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Michael Byrne (10 September 1923 – 16 October 2016), better known as "the Rattler" Byrne, was an Irish hurler whose league and championship career with the Tipperary senior team spanned fifteen years from 1945 to 1960.
Born in Dublin, Byrne first played competitive hurling after his family moved to Thurles, County Tipperary. His skills were developed at Thurles CBS, with Byrne winning a Dean Ryan Cup medal in 1939. His performances at colleges level brought him to the attention of the Thurles Sarsfields selectors, and he simultaneously joined the club's minor team, winning a county minor championship medal in 1940. Byrne subsequently progressed onto the senior team that dominated the championship. In a club career that spanned more than twenty years, he won fourteen county senior championship medals. Byrne retired from club hurling at the age of forty-two following a defeat of Carrick Davins in the 1965 county final.
The Emergency resulted in Byrne never playing in the minor grade for Tipperary, however, he joined the senior panel during the 1945 championship. Over the course of the next fifteen years, he won five All-Ireland medals, beginning with a lone triumph in 1945 as a non-playing substitute, three championships in-a-row from 1949 to 1951 and a final championship in 1958. Byrne also won five Munster medals and eight National Hurling League medals. He retired from inter-county hurling following the conclusion of the 1959-60 league, having made 34 championship appearances for the team.
Having been chosen as a substitute on the Munster interprovincial panel in 1955, Byrne began a three-year association with the team. He won his only Railway Cup medal in 1956 when he was listed amongst the substitutes once again.
Byrne is widely regarded as one of Tipperary's greatest ever players. He has been repeatedly voted onto teams made up of the sport's greats, including at right corner-back on the Tipperary Hurling Team of the Century.
