Jack Byrne: Blackpool, World War Two, Sports
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Jack (born circa 1926) grew up in O’Connell Street. His parents were both Northsiders. His father worked for the Post Office. His mother was born in 1888 and grew up on Scoura Hill. (Jack believes the term is a corruption of an Irish word, translating as Hungry Hill.) His father’s mother had a shop at Wherland’s Lane until 1922.
He mentions the Bride River and a walk along it called Debtor’s Walk where people who owed money could travel without being seen. He talks briefly about the ghost known as the Foxy Lady, which may have been the image of a young woman killed by machinery in the Sunbeam flax mill.
His father served in the British army and he says his neighbourhood had many ex-servicemen; he muses on people’s attitude to the Second World War, and on Irish neutrality.
He liked hurling and soccer and recalls cycling to Thurles in 1944 to see a match, and meeting Christy Ring. He describes Ring’s playing. There was no car or public transport during the war, and he recalls that 10,000 Cork people cycled to Fermoy for a match in 1943.
After school, he was unemployed for a year before finding work at the Sunbeam plant. Jack retired in 1988.
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Hunter, Stephen (1999), Life Journeys: Living Folklore in Ireland Today, Cork: The Northside Folklore Project
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Transcription
S H: And I suppose you saw Christy Ring play on many occasions.
J B: Many, many occasions.
S H: What do you think, do you think he was one of the greatest of all hurlers?
J B: He was, no doubt, he was, he was simply a marvel. But there were many other great players too. Ring had --
S H: Did you meet him?
J B: Funny, I met him once and, an unusual occasion, one famous match in Thurles in 1944 and there was no transport in Ireland during the War. And we went to Thurles, we cycled to Thurles, three of us, the two chaps I told you about earlier and myself, three of us cycled to Thurles. We left Cork early Saturday afternoon at 2 o’clock and we stayed in Cashel that Saturday night, on to Thurles on Sunday morning. And one of these chaps, Sean Norton, he’s still alive, he was working in Suttons. Suttons had a big store on the South Mall at the time. And Christy Ring was driving a lorry for Williams in Midleton, and he used to come into Sutton's collecting stuff or delivering stuff, one or the other, probably both, but Sean knew him from coming into Suttons, and we were in Thurles on that Sunday morning and we met Christy Ring.
J B: And we were only 18, 19, Christy was a couple of years older. And Sean knew him and we spoke to Christy Ring on that Sunday morning and just for five, ten minutes and he went away from us then. And that same day he scored a marvellous goal to win the game for Cork.
J B: He did, he did. and he ran fifty yards solo run and scored a great goal.
S H: And what do you think were his greatest attributes as a player?
J B: Well he was an unusual man. Every game he played, no matter what the occasion, big or small, I would say every fibre of his being went into that game.
J B: No matter what it was. And he was more determined than anybody else. And of course, he excelled in all parts of the game then you know, striking, lifting, hitting, everything, he excelled in everything, he was a truly marvellous man. But it was his, just his grim determination to get the ball you know, I think that singled him out above everybody else.
S H: Yeah. Did he have a great tactical sense of the game?
J B: Oh he had. He had. But that came with advancing years then. But there were three different Christy Rings. His career spanned a long time and for the first eight, nine years he was a beautiful young hurler, truly a joy to watch, and he suffered a lot in that time from close marking and by close -- I would say nasty marking. And then for the second period, he was a hard man, he gave back what he got, just as hard as he got he gave back and these were his great days, he was a truly marvellous man then. And then for his third period he to use your rugby cliché, he got his retaliation in first.
J B: Yeah. He was, he was --
S H Turned mean?
J B: Mm, he was. You had three different Rings. And I mean you hear older people now, of course, only old people remember Ring now, and depending on what county you came from or what club you supported, they remember the Ring that suits their own point of view.
S H: Yeah.
J B: But there were three.
S H: And do you think despite that like obviously he had to develop a certain level of aggression to survive I suppose but, and succeed, but was he basically a fair player?
J B: Oh he was, he was.
S H: A clean player?
J B: He was. God, I saw him doing some wonderful things. In his dying days, you might say when he was on his last legs I saw him and the way he could chase after. I saw him doing this --- a ball going into the corner and he would chase after a fullback and the fullback would be younger and faster and the fullback would reach out and Ring would race out and then just 15 yards before the fullback got to the ball Ring would suddenly vary away from the ball and the fullback would get to the ball and he’d hit it out and Ring would be waiting out 15 yards to catch the fullback’s and score, and I saw him doing that on a couple, what, on at least two occasions.
S H: Yeah? Just on instinct really Ability to read the play?
J B: Twas, 'twas the look on the fullback’s face.