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The Cummins Sports photo archive is a collection of photos taken by Kevin Cummins over the years with notes and recollections, providing an illustrated history of Irish sport and culture.

Cummins Sports Sliotars

The ‘All-Star’ Sliotar

It is hard to believe now but when Cummins Sports opened its doors in 1971 it was well nigh impossible to source a supply of sliotars (Hurling Balls) for our customers.

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Thou shalt not play ‘foreign games’!

I played some of my best rugby against the All Blacks. Not that I was found wanting against the Home Nations, let me say, just that the New Zealand jersey seemed to bring out the best in me.   As a twelve-year old, a day spent climbing in Beaumont Quarry with the gang was never complete […]

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Blood on the Ropes in UCC!

There was no event more eagerly anticipated within the hallowed halls of UCC in the ‘60s than Boxing Night. All the sports clubs put forward likely pugilists and the whole college came together for a night of, well, bloodsport. Cassius Clay was in the early years of his pomp and boxing had a glamour and […]

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Across the Alps.

‘Stick or Twist’ as we crossed the Alps!   In 218 BC Hannibal crossed the Alps with a herd of elephants: two thousand years later I crossed the Alps with a bunch of young bucks! Both expeditions had their sights set on Rome but, in our case, we had come to praise Caesar, not to […]

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Cork Mushrooms-All Ireland Final 1966

Whatever hope our minors had against Wexford in the ’66 All-Ireland final, there was simply no way our seniors were going to trouble Kilkenny. Cork hadn’t won a senior All-Ireland in twelve years – hadn’t even contested one in ten years. Still, I couldn’t let it be said that Cork were in the senior and […]

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The Day Denis Law played Páirc Uí Rinn!

We didn’t call it Pairc Uí Rinn then, of course. Flower Lodge was the proud home of Cork Hibernians F.C., who drew fine crowds to their matches with the likes of Shamrock Rovers, Shelbourne, Bohemians and, of course, local derbies with arch rivals, Cork Celtic. At 26 years of age Denis Law was at the […]

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Foreign Games, ‘The Ban’ and Vigilantes

But my activities did not go down well with the hierarchy of the GAA in Cork at the time who had been informed of my attending ‘foreign games’.

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The Night Butch Moore Came To Town

OK – so “Walking the Streets in the Rain” only came 6th that night but, what the heck, we were competing in Europe now and it was there, live, right in front of our eyes, for all of Europe to see.

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The last day of the horse on the streets of Cork.

It transpired that the following Friday was to be the last day that the CIE horse and dray would be seen delivering freight on the streets of Cork and he wanted some photographs to record the event.

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How the helmet came to hurling

“A ripple of slight bemusement echoes around the attendance of 12,504 in the old Cork Athletic Grounds midway through the second half of the 1966 Cork county hurling final as a UCC substitute runs on. Not only is Micheál Murphy wearing the college’s famed black and red jersey but upon his head is a motorcycle helmet.

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