76. John Maughan, Commander Of Commando Training

Maybe he wasn't the greatest manager of the 1990s but Maughan was probably its most important. When he inspired Clare to that famous 1992 Munster title it made every county in the land question its place in the world and ask – if they can win, why can't we? – triggering Leitrim's 1994 breakthrough in Connacht, the emergence of Fermanagh, Sligo and Westmeath, and very likely the backdoor itself.

With Mayo he became the first Connacht coach in 30 years to beat a Munster team and the first in 23 years to overcome one from Leinster, paving the path for Galway to bring Sam back across the Shannon in '98.

Above all, his commando-style training would define how teams would be trained throughout the 1990s. In the early months of 1992, a curious local would watch Maughan driving the Clare players up the hill of Shannon. If there had been no John Maughan, there may well have been no Ger Loughnane. (1961-)

77. Eddie keher, Assassin Of Assassins

In the 1970s he was the face of hurling, and an appearance on the Late Late Show duly marked his retirement. The greatest Kilkenny player of two generations, he created all manner of scoring records which even DJ couldn't quite reach. (1941-)

78. Máire Ní ChinnÉide, Sister Doing It For Herself

Some of you will curse her upon hearing she was the editor of the memoirs of Peig Sayers, but anyone who has played camogie can be grateful to her. Cumann Camógaíochta na nGael was a radical concept, being one of the first women's sporting associations in the world, and Ní Chinnéide became its first president in 1905. The game was mostly played within university and Gaelic league circles then, with Ní Chinnéide's Keatings branch of the Gaelic League credited with playing the first game in Drumcondra Park in 1903. (First president, Cumann Camógaíochta na nGael; Born 1879, date of death unknown)

79. Pádraig MacNamee, First Ulster President

The only president to serve four terms, he famously removed the country's president, Douglas Hyde, as patron for attending a soccer international in 1938. He gave up the entirety of his annual leave as a teacher to go to New York to serve as the advance man for the smooth running of the 1947 All Ireland final but his most enduring contribution came via his chairmanship of the Commission whose investigation of the inner workings and future prospects of the GAA culminated in a ground-breaking report in 1971. (1896-1975)

80. Pat Daly, Guardian Of The Games

To Joe Public he may be either an unknown or another Croke Park bureaucrat but Daly has transformed how the games at all ages are coached, by relentlessly organising courses and seminars and the Cúl summer camps the kids flock to. He was a key player in reviving the International Rules series while as a member of every hurling and football and burnout committee going, no one has been more instrumental in bringing in the backdoor, a three-tier hurling structure and a series of rule changes. (1957-)

81. Seán O'Neill, Yes, We Can

As the most identifiable player on football's most charismatic team, O'Neill was to a generation of northern nationalists living in a dysfunctional Northern Ireland state an Obama-like figure; someone who told them that yes they could. Few though could play like the Down man while he'd later be a successful Railway and Sigerson Cup manager and legal advisor to Ulster Council for decades. (1941-)

82. Eugene McGee, The Man Behind '82

McGee has a case for being the greatest manager in inter-varsity football history, guiding UCD to six Sigersons and two All Ireland club titles and influencing future coaches like John O'Keeffe, Colm O'Rourke and Pat O'Neill. He then dragged Offaly out of the doldrums to three consecutive Leinster titles and that glorious All Ireland. We might never have heard of Matt Connor only for him. (1945-)

83. Dan McCarthy, Means To An End

In 1911 McCarthy declared that the GAA was "not a sporting organisation alone but above all a national organisation" which should want "our men to train and be physically strong" so that "when the time comes the hurlers will cast away the camán for the steel that will drive the Saxon from our land". McCarthy himself took up arms in the 1916 Rising in which he was seriously wounded. Yet interestingly, he was opposed to the Ban. GAA president from 1921 to 1924, he's the only Dublin man to hold the post. (1883-1957)

84. SEÁn McCague, Mister Monaghan

He was an outstanding coach, leading Scotstown to three consecutive Ulster titles in the late '70s and then Monaghan to three Ulster titles and its first national league. As GAA president he eased through the removal of Rule 21 and secured a €78m once-off grant from the government, even if his handling of the Rule 42 vote at Congress 2001, when a flood of delegates were in the bathroom, was questionable. The Strategic Review Committee he commissioned was admirable if overly ambitious while the football qualifier system that himself and Páraic Duffy drafted up from the remnants of the FDC proposals was positively ingenious. His greatest legacy may well be bequeathing Duffy to the association. (1946-)

