The King of Cloyne, Christy Ring (born 100 years ago today) and his Knockaderry equivalent, Tom Cheasty, pictured together on the provincial selection that claimed the Railway Cup in 1960.

Tom first encountered Christy on a warm day in 1956, the field in Fermoy “hard as a rock”. He remembered playing well but Ring, though “quiet for most of the game”, scored a couple of the goals to win it for Cork by a few points. The pair’s paths crossed often enough thereafter, including the 1959 Munster final, the penultimate hurdle before that last Déise All-Ireland victory.

Tom later recalled: “Back in ’57 Christy Ring was injured and the Cork fellows were saying ‘You beat us but we hadn’t Ring’. Christy was back for ’59, but Joe Harney played him very well that day” — the Ballydurn man holding him “a prisoner” and scoreless as Waterford won a pulsating game by 3-9 to 2-9 in front of a record crowd of 55,000. “We put paid to the idea that we couldn’t have beaten them if they had Christy Ring,” the Ballyduff legend told Youghal writer and broadcaster Colm Keane.

In April 1978, eleven months before Christy died suddenly, aged just 58, he, Tom and Eddie Keher (who would attend the maestro’s thronged funeral in Cloyne) were guests of honour at the opening of the revived Dunhill hurling tournament. All three had graced the annual festival in the early sixties before it took a 17-year sabbatical as Waterford’s GAA fortunes waned. Its welcome return would coincide with the first of back-to-back senior titles for Dunhill. Tom, then 44, was still playing for reigning county champions Portlaw, and Eddie, 36, was rampant against Ring’s adopted Glen Rovers.

That same week, Queen Margrethe II of Denmark made a “flying” visit to Waterford by train, taking in a tour of the glass factory. But all anyone out Harneys way was asking was ‘Did you see the King?’

Munster team that won the Railway Cup in 1960 — Back, from left: J Leahy - selector, Austin Flynn (Waterford), John Doyle (Tipperary), Tom McGarry (Limerick), Jimmy Smith (Clare), Seamus Power (Waterford), Jimmy Brohan (Cork), Philly Grimes (Waterford), Jim ‘Tough’ Barry (Cork, trainer); front: John Barron (Waterford), Paddy Barry (Cork), Tom Cheasty (Waterford), Mick Cashman (Cork), Martin Óg Morrissey (Waterford), Christy Ring (Cork), Frankie Walsh (Waterford, captain), Jimmy Doyle, Tipperary.