"Dad, I don't see any stadium around here."

"It's over there, behind the houses, " I replied, pointing in the general direction of Semple as he looked suspiciously for evidence on the horizon.

"Oh, must be a dome then."

It's the little things that remind you rearing a child born in Dublin, growing up on Long Island, New York but steeped in everything Cork brings with it some unique challenges. At a chip van moments later, he declined my offer of food.

"I'll just wait 'til we get inside the stadium and have a hot dog then."

A hasty explanation of the catering facilities available in the home of hurling prompted him to accept a hamburger and so we sat on a wall eating.

Well, he was eating. I was mainly answering questions, not all of which were sports-related. Can I get a replica of this stadium at the gift shop? Why doesn't the policeman over there have a gun? Do people bring their hurleys with them to hurling matches?

If the latter wasn't actually such a bizarre enquiry . . .

major league baseball fans often bring their own catching gloves to games in case the ball comes their way . . .

the purpose of the trip to Tipp was to disabuse him of these notions, to show him up close the Irish way of sport. Even a pre-match pitstop at the Thurles Sarsfields clubhouse was necessary to offer the full smorgasbord of sights, sounds and beery smells.

Emigrants head home in high summer to show their children the ait duchais, hoping the kids will love exactly the things they loved and marvel at the same spectacles that they once did.

Of course, they soon realise their sons and daughters come from a very different place. They will find wonder too but at their own pace and in their own way.

Twenty-four hours after arriving in the Cork suburb of Togher, Abe eschewed every t-shirt in his suitcase and announced he wanted his O2 jersey.

Why?

"All the kids here wear jerseys, all the time."

The red shirt went on and was soon supplemented, courtesy of his Uncle Tom, by a brand-new Cork City number.

Sacrilegeously enough, it was the green and white vertical stripes of the Eircom League champions he was wearing on the Thursday morning he came within inches of lifting the Liam McCarthy cup. By a complete coincidence, I'd brought him across the street from my parents' house to a place called Clashduv Park and caught sight of the most distinctive trophy in Irish sport.

An unadorned, sprawling field known simply as 'The Bog' during my childhood, Clashduv Park has evolved over the decades into a wonderful public amenity boasting a soccer pitch, tennis courts, walkways and a fantastic playground. On this particular occasion, most of it had been taken over for a sports day by COPE foundation, an heroic institution that has been working with the intellectually disabled of Cork for half a century.

Their guest of honour was Donal Og Cusack (right) and when we wandered along, he was on the edge of the penalty box with the Liam McCarthy Cup in one hand and the obligatory bottle of water in the other.

I've never met the Cork goalkeeper but I just watched in awe for nearly two hours as he participated fully in the festivities. When not serving as a starter in races, Cusack entertained a couple of hundred well-wishers.

From members of the COPE family to gaggles of local kids who'd obviously heard word about his presence, he was grace personified to all-comers.

In an ideal world an elite athlete wouldn't deserve any credit for conducting himself with such class and dignity at a charity event. But in the world we inhabit, and having personally witnessed so many professional footballers brush aside autographseeking kids in a previous life, it was heartening to see the COPE employees were breaking down the sports equipment and packing up the vans when Cusack finally departed the scene.

Unfortunately, the romance of it all was lost on perhaps only one person in the park. Abe Hannigan was unimpressed. Ten months ago, he danced on a table with other kids in the Irish-American centre in Mineola as Sean Og O hAilpin lifted the same silver trophy. Now, he professed complete ignorance of its importance. Totally unappreciative of his proximity to the Holy Grail, he barely came down from the climbing frame long enough to even get a good look at it.

It hit me then that no matter how often I dress him up in the red jersey and drag him to AOH halls on Sunday mornings, or how many times I bring him on pilgrimages to Thurles, he is probably destined to always know more about the fortunes of the New York Yankees than Newtownshandrum.

On the flight back to JFK, I asked him his favourite part of the hurling match in Thurles. I figured it might be one or other of the shemozzles that pockmarked the game or perhaps even a breathtaking point. Nope, he had a different highlight altogether.

"I think it would have to be finding that 20 euros on the ground on the way back from the toilet."

Memories are made of this.