Tipperary and Kilkenny’s great rivalry a century in the making

It’s the morning of the 1916 All-Ireland hurling final. The Tipperary hurlers are in Dublin — they walk down the quays and turn left onto Sackville Street.

All around them lies the wreckage of the Rising that had taken place the previous Easter. Whole stretches of buildings along the street — and along the other streets leading off it — are missing. The pounding of British artillery and the fires that swept the area had laid waste to the commercial heart of the city.

The players move down Sackville Street to the GPO. They gather silently in front of its ruins. And they recite a decade of the Rosary in honour of the rebels who had fought there.