heard someone say, “An old man has collapsed.”

Two days later, on a bitter early spring Sunday, I stood shoulder to shoulder with 10,000 others in St Colman’s graveyard in my native village of Cloyne to bid farewell to the great Christy Ring.

Undeterred by the chill as we waited together, I spotted a neighbour, Bill O’Brien, sitting on a high wall, securing a vantage point over a freshly opened grave. We were all there to pay homage to the great King of Hurling who was laid to rest.

Fast forward to this month. That same neighbour who sat on the graveyard wall was with us at the launch of my memoir, Ráiméising, to read an excerpt, depicting this encounter I had with Christy Ring in the hurling field just across the road from that very churchyard.

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In my younger days, when I was 18, I recall being on the Cloyne hurling field, carrying my hurley as a young minor while Christy, acting as trainer, guarded the goalmouth.

We minors were practising shots on goal when I struck the sliotar cleanly, catching him squarely in the chest.

He raced towards me, his face unreadable. I felt the heat rise in my cheeks, the excuses already forming in my throat.

It was a fluke… I didn’t mean it…

Instead, he tapped my shoulder lightly with his hurley.

“Good shot.”

Then he turned and ran back to guard the goalmouth.

We had been playing on the pitch behind his house, where he had lived and breathed hurling and where, in time, he would pass into legend.

Many fine players graced great teams, but Christy Ring was something else entirely.

He could change the course of a match, turning defeat into victory in the closing minutes through sheer skill, determination, and force of character.

What joy he gave us - a giant of a man who could turn an 18-year-old’s heart from sheer terror to pure pride with two simple words.

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The name of my memoir, Ráiméising evokes wandering, roaming, and travelling without always knowing where the road will lead. That is how much of my life felt during my younger years.

I left East Cork as a young emigrant; what began as a decision to gain experience in the UK became a ten-year adventure that took me far beyond anything I could have anticipated. Some of the events described in these pages were momentous historical milestones. Others were ordinary incidents that might seem unimportant to anyone except the person who lived through them.

Yet those smaller moments - the conversations, friendships, journeys, mistakes, surprises, and fragments of everyday life - often remain most vivid in memory.

Having encountered international events and people from many different backgrounds, I have tried to tell my story as I remember experiencing it. Where historical events provide the backdrop, I have included context to ground my experiences. It is a personal memoir: the story of one young Irishman’s journey through a changing world.

While I name real people throughout these pages, I have substituted others for personal privacy. Furthermore, while the contents broadly detail what took place, the dialogue is not always exact, word for word.

Memory, of course, is an imperfect companion. Decades inevitably alter perspective; some details that once seemed insignificant have become clearer in hindsight, while others have faded.

Where possible, I have drawn upon letters, photographs, documents, and other surviving records to support my recollections.

Even so, I have resisted the temptation to fill gaps in memory with invention. Where I cannot remember something with certainty, I would rather acknowledge that uncertainty than create a version that never happened. I have also come to realise that the journey was about more than geography.

East Cork was where it all began, and the memory of family, landscape, and community remained a constant thread through the years.

Returning home many years later therefore meant more than simply completing a circuit. It meant seeing the place I had left with different eyes - and perhaps seeing myself differently, too.

Looking back now, I realise how fortunate I was to have lived through those years.

I was young enough to approach the world with curiosity, yet old enough to appreciate the opportunities that came my way.

I met people I would otherwise never have known, and saw places I had previously only imagined.

I did not realise then that I was living through history; I was simply getting on with life.

That, perhaps, is the reason I have chosen to write this memoir now. History is often remembered through the actions of famous figures and grand events, but it is equally made up of the experiences of ordinary men and women - doing their jobs, raising families, travelling, emigrating, and trying to make their way in an uncertain world.

This is my small contribution to that record. It is the story of a young man who left a farm in East Cork and set out into the wider world. It is a story of Britain, the Far East, friendship, adventure, and change.

Above all, it is a story about the road away from home - and the road that eventually led me back.

I hope that, in reading Ráiméising, you will not simply see the places I visited or the events I witnessed, but will also glimpse something of the young man I was, the world in which he lived, and the Ireland from which he came. And perhaps, in the end, understand why the journey was worth remembering.

Ráiméising can be obtained from Midleton Books in Main Street, Midleton, Dan Donovan’s Store in Berrings, and Circle K Express / O’Leary’s Filling Station, Tower.