CRIMSON TIDE IS RISING AGAIN

ON the March day in 1979 that they wrapped Christy Ring in the Cork soil, St Patrick's Street burst its banks, the primal scream of place summoning a crimson tide of 60,000 Rebels onto the weeping pavements of their city-state.

- Roy CURTIS

To doff their cap once last time to a deity, their beloved Cloyne Cú Chulainn, to usher a creature of myth - one who, when he sported and played, touched Cork at the heart as only hurling men can - to his last field of dreams.

When Sky Sports asked Roy Keane to choose his sporting heroes, he nominated two three-letter kings of the world. Ali. And JBM.

For one of the few times in his warrior existence, Keane's tone was deferential. his words sauced with condiments of wonder and reverence. In that moment he was neither Man U's lost spirit in human form, nor an acid-tongued TV analyst.

Just another devout, star-struck son genu-flecting at the altar of Cork hurling.

One more Rebel taking his oath of allegiance, placing his hand on the Good Book and declaring, as his kin do, that this is so much more than a game of stick and ball.

It is Cork's badge of cultural identity, a feeling that resides deep in the psyche of the place. Their flag and anthem. Life. Something holy and essen tial that is a vital ingredient in that sense of self that has come to be known as Corkness.

In the way the fortunes of Welsh rugby are a weathervane for life in the Valleys, so the summer progress of the county hurlers defines the Rebel temperature.

In his evocative essay "The Raingod's Green, Dark as Passion", a reflection on the city he called home for a decade, the celebrated Limerick author Kevin Barry imagines Cork as a man.

"He is fairly cool, usually quite relaxed, and head over heels in love with himself...

"Quite right too it's a gorgeous place, it's enormous fun, and it has an operatic atmosphere. By operatic, I mean that its passions are fervently held and fervently debated, and there is a native tendency to melodrama."

Nowhere is this more evident than when the conver sation turns to hurling.