26. Fred Cogley, The TV Revolution Starts Here

Cogley was head of sport in RTÉ when he was approached with an idea for Gaelic games to be covered on Sundays by a programme taking its cues from the BBC's Match of the Day. The national station had previously concentrated little of its resources on sport and more pertinently GAA was seen as more of a rural concern, but Cogley saw enough potential in the idea to give it his blessing. It's now impossible to imagine the summer without The?Sunday Game, with the highlights show setting the agenda for the week ahead. (1935-)

27. Nickey Rackard, The Neutral's Favourite

In the late 1940s the prospect of Wexford winning an All Ireland in football was much likelier than the prospect of them doing so in hurling. But then the hurlers found supporting actors to fit around the man who'd been carrying them for the best part of the decade; Rackard put them on his broad shoulders and dragged them the rest of the way. He'd haul in the crowds too, not just from Wexford but neutrals everywhere. (1922-1976)

28 CÚchulainn, Hurling's First Superstar

The inspiration for starting it all. As Setanta, sprang to prominence when burying a last-minute 21-yard free straight down the throat of Conchur Mac Neasa's favourite hound to win the 10BC Ulster final. His Railway Cup battles with deadly rivals Connacht, managed by Queen Maeve, were a feature of the era. Married the original Wag, Emer. Like Prince, did most of his best work before he changed his name, a warning to future generations of hurlers to retire while the going is good. Probably not as good in the air as his namesake of the Ó hAilpíns but still features in championship advertising campaigns. (First Century BC)

29. Patrick Nally, Cusack's Inspiration

In 1881 Michael Cusack was strolling through the Phoenix Park with Nally, considered the greatest athlete outside Dublin at the time, when they bemoaned how few people there were engaging in sport. Cusack would say that chat inspired him "to make an effort to preserve the physical strength of our race". But before the association was ever formed, the Mayo man was sentenced to 10 years in Mountjoy for treason. The day before his release, he died, with few buying the line it was of typhoid fever. Central Council would attend his funeral and 60 years later the corner stand in Croke Park would be named in his honour. (1857-1891)

30. Brian Cody, There Ain't No 'I' In Manager

Manager of the most successful team in hurling history and has reconfigured the parameters of the sport. Will every future half-forward line consist of six-footers? Will all future wing-forwards drop back on top of their half-back line on the opposition puckout? With former or current protégés bound to end up in management, his influence could endure for another 30 years. (1954-)

31. Michael Davitt, Patron And Mediator

In accepting the initial offer to become a patron, the founder of the Land League lent considerable weight to the fledgling association. For a movement whose constituency was always going to be largely rural, there were few more impressive imprimaturs. In 1888 he gave a loan of several hundred pounds to cover the debt incurred by the American Invasion. Most significant of all, he was the mediator in the attempts to heal the six-week split following the 1887 Convention. (1846-1906)

32. Micheál Ó Muircheartaigh, Voice Of Gaelic Games

Apart from having a voice that immediately invokes scorching days in Semple or Croker, Ó Muircheartaigh played a crucial role in the reinvention of Gaelic games as 'cool' during the Celtic Tiger years; t-shirts bearing his visage are common on match days. Most important though is the uninhibited joy he takes in watching games and his ability to relay that excitement onto listeners, be they eight or 80. (1930-)

33. SEán Lavin, The Culchie And His Own Rules

As often as its overuse is maligned, the most distinctive skill in Gaelic football is its solo run. Kildare's Michael Kennedy had made a stab of it in 1903 but it would take another 18 years for someone to try and pull it off. Against Dublin in Croke Park, Mayo and Kiltimagh's Sean Lavin – a national sprint champion and later, captain of the 1928 Irish Olympic team – came onto a ball at midfield and soloed within 20 yards before kicking it over the bar. The referee blew for a free-out; affronted by "a culchie making his own rules" but soon everyone was at it. (1898-1973)

34. Johnny Leahy, Boherlahan Brothers

Johnny captained Tipperary to two All Irelands and five Munster titles, served as county secretary for 21 years and represented Tipp on the Munster Council for 28. The year he died, his brother Paddy, a holder of two Celtic Crosses himself, became chairman of the Tipperary selection committee. Thanks to his astute management, eight All Irelands and 12 league titles followed. He died in 1966; Tipp have won only four All Irelands since. (1890-1949)

