We often chatted away at home about hurling,” says Barrett. “In general he wouldn’t criticise players, although he did say about one player for Cork, ‘if you put a whistle on the ball he might hear it’.”
Barrett saw Ring’s awareness of his whereabouts at first hand; even in the heat of a game he was conscious of every factor in his surroundings.
“We went up to see him one time in Thurles,” says Barrett. “Don’t forget, people would come from all over the country to see a game just for Ring, and the place was packed to the rafters – all along the sideline people were spilling in on the field.
“He came out to take a sideline cut at one stage and we were all roaring at him – ‘Go on Ring’, the usual – and he looked up into the crowd, the blue eyes, and he looked right at me.
“The following day in work he called in and we were having a chat, and I said ‘if you caught that sideline yesterday, you’d have driven it up to the Devil’s Bit.’
“There was another chap there who said about me, ‘With all his talk he probably wasn’t there at all’. ‘He was there alright,’ said Ring. ‘He was over in the corner of the stand’. He picked me out in the crowd.”
“He told me there was no way he’d come on the team as a sub. I remember then when Cork beat Tipperary in the Munster championship for the first time in a long time, there was a helicopter landed near the ground, the Cork crowd were saying ‘here’s Ring’ to rise the Tipp crowd.
“I saw his last goal, for the Glen against Blackrock. He collided with a Blackrock man and he took his shot, it wasn’t a hard one, but the keeper put his hurley down and it hopped over his stick.”
There were tough days against Tipperary – Ring took off his shirt one Monday to show his friends the bruising across his back from one Tipp defender who had a special knack of letting the Corkman out ahead in order to punish him with his stick. But Ring added that when a disagreement at a Railway Cup game with Leinster became physical, all of Tipperary piled in to back him up.
One evening the talk turned to the photograph. Barrett packed the audience – “I had my wife there as a witness,” – and asked Ring the burning question: what had Mackey said to him?
“’You didn’t get half enough of it’, said Mackey. ‘I’d expect nothing different from you,’ said Ring. “That was what was said.”
You might argue – with some credibility – that learning what was said by the two men removes some of the force of the photograph; that if you remained in ignorance you’d be free to project your own hypothetical dialogue on the freeze-frame meeting of the two men.
But nothing trumps actuality. The exchange carries a double authenticity: the pungency of slagging from one corner and the weariness of riposte from the other.
Dan Barrett just wanted to set the record straight.
“I’d heard people say ‘it will never be known’ and so on,” he says.“I thought it was no harm to let people know.”
No harm at all"
Origins ; Co Limerick
Dimensions : 31cm x 25cm 1kg
The 1938 All-Ireland Football Final Replay on October 23rd, 1938 ended in the most bizarre fashion imaginable when with 2 minutes left to play, Galway supporters, mistakenly believing the referee had blown for full-time, invaded the pitch, causing a 20 minute delay before the final minutes could be played out.
Even more dramatic was the fact that by the time the pitch was cleared, most of the Kerry players seemed to have disappeared.
The confusion all began with a free awarded to Kerry by referee Peter Waters of Kildare with Galway leading the defending champions, by 2-4 to 0-6.
The referee placed the ball and blew his whistle for the kick to be taken while running towards the Galway goals. He looked round just as Sean Brosnan was taking the kick and seeing a Galway player too close he blew for the kick to be retaken.
Thinking that he had blown for full-time the jubilant Galway supporters invaded the pitch.
It took all of twenty minutes to clear the pitch but only then did the real problems come to light. Jerry O’Leary Chairman of the Kerry Selection Committee outlined their dilemma.
Somehow or other Kerry managed to re-field even if the team which played out the remaining minutes bore little resemblance to the starting fifteen.
More remarkable again was the fact that Kerry went on to add another point to their total before the referee finally blew for full-time with Galway winners by 2-4 to 0-7.
It was generally agreed that the confusion was of the crowd’s and not the referee’s making but questions remained about the total number of players Kerry had been permitted to use in those final few minutes.
The National and Provincial papers and indeed all available Records to this day list only those 16 Kerry players who were involved prior to the 20 minute interruption but now (80 years on) for the first time all the players who played for Kerry in that October 23rd, 1938 All-Ireland Final Replay can be given their rightful place in the Record Books.
KERRY’s 24:
- Dan O’Keeffe (Tralee O’Rahilly’s)
- Bill Kinnerk (Tralee, Boherbee John Mitchel’s)(Captain)
- Paddy ‘Bawn’ Brosnan (Dingle)
- Bill Myers (Killarney)
- Bill Dillon Dingle)
- Bill Casey (Dingle)
- Tom ‘Gega’ O’Connor (Dingle)
- Sean Brosnan (Dingle)
- Johnny Walsh (Ballylongford, North Kerry)
- Paddy Kennedy (Tralee O’Rahilly’s)(Annascaul native)
- Charlie O’Sullivan (Tralee O’Rahilly’s)(Camp native)
- Tony McAuliffe (Listowel, North Kerry)
- Martin Regan (Tralee Rock Street Austin Stacks)
- Michael ‘Miko’ Doyle ((Tralee Rock Street Austin Stacks)
- Timmy O’Leary (Killarney).
- J.J. ‘Purty’ Landers (Tralee Rock Street Austin Stacks)(brother of Tim and Bill)(replaced Johnny Walsh – injured hip and dislocated collarbone)
- Joe Keohane (Geraldines, Dublin)(former Tralee Boherbee John Mitchel’s player)
- Michael ‘Murt’ Kelly (Geraldine’s, Dublin)(formerly Tralee O’Rahilly’s)
- J.Sheehy (Tralee Boherbee John Mitchel’s)
- Eddie Walsh (Knocknagoshel, North Kerry)
- Ger Teahan (Laune Rangers, Killorglin)
- Bob Murphy (Newtown, North Kerry)
- Con Gainey (Tralee Boherbee John Mitchel’s)(Castleisland native)
- M. Raymond (Tralee O’Rahilly’s)
- Jimmy McGauran (University College Galway)(Roscommon native)
- Mick Raftery (University College Galway)(Mayo native)
- Mick Connaire (Beann Éadair, Dublin)(Ballinasloe native)
- Dinny Sullivan (Oughterard)
- Frank Cunniffe (Beann Éadair, Dublin)(Ballinasloe native)
- Bobby Beggs (Wolfe Tones, Galway City)(Dublin native)(former Skerries Harps player)
- Charlie Connolly (Ballinasloe Mental Hospital)
- John ‘Tull’ Dunne (Ballinasloe St. Grellan’s)(Captain)
- John Burke (Remore)(Clare native)
- Jackie Flavin (Wolfe Tones, Galway City)(Kerry native – Newtownsandes)(won 1937 All-Ireland with Kerry)
- Ralph Griffin (Ballinasloe St. Grellan’s)
- Mick Higgins (Wolfe Tones, Galway City)
- Ned Mulholland (Wolfe Tones, Galway City)(Westmeath native)
- Martin Kelly (Ardagh, Limerick)(Ahascragh native)
- Brendan Nestor (Geraldines, Dublin)(Dunmore native)
- Mick Ryder (Tuam Stars)
- Pat McDonagh