85. Mikey Maher, First Colossus Of Tipp Hurling

Captained Tubberadora to three All Ireland titles in the 1890s. Described as "a thundering man" by Carbery, the same scribe added that of the 100 All Ireland captains he had seen, Big Mikey took the palm "for inspired leadership and dynamic force in a crisis". His blend of ground hurling and Tipperary dash became the county template. (1870-1947)

86. Michael Deering, Leading, Winning, Fighting

They've always been at it in Cork. Though born and reared in Limerick, Deering helped form the Cork county board and was soon its chairman. The hurling tournament he held in 1886 between clubs from Cork and Tipp triggered the introduction of intercounty competition but within 10 years he had resigned from Central Council and Cork had withdrawn from the GAA after it had refused to play a game against Dublin (sound familiar?). Indeed there was a fear Cork would set up an alternative association. For a year it awarded its own All Ireland medals, accepted affiliations from Waterford and Limerick and was also supported by Kerry. Soon though, Cork were back with Deering on Central Council, and after his adversary Richard Blake was removed as general secretary, he assumed the position of president. He would die shortly afterwards though, becoming the only president to die in office. (1858-1901)

87. Colm O'Rourke, Thinking Man's Footballer

The only rival to Larry Tompkins as the best footballer of the late '80s, O'Rourke was the strongest character on a team loaded with strong characters. Through his newspaper column which started in this paper, he was one of the first players to offer a real insight into the thoughts and fears of those who play the game. One of the great college coaches of the last 15 years, he continues to educate the nation with the most respected observations in TV football punditry. (1957-)

88. Alf Murray, The 32-County President

Murray's mastery of the handpass from centre-forward was instrumental in Ulster's first Railway Cup success in 1942. By then he was also Armagh county secretary and would be a member of Ulster Council for 26 years. He became GAA president in 1964. Despite his reservations about coaching and his stern defence of the Ban, Murray was progressive. He launched the Coiste Iomána scheme to revive hurling and championed the local GAA club being the focal point of the community, with the social centre of his own Clann Éireann in Lurgan a prototype for all clubs either side of the border. He was very aware of the existence of that border and it was on his insistence that the term 32-county is in the charter of the Official Guide. (1916-1999)

89. John Joe Sheehy, Godfather Of A Dynasty

Sheehy was a republican on the run but such was his prowess at football, Kerry captain Con Brosnan, though a member of the Free State army, would guarantee his safe passage. And so Sheehy would pay into Munster and All Ireland finals, slip off his street clothes, play, and then at the final whistle, disappear back into the crowd. Considered by some to be Kerry's greatest player, Sheehy would win three All Irelands before serving as a selector and county chairman, but he would further bless Kerry football with his sons. Between them Seán Óg, Niall and Paudie would win seven senior All Irelands with Brian winning another at junior. (1897-1980)

90. Raymond Smith, Boswell Of The Munster Final

The pioneer of the modern Gaelic games book. Blazed a trail with his ghosted autobiography of Tommy Doyle in 1955 while a cub reporter with the Tipperary Star and was a one-man book factory for the next four decades: The Hurling Immortals, The Football Immortals, Decades of Glory… May have overdone the Hell's Kitchen/dust-rising-in-the-square stuff somewhat, but no matter. (1932-2000)

91. Brian Whelahan, Man For The Big Day

Proof that being born in a county without a long tradition of success is not necessarily a prerequisite for hurling greatness. Last heard of scoring a goal for Birr while on one leg in the Leinster club final a few weeks back. (1971-)

92. Donal O'Neill, Power To The Players

The Pandora's Box had been there for some time, but he opened it. A former IMG employee, he helped found the GPA and within a year would be kicked out of Congress and secured a national sponsor. He's since gone away but it won't. (1972-)

