Robert Kennedy is 31 years dead this week.
Here the Senator – campaigning in New York – meets Cork hurling legend Christy Ring in the famous Gaelic Park.
There was many a home on Cork city’s northside, where I’m from, with a picture of Ring and a Kennedy – more likely Bobby’s brother, of course – above the mantlepiece. A portrait of the Pope may have made up a familiar triumvirate.
RFK, was shot dead on June 4, 1968, just hours after he won a huge step towards the White House with victory in the Democratic primary in California.
He addressed some supporters and media in the early morning of the next day at LA’s Ambassador Hotel.
Leaving the large ballroom, through the busy kitchen, Sirhan Bishara Sirhan, a 24-year-old Palestinian, opened fire and shot the candidate. Kennedy died soon after.
Ring lived just under a decade after this point; he passed in March 1979. Ring’s graveside oration in Cloyne was delivered by a former Rebel and Glen Rovers teammate and the then Taoiseach, Jack Lynch – who had met Bobby’s brother John in Cork City Hall in 1963, incidentally.
Many have guessed, through the years, what Mackey said to Ring in that famous GAA photograph depicting two old enemies captured in conversation on the sideline. I’d like to know what Bobby said to his new friend on the Gaelic Park turf.
