By John Harrington

“Six-foot-two, eyes of blue, Jimmy Barry we love you.”

The fact that Cork’s Jimmy Barry-Murphy inspired possibly the first ever GAA terrace chant testifies to his iconic status on Lee-side.

The greatest dual-star to ever play the game, Barry-Murphy was one seriously classy operator in his pomp.

His medal haul testifies to his brilliance. In hurling he won five senior All-Irelands, 10 Munster senior titles, two National Leagues, one All-Ireland U-21 title, one Minor All-Ireland, and five All-Star awards.

His football haul of one All-Ireland title, two Munster titles, one National League, one minor All-Ireland and two All-Star awards would have been even greater had and his generation of Cork footballers not come up against a Kerry team that became one of the greatest of all time.

Sporting excellence ran in his family, and from a young age Barry-Murphy applied himself to make the most of his God-given athletic gift.

“My grandfather and his brothers all played with Cork in Finals from 1915 onwards,” said Barry-Murphy when he was interviewed for a TG4 Laochra Gael episode dedicated to his stellar career.

“My granduncle Dinny captained Cork in the late twenties and won four All-Ireland senior titles around that time. His brother John won an All-Ireland in 1919 so going back to the early part of the century there was a big family involvement in the Cork teams.

“I was born into a house where hurling and football was a religion. I never did anything else as a young fella.

“I enjoyed both games equally, I’d have to say. Hand on heart I couldn’t say if I preferred hurling or football at that stage. I love playing both games.”

Barry-Murphy has always been humble to a fault about his own sporting achievements.

Even in the Laochra Gael episode he seemed reluctant to accept any plaudits that were thrown his way and certainly wasn’t inclined to talk himself up.

Thankfully there was no shortage of former team-mates and opponents to do that for him.

“He had great vision,” said former Cork hurler, Donal O’Grady. “He could see players to the right or left. If you were marking him in training you’d think, ‘Janey!’ You could be playing well and then, ‘bang!’

“The thing about JB is that he was a great finisher. When he got a chance he usually took it. Even for the people who didn’t see him play, he’s still a hero.”

It was the flair that Barry-Murphy played with that really endeared him to Cork supporters.

Every move he made on the pitch seemed to have a stylish insouciance about it, from the way he ran to his devastating ability to score from all sorts of angles.

“Balance, acceleration, touch, skill,” said Brian Cody when summing up with made Barry-Murphy such a dangerous opponent.

“Straight away you could see that there was a bit of an aura about Jimmy.

“You could see he was a very special player and the coolness he brought to the whole thing, he seemed to be always in command, never flustered, just a real sense of he was where he was meant to be.

“He was a player who could change games. He was a player who could do something in the twinkling of an eye that would really, really hurt a team.

“His sheer movement, his grace, his elegance on the pitch, in both codes, was something wonderful.”

It was as a footballer that he first made his mark at senior inter-county level.

In his first year out of the minor grade he played a key role in Cork’s 1973 All-Ireland SFC Final victory over Galway.

It was a display of breath-taking precocity as Barry-Murphy scored 2-1 from play, with the second goal one of the finest to ever grace an All-Ireland Final.

“I suppose at that age you’re young and confident and you don’t see the pit-falls of big occasions lying before you, maybe,” said Barry-Murphy of that match.

“Against Galway I didn’t feel in any way in awe of the occasion. I often look back on later years when I was playing in Finals and found it hard to understand how I was so relaxed.

“Having got a goal quite early on I was settled in the game from early on.”

He would earn even greater renown as a hurler because Cork were more prolific in the small-ball code in the ‘70s and ‘80s.

By the time he was finished he had accumulated a hefty scrapbook of special moments on a hurling field, but one in particular will always stand out.

In the 1983 All-Ireland semi-final against Galway he scored one of the greatest goals in the history of the game when he doubled a delivery from John Fenton to the back of the net.

Even now watching it in the video above this article and with the benefit of slow-motion it’s hard to credit just how he did it.

Typical of Barry-Murphy, though, he’s not inclined to revel too much in the moment.

“That goal, I would never attach much significance to these things and I’m not just saying that,” he said.

“I never really saw as much of a fuss about it as other people. I suppose because of the nature of it and Micheal O’Hehir’s commentary, it became more significant than what it was at the time.

“Dermot McCurtain won the ball and gave a hand-pass to John Fenton. I remember saying to myself, ‘I’m in trouble here, I’m behind him (Conor Hayes)’. So I didn’t have a lot of options.

“I managed just to get almost alongside Conor, and, as I say, I wasn’t in a position to try to catch the ball, so what I did was I let fly on the ball in the air.

“It wasn’t really any magnificent score or stroke of genius by me. It was just something I did in the course of games many times, but, on that occasion, it came off.”

Barry-Murphy’s legendary status on Leeside was further burnished when, as manager, he took charge of a Cork team at a low ebb in the late nineties and eventually led them to the All-Ireland title in 1999.

He brought through a generation of talented hurlers like Joe Deane, Ben O’Connor, Seán Óg Ó hAilpín, Diarmuid O’Sullivan, and Donal Óg Cusack who would achieve great things, an achievement which he puts on a higher pedestal than anything he did during his own playing career.

“Coaching the team in 1999 was the greatest day of my career, certainly,” said Barry-Murphy.

“I got more satisfaction from it than anything else in my whole career.

“I don’t have any regrets in my sporting career, I’m glad to say.

“Many great players played with other counties and never won anything so I’m blessed to have been born where I am and to have played with Cork.”