As part of Balls.ie's Cork Week, we are carving out a Cork Mount Rushmore.
Over the next four days, we'll be presenting you with a list of nominees - Cork sporting heroes - from a range of sports and the readers will vote for the Cork sporting hero they wish to see on Mount Rushmore.
At the moment, we're looking at sculpting the faces of winners into the Slieve Miskish Mountains in the Beara Peninsula although if this becomes unfeasible there is talk of giant sculpture floating up the Lee.
First up are the footballers. Vote for the Cork footballer whose face you want to see carved on Mount Rushmore from the nominees below. Polls close at midnight tomorrow and the winner will be revealed tomorrow morning.
Roy Keane
Roy famously said that a "superiority complex" is the mark of a sound Corkman.
Anyone who ever stood next to a Corkman at a hurling match prior to the year 2015 can vouch for those sentiments, even if some might quibble with the use of the word "sound".
In the tumultuous months of late 2002, Roy went back to his homeland to sign copies of his first autobiography in Cork City.
Our minds go back to the RTE news report covering the book signing and the footage of one teenage girl who broke down upon meeting Keano.
The quick-thinking RTE reporter smelled a soundbite and thrust his furry mic in front of the girl. Why, he asked, had a meeting with Keane kicked off the waterworks?
With tears pissing out of her eyes, the girl swallowed hard and exclaimed, "Because he's from Cork!"
Denis Irwin
As the Guardian's Rob Smyth observed, Denis Irwin was called underrated so often that it is now no longer valid to call him underrated. If pretty much the entire footballing world is calling you underrated, then who out there is doing the underrating?
In Togher in Cork, they know Irwin as not only one of Ireland's finest footballers but also a former underage hurler of serious promise and an U14 Munster chess champion in 1978.
When Irwin left Cork for Leeds United in the 1980s, his teacher and three-time All-Ireland club winner with St. Finbarr's Mick Carey told him he was making a big mistake.
Here was a very intelligent young man, an extremely good Gaelic footballer, an extremely good hurler. I was trying to explain to him that if he stayed in Cork, he’d play senior hurling for Cork and he’d go to university instead of going to a club in the old second division. How wrong was I?
Dave Barry
He played Cork City's first-ever game in the 1984-85 season and stayed there right the way through to his retirement in 1995. Before the end of the following season, Barry would be appointed manager, holding the job until 2000.
Domestically, he was part of the League winning side in 1992-93, won two League Cups, and led the side to the FAI Cup as manager in 1998, finally getting the better of Shelbourne after a second replay.
But in the popular memory, he is best remembered for those goals in Europe, most famously against Bayern Munich in Musgrave Park in 1991. Cork would lead the German superpower for 17 minutes. His surly nemesis in midfield Steffan Effenberg scored an equaliser late in the first half. Munich won the return leg 2-0.
Two years later, in the European Cup, Barry scored in the away leg against the Turkish champions Galatasary. To be fair, there was a rather generous deflection here. It doesn't say much for the League of Ireland in the pre-summer soccer days to note that the Cork City team of 1993 were the only side to win a European Cup tie in the whole decade. They beat Welsh champions Cwambran Town on away goals.
In the next round they'd give Galatasaray a serious run for their money, eventually losing 3-1 on aggregate. The Turks would go on to knock a little team called Manchester United out in the next phase.
Patsy Freyne
Liam Mackey numbered the midfield meastro among the top 20 League of Ireland players of all time.
Freyne was known to treat half-time as a cigarette break. Paul Dollery has testified here that the Shed End used to come alive with rumours that Freyne was a pre-match doubt because he'd been spotted out the night before.
A creative midfielder in the Liam Brady mould, Freyne made his debut for Cork City in 1986 and kept going until the turn of the century.
Part of the Cork City that won the League in 1992-93, after a three-way playoff with Bohemians and Shelbourne.
John Caulfield
It was touch and go whether Pat Morley or John Caulfield would get this spot. After all, Caulfield has given to Cork as a player and a manager, it seems wrong to point out here that he grew up in Roscommon and went to school in Sligo. Should he be disqualified from appearing on list of nominees for a spot on Mt. Rushmore on this account? On balance, we think this would be enormously petty.
Both Caulfield and Morley hit 129 goals for Cork City and were the striking partnership on the League winning team of '93. While Morley banged in more goals in the title winning year, Caulfield's recent service as manager and the fact that he never transferred to Shelbourne sees him squeeze into the list.
John O'Flynn
The brightest star on the team which Pat Dolan has called the greatest League of Ireland side ever assembled, the Cork City side which won the title in 2005.
That team boasted future Ireland internationals Shane Long and Kevin Doyle and yet both struggled to hog the headlines ahead of O'Flynn and George O'Callaghan (the former couldn't get in the team).
Just look at the full internationals that played on that team, Kevin Doyle, Shane Long, Alan Bennett, Joe Gamble. And yet they weren't the best players. Probably the best players were John O'Flynn and George O'Callaghan.
Pat Dolan
He scored 68 goals in 138 appearances for City before heading back to the English lower leagues. Doyle says that had O'Flynn stayed fit, he'd have been streets ahead of the rest.
@Ciaran_O @ballsdotie @McDonnellDan @emmetmalone @alancaw if j o flynn stayed fit at that time he would hav been way ahead of the rest of us
— Kevin Doyle (@KevinDoyle1983) August 3, 2016
