Jimmy Barry-Murphy Clippings

The Jimmy Barry-Murphy clippings lived in a black arabesque tea caddy above the cooker - all of them faded to the same sepia tone that time and cooking steam conspire to create.

The dates on them went back to when Cork actually won things, when the Barrs were still the pride of the Southside, and when JBM's knees hadn't yet surrendered to gravity and time.

The thing about being from Barrack Street was that it wasn't just a place - it was a state of mind, a particular brand of Cork City pride that my mother carried with her like an invisible deal.

Jimmy Barry-Murphy wasn't just a hurler to her; he was proof that someone from 'The Barrs' could become something magnificent while never forgetting where they came from.

The clipping was dated 1984 (the year as I was born though you'd never know it from the tin's contents) but when she spoke about it she did so in the present tense, as if somewhere in a parallel universe, JBM was still perpetually twenty-three and terrorizing the Tipperary full-back line.

The tin had a peculiar filing system that only made sense to her. ''This is Gavin's Leaving Cert results,'' she'd say, seemingly oblivious to the fact that the ratio of JBM clippings to actual family milestones was about 10 to 1.

''He's very ordinary you know,'' she'd add, lovingly looking at the yellowed clipping. ''His own father was a great hurler.'' As if this somehow explained everything - the tin, the clippings, the way our family history had become a footnote in the Jimmy Barry-Murphy archives.

We'd nod along to plamas her, pretending we too had an inherent admiration for a working class man with a hurl, while wondering if anyone had ever told her that birth certificates probably shouldn't be stored above the electric kettle.

There's something particular about going through your dead mother's things - a task that feels both necessary and somehow blasphemous. The black tea caddy above the cooker caught the light as I reached for it, its arabesque pattern worn smooth in places from decades of Marion's hands lifting it down.

The tin had long forgotten its original purpose of holding Barry's Tea bags, transformed instead into her private archive of Jimmy Barry-Murphy, preserved in yellowing newsprint.

She never really talked about the contents. Never showed them off or explained why she kept them. They just lived there above the cooker, gathering steam and time, the euphoric face of JBM poked up from time to time when we panic searched for our life stamps, but below that tin life went on - dinners cooked, kettles boiled, that kitchen was like a train station most days of neighbors, family and friends. Her children grew up and moved out. This quiet devotion to JBM existed in parallel to her life as our mam, like a secret novel she was reading that never ended. Inside, Jimmy Barry-Murphy's career lay carefully preserved in layers of newsprint.

The strange thing about my mother's devotion to JBM was that I don't think she ever once set foot in Pairc Ui Chaoimh to see him play. Her relationship with Cork hurling's golden boy existed entirely through newsprint and RTE broadcasts, a devotion maintained at a careful distance, like a novena said from home rather than church. She wasn't one for matches. But there was a sense that this wasn't about sport at all - it was something else, something private, something that belonged just to her.

It was about Barrack Street, about the lanes and that one big hill where she'd grown up, a bout a time when your parish wasn't just an address but the entire universe. About how a home can shape someone extraordinary. Every clipping was a reminder that where she came from mattered that it was worth remembering.

The tin had that particular smell unique to old paper and kitchen cupboards. Standing there in her quiet kitchen, the old tin cool in my hands, its arabesque catching was left of the day's light, I realized I'd never heard her explain why she kept them. Maybe she didn't need to. Maybe some devotions are better left unspoken, kept safe above the cooker in an old tea caddy, away from questions and explanations.

I put the tin back in its place. We'd have to clear it out eventually, along with everything else. But today was not that day, let it keep its watch, guardian of a private passion that belonged only to Marion, a piece of Barrack Street preserved in newsprint and silence.