Larry Ryan: Colouring in a 40-year journey to Glasgow

Chrissie Buckley and those whose names weren't given the air to echo down ages. But from footnotes to front pages, there's now room for a new history 

TRAILBLAZERS: Five Ireland internationals from Cork pictured with Lord Mayor Hugh Coveney at the City Hall in 1982. From left: Ann Goggins, Chris Condon, Caroline Nagle, Hugh Coveney, Lord Mayor, Chrissie Buckley, and Noreen Herlihy.
Photo: Cork Examiner

During a week like this, in Cork anyway, you can’t but be drawn into nostalgia and reverie, feeling the guiding hand of history. The Little All-Ireland. The Barrs and the Rockies. Cashmans and McCarthys. Going up Barrack Street or back through the village. Feuds and rivalries and fun on the factory floors of Ford and Dunlop.

You’re sucked into archives. Colour in black and white. The Cork Examiner, October 11, 1982. Monday morning after their last final meeting. Haughey urged to resign side by side on the front page with the Barrs’ three in a row coronation. Inside Michael Ellard teases out how the silver symbol was retained. ‘Superb Barrs masters on all fronts.’