Friends turn page on great sporting rivalry

Q: The two of you had some serious clashes in the Seventies; some people would be surprised to see you together here tonight.

Jimmy Deenihan: “When we played there might have been robust exchanges, but we would have had a pint afterwards, usually in the Imperial Hotel. For whatever reason people started to write about it [those clashes] — people who wouldn’t even have been born at the time, never mind being present — and certainly I’d have come out on the wrong end of that debate. I’ve been accosted several times around the world about marking Jimmy, but I’ve always clarified with people that Jimmy Barry-Murphy was one of my favourites, as a player and individual.”

Jimmy Barry-Murphy: “That’s the great thing about the GAA, all those things are left in the past. The minute the final whistle is gone that’s all forgotten. Myself and Jimmy, I think that was all blown out of proportion. Certainly in terms of the rules of football, they were a lot different at that time — you lived and died by the sword to a certain extent — but that was it.”