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It’s a measure of how much Mícheál Ó Muircheartaigh’s words and stories are burned into the consciousness and folk memory that there are tales being told about him in all corners of Ireland this week. And well beyond. One from the streets of Ennis brought to life once more the immortal words uttered by a beloved Townie by the name of Peter ‘Slavery’ Guilfoyle in the minutes after a breathless Mícheál called the memorable 1954 Oireachtas hurling final win that Clare enjoyed over Wexford.

Seventy years ago Mícheál’s commentaries were all ‘as Gaeilge’, as it wasn’t until two years later that he got his big break ‘as Béarla’ when being behind the microphone for the 1956 Munster football final between Kerry and Cork in Killarney. That was the day Míchéal put aside his affection for the green and gold which endured all his life over the Fitzgerald Stadium wall into St Finan’s Hospital when glorying in the late winning point booted over the bar by Nially Fitzgerald from Macroom. In that Oireachtas final two years earlier in Croke Park he was equally enthusiastic as his imagination ran free when Big Dan McInerney, whose building firm would construct the new Hogan Stand a few years later, became Dónal Mór Mac An Airchinnigh, Cúchulainn’s son Nicky Rackard became Nioclás Mór Mac Riocaird while Jimmy Smyth was Séamus Mac Gabhann.



On it went, with Wexford under the guise of 'Loch Garman' centre stage at every turn, it seemed. And th.

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