Irish Examiner view: A sporting legacy that inspires across time

Centenary of a Christy Ring’s birth

Glen Rovers' Christy Ring in action against Blackrock in the GAA Cork County hurling final at the Athletic Grounds. Picture: Irish Examiner Archives,  ref no 166J

Sport marches to a drumbeat of its own; it measures or at least condenses time differently to most other pivots of life. Sport allows us, encourages us, to reach across the years to caress — again and often — the relics of greatness, and the memory of greats who once walked among us. 

This luxuriating in what was once, in what was achieved, in what was won or lost, is much more than hyperbole, much more than basking in a reflected glory. It is much, much more than nostalgia — once accurately described as being dangerously close to self-pity.