Recalling the Black and Amber’s spirit of ’75

In the closing days of August 1975, Paddy Downey, the revered Gaelic games correspondent of The Irish Times, made a little pilgrimage to Kilkenny and had a ball.

He took in the sights and sounds and scents of Kilkenny Arts Week, then in the second year of its existence. He discussed hurling with Seamus Heaney and Seamus Deane “over a tankard” in Kyteler’s Inn one night.

He – naturally — went to watch the All-Ireland champions training in Nowlan Park and gaped as Noel Skehan, in the gathering dusk, pulled off improbable saves from laser-guided missiles hit by Eddie Keher.