35. Michael Crowe, Uncrowned King Of Referees

It was this Limerick IRB man who proposed that the GAA buy and establish Croke Park as its headquarters instead of Elm Park in Ballsbridge but his real legacy was as a referee. Football was a crude, lawless game at the turn of the century but Crowe would travel tirelessly around the country for 20 years refereeing games to standardise the rules. He was successful, with his officiating of the 1903 Kerry-Kildare games prompting writers to dub him the uncrowned king of referees. (1900s)

36. Seán McCarthy, Kerry's Last Great Unsung Hero

If it's only in recent years that Tom Crean and Dr Eamonn O'Sullivan have been given their proper due, then this Kerry man is long overdue his. When O'Sullivan stepped aside as Kerry trainer in 1928 with tensions still simmering from the Civil War, McCarthy as county chairman stepped into the breach on the proviso it would only be for a year. It would be for four, with Kerry winning all four All Irelands. A founding member of Kerin's O'Rahilly's, he also refereed two All Irelands and, most amazingly of all, served as Munster Council secretary for 46 years. (1898-1977)

37. DJ Carey, Headline Grabber

Who ever thought they'd see the day when a Kilkenny hurler would have "a partner"? Not Drug Walsh or Lory Meagher, we can assume. But then who could have possibly envisaged DJ? The All Ireland goals, All Ireland failures, retirements, comebacks, dinners with Tiger Woods, the broken marriage, the new relationship with the multi-millionaire partner. A hurling life as soap opera. But still the most electric stickman of modern times. (1970-)

38. Pat Fanning, President Who Saw Off The Ban

With the north going up in flames, he defused the incendiary device that was the Ban – though personally in favour of its retention – at that Congress in Belfast in 1971. It could have gone horribly wrong; Fanning's wisdom and grace under pressure ensured it went gratifyingly right. Also instrumental behind the scenes in the success of the great Waterford 1957-'63 hurling team. (1918-)

39. Tom Woulfe, The Man Who Saw Off The Ban

A founding member of Civil Service in Dublin, this Kerry exile managed the Dublin footballers in 1944 and established the county's first disciplinary board. However, he gained his place in history by leading the campaign for the removal of the Ban. A struggle that he began a decade earlier culminated in a seismic four minutes at the 1971 Annual Congress during which Rule 27 was finally deleted. Woulfe later put his shoulder to the wheel to repeal the prohibitions on RUC members and foreign sports on association grounds. (1915-)

40. Seán O'Kennedy, The First Dual Star

O'Kennedy won an All Ireland with the Wexford hurlers in 1910 before captaining the footballers to the first three of the four All Irelands they won on the trot. He was also county chairman having already been county secretary, and was effectively county manager too, cycling 50 miles to scout players and train the team. He was one of the first great exponents of the dropshot in hurling and the drop-kick and handpass in football. (1885-1949)

41. Seán Kelly, Man Who Opened The Doors

Irrespective of one's views on the opening of Croke Park, it cannot be denied that Kelly's handling of the situation was well judged, the ultimate proof of the pudding coming in the eating. Croke Park was opened, the PR battle was won in a landslide, life went on and – most importantly of all – the GAA went back to business as usual. Credit is also due to him for the introduction of the Ring and Rackard Cups, a rare and genuine hurling milestone, and the establishment of the DRA. (1952-)

42. Peter McDermott, The Man With The Cap

Famed for the moniker Micheál O'Hehir gave him, there was a lot more to McDermott than just the distinctive headwear he sported to control "my fabulous head of black long hair". He was the driving force behind the Meath team that won two All Irelands, two leagues and six Leinsters between 1940 and 1954. He is the only man to referee an All Ireland final both before and after winning one. He was county secretary as well as captain when Meath landed Sam in 1954. He was a key advisor to Down in their 1960 breakthrough. He was coach to the 1967 Meath team that won the All Ireland. The following year he started the link between Ireland and Aussie Rules by lining up games for the All Ireland champs' tour of Australia. When the Compromise Rules series started formally in 1984 he was manager of the Irish team. A full life. (1918-)

43. JJ Keane, 'A Hot-Headed Young Man'

Described as above by the historian Marcus De Burca, Keane was certainly a controversial figure yet he could smoothen certain matters too. When Kerry proposed in the wake of the Irish Volunteers split that Central Council should include rifle-shooting among GAA activities, Keane persuaded his colleagues such action would only be interfering with the activities of the Volunteers. It was also Keane, a Dublin County Board official, who recommended and supervised the separation between the GAA and athletics. While athletics had originally been, to use PJ Devlin's term, "the basis and impulse of the GAA", it had been neglected and with the 1924 Olympics imminent, Keane ensured it would have a new independent body, the National Athletics and Cycling Association, with Keane its president. (1871-1956)