93. Dan O'Rourke, Roscommon Revivalist

What Down were to the '60s Roscommon were to the '40s. They also seemed mired in mediocrity just years before their sensational breakthrough. In 1938 they were playing junior. By 1943 they were All Ireland champions and again in 1944, beating kingpins Kerry in front of 79,000 spectators, 10,000 more than had ever been at any other Irish sporting event. The side was loaded with brilliant players like Jimmy Murray and Donal Keenan, yet both would credit their county chairman and local TD as the key figure in their rise. O'Rourke brought Tom Molloy from Galway in to train them; Toddy Ryan to massage them. When the side went into collective training, they'd stay in O'Rourke's house and be fed by his family. A couple of years later O'Rourke, a Leitrim man by birth, would go on to become GAA president, blazing a path for Keenan to follow. (1887-1968)

94 PT Hoctor, IRB In A Shuí

Originally from Tipperary, Hoctor was instrumental in laying the foundations of the GAA in Clare. Elected GAA vice-president in 1886, he came to dominate the central executive for a time, using his influence to push an IRB agenda that included the 1887 decision to ban Royal Irish Constabulary members. One of the leaders of that faction during the split that year, his editorship of The Gael newspaper established in opposition to Cusack's Celtic Times briefly afforded this loquacious character a legitimate claim to have been the most powerful man in the association. But then, just as quickly again, he was ousted. (1880s administrator)

95. Seán Purcell, The Master

After watching a Galway-Mayo game in Gaelic Park, John D Hickey wrote that he had "become utterly intolerant of those who argue there has been a better footballer than Seán Purcell". Fifty years on Jimmy Magee, Micheál Ó Muircheartaigh and Seán Óg Ó Ceallacháin agree – The Master was the best. Though he won only the one All Ireland, Purcell would inspire the Donnellans and Dunnes and Joyces to bring back many more. (1929-2005)

96. Pádraig Pearse Ógs, Stadium, Park...

Is there anyone else who has more GAA clubs and grounds named after him? A member of the Leinster colleges council, Pearse strongly promoted the games at St Enda's where one of his students was dual star Frank Burke. Pearse didn't just change Irish history but changed how the history of the GAA was written and how it perceived itself, adopting a republican slant for decades. (1879-1916)

97. James Nowlan, Longest-Serving President

A cooper by trade and a Labour member of Kilkenny Corporation, he took over as president in 1901 and would stay in office until 1921. Of strong republican sympathies, he helped revive a moribund organisation. (1855-1924)

98. Jack Charlton, Expanded Our Horizons

Yes, Jack Charlton. Look, it's simple. Charlton led Ireland to Italia '90 and the nation went wild. But having learned how to get excited about the exploits of a bunch of northside Dubs, Londoners, Glaswegians and Scousers, how could we replicate the same colour and emotion the following summer? That's right: get excited about players we actually knew. Our neighbours, our clubmen, the chap from over the road, the brothers and cousins and nephews of the people we met in the pub every week. And they were playing right here. So we could go and watch them. And wave our flags. And cheer them on. Thanks to Jack we learned to wear our county jerseys with pride. We learned how to celebrate. (1935-)

99. Larry Stanley, The First Great Midfielder

Just as there's a case that Larry Tompkins was Kildare's greatest footballer, there's an equally plausible one he wasn't even the best Kildare player called Larry. A world-respected high jumper, Stanley was so good in the air he reportedly could catch the ball with one hand, while 40 years before Kerry complained about Down's spoiling tactics with Mick O'Connell, Kerry unapologetically resorted to man-handling tactics themselves against Stanley. Like Tompkins, he would leave his own county to win an All Ireland, in Stanley's case with Dublin where he worked as a Garda, but not before winning an All Ireland with his own county in 1919 and not without returning to the Lilywhites in 1926 to spark them into winning six consecutive Leinster titles. Unfortunately, Stanley would be in exile over a dispute when they'd lift the inaugural Sam Maguire Cup in 1927 and again in 1928 due to a difference with the authorities but even then his legacy to his county and sport was secure. (1895-1987)

100. Joe McDonagh, Rule 21 And All That

His father was one of the driving forces behind the Galway underage coaching incentive of the mid-'60s that climaxed with Joe singing The West's Awake on the steps of the Hogan but Joe would be a notable administrator himself. During his presidency, he'd set in motion the removal of the ban on security forces, all football games to be played in the one calendar year and a minimum of two championship games for every inter-county team, even if it took until Seán McCague's term for them to be realised. (1953-)