This is a significant week in hurling. By next Sunday, barring a draw, leadership of the game's roll of honour will have been claimed by either Cork or Kilkenny for the next year at least. It is the 20th final meeting of the counties, making it by far the most common pairing in All-Ireland history.

The GAA is great for minimalist statistics like the above. How many times have we seen lists of All-Ireland finals or extracts from the roll of honour detailing how often and when titles were won? Thanks to the late Raymond Smith, there is a weighty volume that probes a bit deeper, publishing team lists and a greater breadth of championship data. But when it comes to the flesh and blood as opposed to the bones of these great events and epic achievements, the GAA isn't as well provided for. Only in recent times has anything like an adequate body of published work started to appear.

Twenty years ago, during its centenary, the GAA encouraged the publication of club histories and whereas the quality varies, together they form a useful archive.

The advent of more inquisitive feature journalism has also begun to generate a database for future historians but in general terms great names of the past or even plain quotidian reminiscence of times gone by is in short supply.

Such deficiency has been a favourite LP of this column but a confluence of events this All-Ireland week inclines me to give it another spin. Nostalgia for the past is a natural condition at this time of the year. Gaelic games are sustained by tradition and a sense of the past and there is an appetite for material that outlines the way things used to be.

A few paragraphs can transport the reader back through the decades to a bygone All-Ireland final, confer the benefit of hindsight as hot favourites are beaten and some moment of individual triumph or disaster proves pivotal.

The most notable project designed to preserve some of the games' personal history was Brendan Fullam's hurling trilogy Giants of the Ash, Hurling Giants and Legends of the Ash. These books are collections of short features and conversations about and with great players.

But welcome as they are, the interviews are also a matter of regret as to why no organised effort was made down the years to gather extended interviews on tape or film with these great names.

This was brought home by research for two pieces during the lead-up to Sunday's final. Last week I visited the Lory Meagher Centre in Tullaroan. Between the old family house, dating back three centuries, and the museum showcasing old hurleys, jerseys and medals ("better here than sitting in a drawer at home") and all sorts of other memorabilia, there was a pervasive sense of history. Yet of Lory himself relatively little was in evidence. Yes there were photographs and belongings but not much of him as an individual. He lived on more in the conversation of older club members who remembered him and all he had done up to his passing away 31 years ago.

It would have been a marvellous addition to the museum's exhibits had a short film of Meagher talking and reflecting on his life in hurling and outside been available for screening.

The other item that prompted these thoughts was that published today, an abridged version of three pieces written by Louis Marcus about his memories of making the film Christy Ring. Marcus said the legendary Cork hurler co-operated for the good of hurling but also, he suspected, so he could put something of himself on film for posterity.

The result was a fascinating film exploring Ring's skills and Marcus's impressions of the great man have resonance nearly 40 years later.

It's also worth noting the volunteerism that underpins the operation of every club in the country is also a feature of the Lory Meagher Centre. A local committee acquired the property and developed it into the complex of preserved house, museum, craft shop and café that is 10 years in existence.

By raising money through FÁS and LEADER the community effort established the enterprise and maintained it. A challenge match between Kilkenny and Tipperary two years ago raised over €40,000 and the museum was extended and improved. Tullaroan is an example to the GAA at large. On one level the strength of the tradition has ensured the cultivation of hurling throughout the decades and every generation has produced standard-bearers of whom Tommy Walsh and the Coogans are but the latest. But the community has also tended to the GAA's cultural needs by preserving the past and honouring the memory of Tullaroan's greatest hurler.

The lesson might be that county executives could do with a heritage officer, a function charged with collating historical material for posterity, even as far as gathering the reminiscences of older players and members.

The point was made in Tullaroan by the gathering of members who were good enough to talk to me that some of them could remember talking to old men who had been around for the foundation of the GAA. In other words there are living links with the very beginning of the association. The same situation obtains around the country but this won't be the case forever.

Here's a suggestion. The Irish Folklore Commission famously scoured the country to gather local traditions and memories and through one of its projects, the Schools Collection Scheme (whereby pupils aged between 11 and 14 would write up the reminiscences of older people in their family and neighbourhood) generated half a million pages of manuscript.

Something similar could be organised by clubs on a project basis with exhibitions and prizes presented to those involved. It would be a meaningful exercise to underpin the GAA's cultural remit and enliven what is frequently an uneven approach to history and tradition.