Mickey
By John Harrington
Tipperary hurling didn't just lose one of its greatest ever players with the sad passing of Mickey ‘The Rattler’ Byrne on Sunday at the age of 93, it has also lost one of its most memorable characters.
He might have been best avoided on a hurling field if you were an opposition forward, but off it you couldn’t ask for better company.
Every person who attends his funeral on Wednesday will have a ‘Rattler’ story to tell, and all of them are likely to tickle the funny bone.
Like the time he traveled to New York in 1950 with the Tipperary hurling team and tried to quell a team-mate's nerves about flying by telling him if anything went wrong they’d give him a parachute.
When his team-mate ventured that the parachute mightn’t open, ‘The Rattler’ winked and reassured him in that scenario he could simply go back and get another one.
Perhaps someone might also recollect his fondness for telling people he’d gotten a new job in a jewellers in Liberty square where his primary role was to “clean the {expletive} out of cuckoo clocks”.
On the way to matches he liked to sit in the back seat of the car or bus, so he’d get “a longer spin”, and before long he’d produce a mouth-organ or box-accordion and proclaim, “open the window till I let out my chest.”
To meet ‘The Rattler’ was to be entertained and came with a guarantee that you’d go away smiling.
Doyle
His peers will tell you though he was a very different animal on a hurling field. Back then the sport was a much more lawless spectacle than it is today and corner-backs pulled first and asked questions later. ‘The Rattler’ was one of the most ruthless of the species.
His favourite piece of advice to younger team-mates was “Don’t ever tell him you’re going to hit him,” and he protected the small-square in front of his goalkeeper with a manic zeal.
In an era where very few holds were barred, one of ‘The Rattler’s favourite tactics was to intercept any corner-forward running towards Tony Reddin, hold him in place with a hurley to the gullet, and so allow his goalkeeper to emerge unscathed with the ball.
“Willie John (Daly of Cork) said you might get in sometimes but getting out was the problem,” recalled ‘The Rattler’ once.
“Willie John said to (Tony) Reddin (The Tipperary goalkeeper) ‘it’s easy for you and you having a fullback line there, it’s like having full comprehensive insurance!’”
‘The Rattler’ was an apt nickname for Byrne given his fondness for hitting opposition forwards hard and often, but he had earned it long before he ever pulled on a Tipperary jersey.
When he was a young boy, Delahunty’s cinema in Thurles was showing a weekly cowboy serial in which there was a baddie called ‘The Rattler’.
Whenever he appeared on the screen all of the other kids would started booing and jeering, expect for Byrne, who would leap from his seat and roar, “Come on ‘The Rattler!’” Such was his enthusiasm, that the name stuck.
'The Rattler' got the same sort of kick from his own reputation as a baddie on a hurling field, but he was more than just an enforcer. He would have had neither the longevity nor success he enjoyed were he also not a skilful hurler as well as tenacious defender.
A haul of five All-Ireland senior hurling medals, eight National League medals, and an incredible 14 County Senior titles with Thurles Sarsfields testify to his excellence.
Those achievements will always echo through time, and, for those who knew him, so will the warm and colourful memories of the inimitable character that was Mickey ‘The Rattler’ Byrne.
