KILBRIN, that very special village somewhere between Liscarroll and Buttevant in the barony of Duhallow. Of course, Buttevant has a unique sporting history as it was where the very first steeplechase was run between the steeples of St John’s Church in Buttevant and St Mary’s in Doneraile, a distance of some four and a half miles and it is no coincidence that it is the very distance still run in the Grand National.

The year was 1752 and little could Edmund Blake and Cornelius O’Callaghan have imagined that their sporting challenge laid down as they hacked back from a meet of the Duhallow Foxhounds would give rise to the great sport of steeple chasing. The National Hunt connection doesn’t end there.