SCHOOL REPORT/ST KIERAN'S COLLEGE, KILKENNY:In the most decorated hurling school of them all, the names and faces of the greats are a perennial inspiration, writes Sean Kenny

PICKED OUT against the winter gloaming, the old facade of St Kieran's College is a picture of austere, gothic grandeur. The setting is apt. The school casts its shadows long into hurling history.

The roll call is extraordinary. No school gymnasium in Ireland can be so illustriously lined with old team photographs. There is Eddie Keher, smiling broadly in the St Kieran's colours in 1959. Here is a fresh-faced Nickey Brennan in the 1971 senior team. Brian Cody is among his team-mates, inscrutable then as now. There is DJ Carey, cherubic and floppy-haired in 1988. Of more recent vintage are Henry Shefflin, James "Cha" Fitzpatrick, Richie Power, Eoin Kelly, an interloper from Tipperary - and on and on.

Niall Connolly has taught in the school for 25 years and is joint manager of the St Kieran's senior side. He nods with quiet pride: "It is fantastic to look at those pictures, all those names that roll off the tongue. They've all been here. The last time the Kilkenny seniors and minors won an All-Ireland in the same year, 2003, we had 29 St Kieran's students, past and present, who received medals."

St Kieran's is Ireland's oldest Catholic secondary school, founded in 1782. History seeps from its stone and mahogany. The last half-century has seen the old place coated in a rich varnish of hurling history. The school has won 16 All-Ireland Colleges titles. For young lads around Kilkenny, St Kieran's means hurling. The two are bound tightly in the imagination.

"There's no doubt that the name St Kieran's does attract fellas who are interested in hurling," says Connolly. "A lot of lads would be inclined to come to the school because of the name that has built up over the years."

Ken Archbold, co-manager of the senior team, recalls coming to the school eight years ago as a PE teacher from Carlow, without a background in the game. It reminds you of Henry Ford's famous line: he could get involved in any sport he liked - as long as it was hurling.

"Pretty much when you walk in the door of St Kieran's you start learning about hurling," he says. "There's no choice really. But it's the best thing I've ever done."

The hurl is a natural extension of the self. First-years enter the school carrying sticks and dreams of where those sticks might take them. They were all first-years once, Eddie Keher and DJ and Shefflin. They went on to greatness. Most did not. Most will not. But every lad has a licence to dream.

Archbold sees it: "In first year you see them coming in and they'll have their schoolbag and their hurl. In the first few weeks you'll fall over hurls, all over the place. As soon as 11 o'clock comes they're straight out the door and onto the pitch. Half the pitch is dragged back into the school at this time of year, but you can't discourage that.

"All the young lads know who the senior players are. We brought out a replica of the senior shirt this year as a transition-year project and well over 100 were sold, mostly to first- and second-years. They got numbers on the jerseys, of the positions they're hoping to fill when they get older. It was great to see that."

And what were they like as youngsters, those who soared to greatness later? Connolly remembers DJ as a tiny bundle of ferocious precocity: "He was a joy to watch, absolutely phenomenal. You'd actually hang around after school just to go out there and watch him training as an under-14, to see the things he could do.

"DJ was on the soccer team here too. I remember a time we had to go to Dublin for a match; DJ sat in the baby seat of the car all the way up. That's how small he was. But he still terrorised the defences, even in soccer too."

Shefflin's development took a different trajectory.

"Henry was a bit of a late developer. He'd say that himself. He was a pudgy fella as a first- and second-year. Certainly by the time he was in Leaving Cert he was a fine hurler. But you probably wouldn't have picked him out particularly in first or second year; he blossomed later."

Cha Fitzpatrick, Archbold recalls, had a fierce, unrelenting hunger to better himself: "Cha was probably the hardest-training lad I've seen since I've been here. He'd go to the weights room at lunchtime when the rest of the guys didn't have to train. He worked on his upper-body strength constantly.

"He had a great engine but he certainly trained and trained and trained. He realised relative weaknesses he had and worked on them more than any other player I've seen. He's a class apart now."

The school emphasises the fundamental skills: the clean catch, the squarely struck ball. It is a pure linear extension of the coaching done at underage level around the county.

"In clubs from under-four upwards they're learning the skills," says Ken. "By the time we get them, their skills are already awesome in most cases. We're just trying to manage those skills and get the best from them.

"Some people would say that colleges hurling is pure hurling, that it's based on skill rather than anything else. When the weather gets better the skill level in colleges hurling is a joy to behold. The players are reflecting the philosophies of the schools and maybe some of the negative parts of the game wouldn't be there."

A slight stanching of the flow of talent came with the closure of boarding at the school in 2004: "Boarding always brought in one or two top-class hurlers on every team. That's gone and maybe to some extent there's been a little bit of levelling off."

Kilkenny CBS and Castlecomer, the local rivals to St Kieran's, have been strong in recent years. The "levelling off" may or may not last. One detail may be instructive; Niall Connolly points out the school's recently laid pitch, tucked in at the back of the campus.

"It's the exact dimensions of Croke Park," he says.

You laugh: "Just to get them used to it then?"

A faint nod, and a smile.

School:St Kieran's College, Kilkenny

Founded:1782 (Ireland's oldest Catholic secondary school)

Number of pupils: 640

Sports played:Hurling, Gaelic football, soccer, athletics, handball, equestrian events

Major sporting honours:Sixteen Senior All-Ireland Colleges' hurling championships

School sports colours:Black and white

Notable past pupils (non-sport):Actor Ralph Fiennes, Fenian leader James Stephens, playwright Thomas Kilroy

Notable sporting past pupils:Wexford hurler Nickey Rackard, a slew of Kilkenny hurling legends, including Eddie Keher, DJ Carey and Henry Shefflin