JIMMY RYAN in Killenaule. Lost in the business of hurleys and hurley making.

Some evenings, lads across on the hurling field would see the light on in the workshop and they might think that Jimmy Ryan was going at it late tonight. Maybe, maybe not. He might just be looking at a picture of an old team, shaking the dust off a scrapbook, remembering Ring or just draining away the night yarning with a man who came in for a hurley hours ago when it was still light.

Lost in the love and lore of it.

He can't remember a time when it wasn't so. When he was a boy an uncle of his made him his first hurley, hewn out of ash with a hatchet and sander and a bit of glass.

"I cried bitter tears the day that burley was broken," says Jimmy. "Bitter tears."

He's been in thrall to the game and the timber ever since. Hurley makers know more of the texture of the game than anyone else, feel its unity with the land and the past more keenly.

He remembers the first burley he made for himself. The history of it reaches down to him through the years. He was in night class at vocational school learning his chosen trade of carpentry. The woodwork teacher, Phillip Dwyer, set the class to making hurleys. Jimmy Ryan made one and liked the feel of it, liked the making of it.

"I always made my own after that," he says. "Made them for myself and the boys about the place. That teacher, Phillip Dwyer. his grandson is one of the best forwards on the Boherlahan team today (also a member of the current Tipperary senior panel). I often look at him and think of that.

A hurley. A yard or more of good ash, with a curve in the grain and love in the making. A communion between the earth and the game.

Last week a man from Dublin came into Jimmy Ryan's workshop and the two of them decided that Jimmy would go at it, give it a right crack. He made a hurley in 7 1/2 minutes.

"But that's not the way it should be. Do it too quick and you'd take nothing else in. Normally, you'd go to the pile and select the one you want and maybe pull a few more out but I was on the record run the other day.

"Normally you'd be thinking. You'd look at the character of the wood.

"I love making hurleys, never get tired of it. Give me kind ash, sharp tools and I'd call the queen me aunt. I love the feel of timber and a sandbelt. Every burley is a challenge. They all have their own personality, I wouldn't leave one out of my hand till it was right."

Kind ash. The best age for a tree would be 25 years. Give Jimmy Ryan a tree grown on good soil with a fine skin and he'll put some magic in your hand.

After 25 the skin becomes rougher and more brittle, fine for boys' hurleys, Jimmy says. Bad winters make for small rings and tight grain. For the want of something to do he occasionally examines the rings and sees the concentric evidence of frost-bitten days 20 years or so ago.

Good ash. Needs good soil, must have a fine green skin. You can take the skin off, but the blemish might go all the way in. Sometimes fellas offer Jimmy Ryan red ash but it's more brittle and lie doesn't like it.

I would imagine the soil it grows in isn't so good. I like white ash. Nice and flexible."

Coillte are the biggest suppliers. Without them it would be slack enough. Makers go to Denmark, Scotland and Wales these days. Sign of the times.

It pays to go over," says Jimmy. Coillte ash is £400 plus VAT for a cubic metre. In Denmark it's £150. Having said that, without the forestry you wouldn't have much hurling. We just took all the ash and made hurleys. They've replanted. In a few years they'll be back with good supplies."

Sacred ash. He begins with what he calls the hurley slab, a big plank-like piece of wood, maybe an inch thick, dried for a year or so in his sheds. He starts with the hurley slab, flies around that cutting out the pattern. Then it's time to find the essence of the hurley within the slab.

"I can turn the hurley on the edge and use the electric planer, that finishes it mostly. For the grip then I like to use the old spoke shave. That's an old-time tool, small and simple with a handle at each side. I find it gives the more comfortable feel on the handle.

"An awful lot of what makes a good hurley is in the mind," Jimmy says.

I could make a batch of hurleys and leave them in one place during the day. I'd leave them out of my hand and I'd be satisfied that each one was finished as good as it could be. Then if I went down to shift them later, I'd find one I wasn't pleased with.

It's the same with lads who come to me looking for a burley. They'd say `that's a bit heavy, Jimmy', and I'd say `I'll give it another run over with the sander'. Now, there's hardly an instrument made would weigh what dust comes off with a light sanding, but I'd hand the hurley back and they'd say `that's great, grand and light'."

Fashions come and go with hurleys. Makers leave their marks, too. Jimmy would know and admire the craft of Ramie Dowling in Kilkenny or John Torpey in Sixmilebridge or Seamus Burke in Tipperary or Den is Dooley in Coleraine.

Makers hallmark their hurleys by the weight and feel. Jimmy Ryan likes a good heft in the handle, something that will fill your hand. In Kilkenny they like a bit of slenderness in the grip but a heaviness in the bos. For some reason Jimmy finds his hurleys in great demand in Cork.