44. Mickey Harte, A Different Kind Of Passion

By carefully nurturing the best underage team football has known, Harte not just delivered Tyrone's first Sam Maguire but fundamentally changed how we think and play football. Under Harte, all attackers must be able to defend and all defenders must be able to attack, 360-degree football if you will, while his championing of a player-centred, process-oriented approach has shown the association and country how teams should be coached. (1955-)

45. James Kelleher, Original Of The Cork Species

"Perhaps the greatest Roman of them all," swooned Carbery, who saw the Dungourney full-back in 26 major games and deemed him man of the match in all of them. May well have been the finest hurler of the first half-century of the association, he's achieved belated notoriety for his stinging letter castigating "that man – put in that position by the Gaels of Cork – who has never caught a hurley in his hand, never felt the sting of the ash on his shinbones, does not know what it is to be laid up". Exactly 100 years on and Kelleher's words still echo on Leeside. (1878-1943)

46. Frank Corr, A Hurl Can Get You Killed

In July 1972 Frank Corr, a member of the Antrim County Board and a selector to the county hurling team, was driving home from work when his car was stopped by loyalists. The following day his body was found in the boot of the burned-out car; his crime being to have a hurley in the backseat. He would be one of 40 people to die in the north because of their involvement with the GAA but every member of the association up there would be affected. As Sambo McNaughton put it in his book, "It's easy to be a hurler in Tipperary; you can walk out with your stick and bag to training. But the lad on the Short Strand in Belfast, he won't be able to carry his GAA bag. Carrying a hurl out of a place like that is a statement. You're telling everybody what you are and who you are." Something, as Frank Corr found out, that could get you killed. (1920-1972)

47. Seán Flanagan, 'I'll See You When I've The Sam Maguire'

In 1949, after another All Ireland semi-final defeat, the Mayo County Board abandoned the tradition of county champions automatically assuming the county captaincy. If Mayo were to win an All Ireland, Seán Flanagan from Ballaghadereen had to be captain. The first thing Flanagan did upon receiving the honour was to tell the county chairman that he was to keep the rest of the board away from the team until he had collected the Sam Maguire. Once, when the board's reverend president strode into the team's training camp while the players were having lunch, Flanagan told him, "Get out Father and I'll see you when I've the Sam Maguire." Which he duly lifted the following September and the September after that again. Left corner-back on the Team of the Millennium, he would bring the team over to watch Arsenal and their counter-attack –"the first pass out of defence is king; make it long, fast and accurate; the space is there" – and the shadowing skills of Joe Mercer.

Just because Kerry were winning All Irelands every few years, he fundamentally differed with Dr Eamonn O'Sullivan's gospel of zonal, catch-and-kick football, and, as Raymond Smith put it, "lashing the ball in the air, waiting for the roar of the crowd"; possession was king. A lawyer, he would later serve as a member of cabinet in successive Jack Lynch governments. (1922-1993)

48. Billy Morgan, Dalai Lama Of Cork Football

As a player, he was the heart and soul of the first Cork team to win an All Ireland since World War Two and changed forever the art of goalkeeping by looking for the high-percentage outlet pass instead of lumping any old ball out the field. As a coach he led Cork to an unprecedented seven Munster titles in nine years and four consecutive All Ireland finals, while, just like Kernan with Crossmaglen, Nemo Rangers' success with and without him consolidates his claim to greatness. (1945-)

49. Jack Lynch, The GAA's Taoiseach

On the night he was elected Taoiseach, a Dublin journalist asked Lynch why he'd chosen to return to the Glen Hall in Blackpool to celebrate. "Sure in the name of God," he answered, "where else would I go?" He went back because he knew his political career had been an offshoot of sporting prowess that saw him voted centre-field on hurling's Team of the Century. After collecting six All Ireland medals in a row (five hurling punctuated by Cork's 1945 football triumph), he became a poll-topping TD in Cork in 1948, a rising ministerial star in the '50s, and Taoiseach in a very troubled time. At the 1984 All Ireland hurling final in Thurles, 38 previous winning captains were introduced before the match. None received a cheer as long and loud as Lynch. (1917-1999)

50. Pat Spillane, Shooting From The Lip

Apart from being one of the greatest forwards and taking the art of long-range shooting to new heights, Spillane ushered in a new age by being the game's first TV controversialist. Previously, punditry has varied between the "yerrah" approach and criticism delivered in extremely couched terms. Spillane took the gloves off and spoke his mind, with everybody from Francie Bellew to puke football getting both barrels at various stages. Shame his current incarnation as a below-par host has neutered his views. (1955-)