In a league of their own - the top 25 League of Ireland players of all time

The 25 Greatest League of Ireland Players Of All Time? Ask me a hard one, why don’tcha?
And before we proceed any further, I might as well own up and admit that the one glaring absentee from this list is that uniquely talented individual whose name, we all agree, will be the one appearing at the end of the following, inevitable readers’ correspondence: “While I appreciate that you couldn’t please everyone, I wonder if your reporter was under some unusually heavy medication when compiling his list. I only ask because there is no other possible explanation for how he came to omit —— ——— …”