He played a bit himself in the old days when there was no juvenile hurling and lads from Killenaule would walk out the road to meet lads from Moyglass or out the other way for Glengoole and they'd play in a farmer's field till they were put out of it.

Hurlingwise he didn't go to school maybe, but he met the scholars. He had a minor trial for Tipperary once.

"But I got put on John Doyle of Holycross and that put hurling out of my head for a long time. He gave me an awful hating. I was working in the bog with me father at the time and I couldn't even say what was wrong with me. I'll never forget that one."

Inevitably, it was hurling which led him into burley making. He tells the story.

"We were playing a South (Tipperary) final against the (Carrick) Swans, a needle game and the manager of the creamery was the manager of our team and he came across the yard one day and said to me: `Ryan, we're going to have a right day tomorrow, there'll be tea afterwards in Larry Tobin's.'

Now Larry Tobin's is the mecca of GAA in Clonmel. We were thrilled to be treated with the tea. That was during the Emergency time. Well, the match ended in a draw and I'd had the chance of winning with a sitter at the end. I missed it. Wasn't a person there who wouldn't say I missed it badly. I had broken my burley during the game and they threw me one I didn't like. The creamery manager came over after and he says: `Ryan your going to break the club'.

"`What?,' says I.

"Well have to give, you the tea in Tobin's again the next day.'

"`Well', I said, `I couldn't score with that hurley you threw in'.

"`Could you make better?' says he.

"`Well, I'll tell you', says I, `I couldn't make worse'.

"`Well', he says, `you make them and I'll buy them'."

That's how he started making hurleys. The match was a draw again the next day, by the way. and no taut of Jimmy Ryan.

Orders started coming in. He remembers getting a request from Ned Hall in Clonmel for 10 hurleys.

"I made them and put them on the Shamrock bus to him at the cost of one shilling. The bus came back, an envelope on board with £10 in it. I thought I was a rich man.

Later, from working on the building sites, he 9aught pleurisy and was laid up for a long while. A friend of his noticed a few old ash butts about the yard and cut them up for Jimmy to make hurleys with during his convalescence. It took a while for the butts to dry but when they did Jimmy went at it and has been making them ever since.

Since the early days he has changed the pattern of his hurleys a couple of times. The long, slender bos which was once in vogue has disappeared. Lads like something rounder now.

Reminds Jimmy of another yarn or two.

"I had Jimmy Doyle's hurley in here for a long time. It was only about 34 or 35 inches. Can you believe that? Small and light. We associate a good puck with a long burley, but, now, Jimmy Doyle would burst the rigging of the net out as good as any man with his small, light hurley. He must have had great wrists.

Sam Melbourne, that used have the museum in Dublin, sent Jimmy Doyle's hurley out to me to make another one exactly like it. Sam had a drapery in Thurles. You couldn't get a shirt off him in the drapery without getting a slap of a hurley. It was always like Munster final day in there.

He did me in the end, you know, the same Sam. I used have a picture up here in the workshop of an old Kerry hurling team standing in their bare feet. I gave it to Sam. He said he'd give me half of Ireland for it. Great man. He loved that picture of a team with no boots. Of course I never got half of Ireland back."

If he had one word with which to sum up what makes a good hurley it would be `balance'. Good hurlers and good hurley-makers know balance. He remembers one time making a dozen hurleys and picking the prize of the bunch out. His friend Paddy came in, a handy hurler who played minor for Kilkenny, and he asked Paddy to pick the best burley out of the dozen. Paddy picked the same one as Jimmy. On to something, Jimmy laid down a challenge. Go through them blind-folded and pick the best of the lot. Paddy put the blindfold on. Picked the same burley. Balance.

This is the time of year that he loves and longs for. During the winter the enthusiasm of the GAA world saps away.

In spring they emerge looking for their ash wands and calling Jimmy Ryan. The hurleys might go to Cork, Boston, Saudi Arabia.

Great hurlers have used his hurleys, of course. Dave Clarke. Tony O'Sullivan. Jim Cashman... many others. But he surrenders their names only reluctantly.

"I'm not being smart but the lad that comes in off the street with a ring of ice cream around his jaw gets the same as the county man. The living is more in men who never make the grade. That's what the game is about.

And Jimmy is talking again about the game and the men who paint the lines on pitches and lads who mend nets, the mentors with 14 players trembling with excitement when they see a dawdler loom on the horizon.

Heart and soul.

"I have some words on my workshop wall," says Jimmy Ryan. "My son Phillip got a calligrapher to write them out nice for me. They are from Christy Ring as he finishes explaining what makes a great hurler: `Allied to this I had fierce determination when going for the ball.'

"That just stuck with me. I never made a hit when I was playing but I enjoyed every minute of it. Hundreds of people have seen those words now. I call the young lads in from the field across the way, tell them to look at it. That's what makes working so happy for me. The characters that come in. What they leave behind and what they leave with."