My best guess regarding the only encounter I had with Seamus Heaney is that it happened in 1987 or so.

A long time ago Jimmy Breslin wrote a baseball book entitled Can’t Anybody Here Play This Game? Don’t get offended, people of Clare. I refer to those of us in the pontification game, and in particular those of us who were in Limerick last April for the relegation play-off.

I see a lot of ink, or air, or gigabytes, being expended on a new book by David Peace, Red or Dead, about Bill Shankly, who once managed Liverpool.

DONACH O’Donnell began coaching while a student in WIT, and while teaching in Rockwell College he maintained his interest in preparing teams.

Tradition packed its nasty wallop into Croke Park yesterday, to paraphrase the great AJ Leibling.

A couple of years ago, a publisher asked your columnist about potential GAA books: what would be a hot property, and what would be interesting, that kind of thing.

Last Saturday afternoon, I had occasion to go into a pub in the afternoon with somebody, and that person summed up my feelings in one sentence when the blare from the televisions hit us.

The heat, eh?

We can talk about the history in a bit, and before long we’ll get to Donal O’Grady, the Limerick captain, and his groundbreaking rendition of Limerick You’re A Lady, not to mention the best final-whistle pitch-invasion we’ve seen in many years.

When the great boxing trainer Eddie Futch stopped Joe Frazier from going out to face Muhammad Ali late on in Manila all those years ago, he had good reason.