AS TENSIONS build ahead of this weekend's All-Ireland football final, the Sam Maguire Cup has undergone its first major clean-up operation in 20 years.
Gaelic football's most sought-after prize has been up on blocks for the last four weeks in the care of its creator, master silversmith Des Byrne.
As Kerry and Tyrone prepare to do battle in Croke Park this weekend, Mr Byrne has been applying his skills to giving the Sam Maguire Cup its first major overhaul since he made it.
"There was a huge amount of wear and tear on it," said Mr Byrne, who made the replica of the original 1927 cup at his studios in Kilkenny city in 1988.
"Nickey Brennan, the GAA president, wanted all the association's cups to look their best, and after 20 years of doing the rounds, the Sam Maguire certainly needed refurbishment," he said.
The cup, which weighs more than 8.5kg and is 42.5cm (17in) in diameter, is based on the 8th century Ardagh Chalice.
"It was certainly the biggest and heaviest cup I have ever worked on," Mr Byrne added, "and the bigger a piece is, the more prone it is to damage."
Silversmith Dave Byrne, who helped in the clean-up of the trophy and on the original creation in 1988, said it had "definitely been knocked about a bit".
"We put a good four weeks into bringing it back to an as-good-as- new condition. It really takes a lot of wear out there, but I suppose it's the people's cup at the end of the day."