Jackie Tyrrell, the man who had everything, retires

“It feels like I can fly…” So Jackie Tyrrell tweeted after Kilkenny won the 2011 Senior Final. 

This celebrated image is taken immediately after that final whistle, bareheaded, helmet in left hand, hurl in right hand a gauntlet at the sky. His frame hangs above Croke Park in a photograph’s eternity, Tipperary the favourites beaten and Lar Corbett remorselessly squeezed and Jackie Tyrrell, son of The Village, gone to a dream of flight.

Kilkenny had done it, against the odds. He had done it while marking Corbett, incumbent Hurler of the Year.