Who was Christy Ring? The biography of the boy from Cloyne who turned hurling into an art form

For those too young to know the full details of Ring's achievements and impact, here's his entry in the Dictionary of Irish Biography

Christy Ring

Ring, Christy (1920–79), hurler, was born Nicholas Christopher Ring on 30 October 1920 in Kilboy, near Cloyne, Co. Cork, second youngest among three sons and two daughters of Nicholas Ring, gardener, and his wife Mary. In his childhood the family moved to Spittal Street in Cloyne village. After attending Cloyne national school until age 14, Christy worked for a few years as an apprentice mechanic. Thereafter he earned his living as a tanker driver with Irish Shell Oil Co., but hurling was his life.

He played at juvenile, minor, and junior levels with Cloyne, winning a county minor championship with Cloyne’s associated club, St Enda’s of Midleton (1938), and a county junior championship with Cloyne (1939). He joined the Glen Rovers in 1941, the year in which the club won a record eighth consecutive county senior championship. Ring won fourteen county senior hurling championship medals with ‘the Glen’, the last in 1967. He also played some Gaelic football at club level, winning a county senior championship with St Nicholas in 1954 (and a football–hurling double), but is reputed to have said there was ‘no skill’ in that code.