page_title: Christy Ring
section_title: Early years
hierarchical_section_title: Christy Ring / Early years
caption_attribution_description: Cloyne Round Tower
context_page_description: Nicholas Christopher Michael "Christy" Ring was an Irish hurler whose league and championship career with the Cork senior team spanned twenty-four years from 1939 to 1963. He established many championship records, including career appearances, scoring tally and number of All-Ireland medals won, however, these records were subsequently bested by Brendan Cummins, Eddie Keher and Henry Shefflin respectively. Ring is widely regarded as the greatest hurler in the history of the game, with many former players, commentators and fans rating him as the number one player of all time.
  Born in Cloyne, County Cork, Ring first played competitive hurling following encouragement from his local national school teachers Michael O'Brien and Jerry Moynihan. He first appeared on the Cloyne minor team at the age of twelve before later winning a county minor championship medal with the nearby St Enda's team. A county junior championship medal with Cloyne followed, however, a dispute with club officials saw Ring join Glen Rovers in Blackpool in 1941. Over the next twenty-six years with the club, Ring won one Munster medal and fourteen county senior championship medals.
context_section_description: Nicholas Christopher Michael Ring was the second youngest son of Nicholas (7 December 1892 - 12 March 1937) and Mary (née Lawton) Ring (1 November 1889 - 8 August 1953), and was born on 30 October 1920 at Kilboy Cross, less than a mile from the small village of Cloyne in rural East Cork. He had two brothers, Willie John and Paddy Joe, and two sisters — Katie and Mary Agnes. His family later moved to Cloyne where they occupied a house on Spittal Street, commonly referred to as Spit Lane. His father worked as a gardener for local landowners and, as a former Cloyne hurler, he instilled a passion for the game in his young son by taking him to club games in Cork, making the eighteen-mile journey by bicycle with his son on the cross-bar.
  Ring was educated at the local national school in Cloyne, where he was noted as a quiet but diligent pupil. On one occasion, the school master, Maurice Spillane, offered a prize of a hurley and sliotar to the boy who would get the highest grade in the school. Ring applied himself diligently and got first place from among forty-eight pupils.
  As was common at the time Ring received no secondary education and left school before the age of fourteen. His first job was as an apprentice mechanic with the Williams firm in Midleton, before he later moved to Cork city where he found work as a lorry driver with Córas Iompair Éireann. In 1953 Ring became a delivery driver with Shell Oil.
caption: The village of Cloyne, birthplace of Christy Ring.
exif: {"Image Make": "FUJIFILM", "Image Model": "FinePix F10", "Image Orientation": "Horizontal (normal)", "Image XResolution": "72", "Image YResolution": "72", "Image ResolutionUnit": "Pixels/Inch", "Image Software": "Adobe Photoshop Elements 3.0 Windows", "Image DateTime": "2007:08:27 18:12:29", "Image YCbCrPositioning": "Co-sited", "Image Copyright": "", "Image PrintIM": "[80, 114, 105, 110, 116, 73, 77, 0, 48, 50, 53, 48, 0, 0, 2, 0, 2, 0, 1, 0, 0, 0, 1, 1, 0, 0, 0, 0]", "Image ExifOffset": "292", "Thumbnail Compression": "JPEG (old-style)", "Thumbnail XResolution": "72", "Thumbnail YResolution": "72", "Thumbnail ResolutionUnit": "Pixels/Inch", "Thumbnail JPEGInterchangeFormat": "974", "Thumbnail JPEGInterchangeFormatLength": "4777", "EXIF ExposureTime": "1/450", "EXIF FNumber": "9/2", "EXIF ExposureProgram": "Program Normal", "EXIF ISOSpeedRatings": "80", "EXIF ExifVersion": "0220", "EXIF DateTimeOriginal": "2007:08:25 13:14:16", "EXIF DateTimeDigitized": "2007:08:25 13:14:16", "EXIF ComponentsConfiguration": "YCbCr", "EXIF CompressedBitsPerPixel": "4", "EXIF ShutterSpeedValue": "881/100", "EXIF ApertureValue": "43/10", "EXIF BrightnessValue": "242/25", "EXIF ExposureBiasValue": "0", "EXIF MaxApertureValue": "3", "EXIF MeteringMode": "Pattern", "EXIF LightSource": "Unknown", "EXIF Flash": "Flash did not fire, compulsory flash mode", "EXIF FocalLength": "8", "EXIF FlashPixVersion": "0100", "EXIF ColorSpace": "sRGB", "EXIF ExifImageWidth": "480", "EXIF ExifImageLength": "640", "Interoperability InteroperabilityIndex": "R98", "Interoperability InteroperabilityVersion": "[48, 49, 48, 48]", "EXIF InteroperabilityOffset": "848", "EXIF FocalPlaneXResolution": "3703", "EXIF FocalPlaneYResolution": "3703", "EXIF FocalPlaneResolutionUnit": "3", "EXIF SensingMethod": "One-chip color area", "EXIF FileSource": "Digital Camera", "EXIF SceneType": "Directly Photographed", "EXIF CustomRendered": "Normal", "EXIF ExposureMode": "Auto Exposure", "EXIF WhiteBalance": "Auto", "EXIF SceneCaptureType": "Standard", "EXIF Sharpness": "Normal", "EXIF SubjectDistanceRange": "0"}