A friend rang me on his drive home from the 2018 All-Ireland final. It started around Monasterevin, he said. People were standing on motorway bridges waving Limerick flags. Families were applauding every vehicle heading southwest.He had never seen anything like it. Neither had I.For our lives to that point, Limerick was not a spot people stood on bridges to celebrate. To be blunt, the outside version of the city rarely came with much warmth. It was a place people asked you about.Usually the question was: “Have you ever been stabbed?” Or something to that effect.It changed as time went on.“Do you know Blindboy?”Now, more often than not, it’s: “Are you into the hurling?”It’s hardly scientific but places can get saddled with personalities that are hard to shake. If you are from Limerick, you recognise the pause after you say it. People hear things but most have barely spent time there.Areas like Moyross in Limerick were often in the news for the wrong reasons. Photograph: Brendan Gleeson The old stories do not come from nowhere. Violence did disfigure parts of Limerick city in the 2000s. The issue became that for many outsiders, the bad things were all they had to go on.A great hurling team can’t fix everything but it certainly can shift the atmosphere about a place.Nobody could have suggested five All-Irelands as a civic renewal plan. And yet, Limerick got Lynch, Hegarty, Gillane, O’Donoghue, the Morrisseys, the Caseys, Kiely and Kinnerk, et al.2018 could have been one glorious accident. Then came the strange championships of 2020 and 2021. Post-pandemic the thing kept happening, as did the novel admin of success. Sorting out tickets, sorting out lifts, smallies looking for new jerseys, grown men looking for older ones on the quiet so nobody could accuse them of bandwagoning.Naturally other supporters started getting sick of it. I tried not to enjoy this too much. Being resented for winning is a long way from what came before.I am in my early 30s now. This team has been a constant in the winding intricacies of young adult life. The core of the squad has grown with me, only in public and with more hamstring discourse. They have matured alongside a generation of us who grew up without winning much at all. Henry Martin’s 2009 inside history of Limerick hurling was called Unlimited Heartbreak. Nobody needed the title explained to them.A few years ago, after a Munster championship game, a group of us sat out on a green at home. It was one of those warm May evenings that gives everything a long, 10ft shadow. Mismatched chairs and the odd stool, pulled from kitchens and livingrooms up and down the road, were arranged in loose formation.Limerick's Darragh O'Donovan celebrates 2018 All-Ireland victory. Photograph: James Crombie/Inpho Cups on the grass and children drifting around the edges. A father giving unrequested opinions on tactics to people who had not asked for them.Someone said, to nobody in particular: “I just can’t believe it’s us.”The line stayed with me for the bewilderment in it. Even after everything, disbelief was still there. Part of us is still waiting for the old arrangement to resume. The one that frequently left Thurles with its tail between its legs, never mind Croke Park.How fitting that Galway will line out opposite us on Sunday. They were there in 2018 when Limerick stopped being a nearly county. Eight years later, the boot is on the other foot. This time around it’s Galway arriving with a sparkling young side, moored by experienced heads. Big wins on big days have them in a final slightly ahead of the perceived schedule.Should Limerick get there, it will not be another line on the honours list. After the last couple of years, and everything this group has given, it would feel like one they owe to nobody but themselves.Of course success means you can stop noticing how unlikely it all is. Last summer Dublin caught everyone cold with their quarter-final win. Not enough people imagined they needed to travel. The upset arrived and precious few Limerick supporters were there to witness it.Since then, Declan Hannon retired. John Kiely and Paul Kinnerk’s current agreement has just one game to run. Players who once looked impossibly young are now the spine of a team over nine seasons deep.Galway's Conor Cooney and Jonathan Glynn with Seán Finn, Mike Casey and Diarmaid Byrnes of Limerick in 2018 final. Photograph: James Crombie/Inpho I am not privy to anything beyond the public record, and Limerick could still make any whispers of a wind-down look premature. But sport rarely gives advance notice and it’s hard to put your finger on when exactly eras end. A captain can go, then a coach, then a couple more, and only afterwards do you appreciate you were watching the last full version of something.This is why the minor All-Ireland this year mattered. Limerick pipped Tipperary by a point to win a first title at that grade in 42 years. These lads were just eight or nine in 2018. They grew up with Limerick as the team everyone chased.Would Xavier Neligan have hurled himself horizontally to block that last ball without growing up in a system that learned how to win? Maybe. Maybe not.Even among all the great days out, that might be the thing this team has given back most tangibly. A way of standing straighter when Limerick is mentioned.A few days ago, Pico Lopes spoke after Cape Verde’s World Cup run. “There’s a story outside of football here which is really important and it’s about Cape Verde as a nation and who the people are,” he said. “People don’t have to ask that question now.”Sport, or sporting success, has an ability to make us look again.Many can dislike this Limerick team, and fair enough. But at least the questions are different now.After years of bracing for the old ones, that feels like something.