Longford Mens Senior Football Championship: The wait goes on….the cup is home

Last Sunday, I was already invited to spend the afternoon with grandchildren Alex, Fiadh and Ava in Galway, so a trip to the county final in Glennon Brothers Pearse Park was out of the question. We kicked ball in Ballinasloe and I kept abreast of proceedings in Longford via Shannonside and Twitter!

In truth I was dodging a bullet. I was born and bred in Killoe, my father was on the Emmet Óg team that won the first hosting of the Sean Connolly Cup in 1960 and my nephew was in the Clonguish attack against Killoe in the 2023 final.

There’s my dilemma. My parish or my nephew!

That 1960 victory was a landmark for Killoe. Kingpins in the early years of the last century it took more than four decades to return to the pinnacle. I have vague memories, I was a five year old mascot and I think my father was the oldest member of the team. The first presentation of the Sean Connolly Cup and Longford Slashers in the final. Sweet….and sour.
That was the last title for Killoe for more than a generation until our neighbour from Esker, Declan Rowley, captained the club to the championship in 1986.

The intervening years were the other sides of the coin. Many of the younger members of the 1960 squad emigrated to the USA in search of a living, Emmet Óg lived life as an Intermediate club and Longford GAA enjoyed a golden era.

For many the 1960’s holds special memories, the Beatles, the World Cup or Woodstock but for 10-year-old me it was all about Longford GAA. A National League title, a Leinster title and the best team the county has ever produced. At its heart Clonguish, Bardens, Flynns and more.
I was proud and jealous at the same time. Proud of Longford but jealous of Clonguish…. why couldn’t Killoe have just one player in that squad?

Proud of our little shop at Esker Post Office but aware too that our cousins, the Ralphs, had a shop in Newtownforbes and their father was President of Clonguish CLG, you can’t win!

At county championship level it seemed to a young teenager than the Sean Connolly Cup was swapped around between Clonguish and St. Mary’s Granard.

There’s a lovely story told of a Clonguish manager meeting with selectors to pick a team for a county final and used sods of turf on the hearth to describe the first 15. When his young son looking on noticed that one of his favourites was missing, he asked daddy where he was? The reply was ‘he’s out on the clamp and leave him there!’

In the intervening years Emmet Óg had moved from Devine’s Pit in Esker to Cullyfad and on to today’s state of the art facility at Clonee. The influence of the GAA in communities around the world is illustrated by facilities like Emmet Óg, Clonee and Allen Park in Newtownforbes.
The new generation in the shadow of Corn Hill has brought Young Emmets back to the same position of dominance once held by their predecessors led by Pat Kane more than a century ago.

For the 2023 Longford GAA Senior Football County final I had a few irons in the fire. I’m still of Killoe, Emmet Óg manager Luke Dempsey and I were teammates in college and most importantly my nephew Chris Gordon was in the Clonguish half forward line!

Last Sunday morning my sister, his mother, shared a Clonguish ‘Whats App’ pointing out that ‘it was 5,131 days since a Clonguish player lifted the Connolly Cup.’

My response was that it was ‘more than 63 years since a member of the McGuire clan took a senior county medal back to Esker’
The wait goes on….but the cup is home.

See our special supplement for more county final coverage.