All-Ireland medals have been the source of some discussion in the past week, both in these pages and elsewhere. As the hurlers of Limerick and Galway and the footballers of Mayo and Kerry prepare for their upcoming All-Ireland finals, thoughts of getting their hands on one of those valuable golden Celtic crosses can’t be too far from the players’ minds. Of course, the currency of the All-Ireland medal was brought into sharp focus during post-match analysis on live television following the recent All-Ireland hurling semi-final between Cork and Galway. Luckily the sole criteria for being a GAA pundit isn’t the amount of the All-Ireland medals in one’s possession, otherwise we might be restricted to the musings of Henry Shefflin in hurling and James McCarthy, Mick Fitzsimons and Stephen Cluxton in football, record medal winners in their respective codes.Dónal Óg Cusack, whose comment led to the controversy, is himself the holder of three All-Ireland medals, which by any standards is an impressive haul. Surprisingly, for the former Cork goalkeeper from Cloyne, those three medals are a comparatively paltry return when measured against Cloyne’s other great exponent of the game of hurling, Christy Ring, who ended his career with a grand total of eight All-Ireland medals. The last of those, won in 1954 and as recounted in this newspaper last week by Denis Walsh, was donated to St Augustine’s Church in Cork city for the purpose of making a chalice. Given that he had so many medals, Christy hardly noticed that the last one was missing. Nicky Rackard, one of Ring’s great rivals of that era, had an even more carefree attitude to his medals and was known to give them away. The All-Ireland medal he won in 1955 left the family’s possession until 2014 when they paid €17,500 at auction to reclaim it.Given that they are such a valuable commodity, what else has become of these valuable medals? Common GAA folklore would suggest that they are held for perpetuity in a player’s back pocket, but it is more likely they are in the bottom of a drawer somewhere unless, like Ring, they are famous enough for them to be on display in the Croke Park museum. Pat Spillane, who is famously nonchalant about the eight medals he won with Kerry, gave one to his wife Rosarii, who wore it as part of a bracelet. A man with whom Spillane regularly locked horns in the 1970s and 1980s was Dublin’s Dr David Hickey, who recently auctioned his 1976 medal to raise money for the development of the GAA in Palestine.Of course, it’s not just All-Ireland medals that have a special meaning for the winners. In a recent column , Frank McNally, regrettably but truthfully pointed out how my native Carlow had yet to trouble anyone when it came to winning All-Irelands. The closest we came was in 1944 when Kerry (who else?) narrowly defeated us in the All-Ireland semi-final after we had won our only Leinster title. The backbone of that team was Jim Morris from Ballon. After Jim passed away in 1982, his wife Peggy proudly wore his Leinster medal for many years. In a recent Laochra Gael episode about the Donegal footballer Kevin Cassidy, the player revealed how he played football not for medals but for the people in his community who enjoyed the game so much.When the father of a close friend passed away, Cassidy placed his 2011 Ulster championship medal in his coffin to be buried with him. Unfortunately, medals have often been the target of burglars. Several players including Martin O’Connell from Meath and Dublin’s Charlie Redmond have lost their treasured mementoes to thieves. Thankfully O’Connell was later reunited with his 1987 medal, but one player who luckily escaped the theft of his medals was Liam Dunne, a member of the Wexford winning team in 1996. When his house was broken into one night and several items stolen, Dunne feared the worst for his medals.However, he was amazed to find them lined up neatly on his kitchen table with his All-Ireland medal displayed in its open box. Obviously, the thief was a GAA fan with a conscience.But getting back to those All-Ireland medals. The old joke about Kerry and its great footballing tradition was that if you went out to buy the paper and a pint of milk in Tralee or Killarney, there was every chance you might find an All-Ireland medal in your change such was the abundance of Celtic crosses floating around the Kingdom. On his retirement, the former Kerry midfielder Darragh Ó Sé was asked how he would be regarded in the pantheon of Kerry greats having won six All-Ireland medals. His measured response was that he supposed he’d be slightly better thought of than someone who had won five.