Ahead of their time: The UCC hurlers who were the first to wear helmets

'Donal Clifford who was a spectacular player and Ray Cummins and Seamus Looney, John Kelly from Tipperary and Paddy Doherty from Limerick and Mick Crotty from Kilkenny (all wore helmets), so the gospel spread easily

Micheál Murphy (left) wearing an American football helmet for UCC in the Fitzgibbon Cup in March 1968. After sustaining a serious head injury while playing for UCC in 1964, Murphy first wore a motorcycle helmet for protective headgear in the 1966 Cork senior hurling championship. In 1969, he donned a Canadian ice hockey helmet.

It's almost 60 years since Desmond Walsh last lived in his native Foxford but home is never too far away from Ottawa.

Last month, he read a piece on rte.ie about the evolution of the helmet in hurling. He was referenced as the person who played an integral role at the outset of the phenomenon when he sent his old UCC college mate Micheál Murphy a Canadian ice hockey helmet, in 1968.