Inside Track: Marist College were twice winners of the MacRory Cup

The McRory Cup, the most prestigious of Ulster schools’ football competitions, has been contested each year since 1923. The centenary renewal, about to take off, is certain to be keenly contested. 

St Patrick’s were first winners, and the Armagh school would go on to have their name inscribed on the trophy each year up to 1928, sharing it with Monaghan’s St Macartan’s in 1925. 

The reason this is appearing is because the MacRory Cup was won on two occasions by Dundalk’s St Mary’s College, better known as the Marist.

This was at a time when Dundalk schools played in Ulster competitions, the MacLarnon Cup and Corn na nÓg, as well as the MacRory. 

Your writer contested a final of the Corn na Óg with Dundalk CBS, and needless to say ended up on the losing side. It was in the late 1950s, when the afterglow of Louth’s All-Ireland win was still in the air and football was being played at the Athletic Grounds.

Derry CBS were in opposition and the game was in Dungannon. Dundalk-born Christian Brother, James Connolly, a son of Denis, who will be remembered by older readers as a stalwart Gaelsman, was in charge of the Derry boys.

There was a time when the exact Dundalk line-up would come quickly to mind, but not any more. The accompanying picture is of the complete panel, a number of whom, sadly, have gone to their reward.

It reads: Front row (l to r): Michael Carroll, Alan Gormley, Thomas Kelledy, Stephen Maguire, Dermot Gaffney. Middle row: Jim McArdle, Patsy McGrath, Gerry Quigley, Dermot McMorrow, Tom O’Callaghan, Billy Moran, Matt McCourt. Back row: Tony Gaskin, Ciarán McArdle, J Carroll, Tony Cahill, Jim Curtis.

Back to the Marist MacRory Cup wins, the first coming in 1938. The competition was run on a league basis then and was mostly contested by boarding colleges. In the deciding match, played at the Athletic Grounds, Marist beat St Patrick’s, Amagh, 4-6 to 0-4. 

Mick Higgins, an All-Ireland winner in the famous New York Polo Grounds final in 1948 and one of Cavan’s greatest, was on the winning team. 

Two years earlier, Marist, who drew many of their students from counties outside this county, had five players on Louth’s All-Ireland winning minor team, including Aloysius Lynn and Frank Rock (both from Monaghan), Donal Brady (Cavan) and Meath’s Lal McEntee.

And when Louth regained the under-18 title four years later, two from the same school were in the line-up, Brendan Burke, from Sligo, and Cavan’s Angus Cahill.

In all, Marist played in six MacRory Cup finals in the space of a decade, winning from the second time in 1941 with a 7-6 to 3-5 over St Patrick’s, Cavan. 

Like all Ulster champions up until 1946, Marist didn’t have the chance to test their skills at All-Ireland level. The Hogan Cup wasn’t added to the colleges’ calendar until just after the War.

St Mary’s CBS in Belfast went the whole way in 1971, and included at full-back was Paul McKiernan, who would later play with Louth seniors on his transfer from Antrim