GAELIC GAMES CONNACHT CHAMPIONSHIP: KEITH DUGGANhears friends recall how the death of Leitrim and Mohill player Philip McGuinness impacted on team-mates and the wider community, and why he will never be forgotten
WHEN THE Leitrim team is announced over the tannoy in Markievicz Park tomorrow, it is the name not called that they will remember. Seasons keep moving on and the Leitrim team has been almost entirely reinvented since they last played Sligo in 2005. Because of retirements and emigration and a terrible run of injuries, just four players from that meeting will wear the colours the day.
It would almost certainly be a fifth had tragedy not visited Philip McGuinness.
“It hit the whole county very hard,” says Martin McGowan of the death just over a year ago of the young Mohill player. McGuinness died through injuries he suffered in an accidental collision while playing for his club against Melvin Gaels in April of last year. The tragedy stilled the county and left the Leitrim senior squad reeling as they tried to prepare for the championship. Now, plans to renovate the Mohill club ground and rename it as a memorial park for McGuinness are well under way.
The days after his death provided another example of just how the wider GAA community manages to combine spontaneity with exceptional organisation to make the days after such a tragedy a bit more bearable. But after the funeral, family and friends had to grieve and the pastime that was so central to McGuinness’s life needed tending to. Mohill had a club championship to prepare for and Leitrim were playing in Connacht.
“For the three years I have been involved with Mickey Moran, Philly was a very important member to us,” says McGowan, who also coached McGuinness at county Under-21 level.
“He was happy go lucky and he had a bright aspect on life. If there was mischief going on, he was probably stuck in the middle of it for sure. But that didn’t dull his commitment or his approach to the game. He was popular with the others so it was a massive shock. But it would be unfair to use it as an excuse. Philip just got on with things and didn’t make excuses so we did take that attitude ourselves. We wouldn’t want to dishonour his memory with excuses like that.”
The Mohill club faced the same challenges. Nobody knew when it might be appropriate to return to training and nobody felt like it anyway. In the end, they regrouped at the instigation of McGuinness’s brothers, John and Michael, both of whom also played for Leitrim.
“We took great heart from both of them,” Mohill and former Leitrim player Ciarán Kennedy says. “When they suggested it, it changed things. It was a way of getting on with things and of having some sort of normality. But it was definitely strange. He would be on your mind.
“We retired the number 10 jersey he wore – as the county did. He was always a big player for us and he was influential. He was one of those players that always wanted to be on the ball, involved. He was always encouraging and trying to get the best out of us. One of my last memories of him on the field was roaring at one of our own lads who had gone down to get back up. He wasn’t happy. I wouldn’t like to repeat the language he was using.”
Mohill reached the Leitrim championship semi-final last year: it was a respectable performance but not one the team was entirely happy with. At some point in the summer, Mickey Harte was invited down to draw on his experiences of coaching Tyrone teams through the deaths of Paul McGirr in 1997 and, seven years later, of Cormac McAnallen. “He made a point that stuck with us. He basically said we can’t make it a quest – we can’t tell ourselves we are going to win every game or the championship for Philly because if we fail, then we feel as if we let him down. You do it for yourself as well.”
Kennedy played football with McGuinness since they were children. “He was a year younger but we played the same grades starting at under-10. Every step of the way.” He will always be able to recall the match and had no idea of the gravity of his friend’s injuries until the next day. He felt certain the extent of the repercussions of his friend’s injuries would be a bad headache and the obligatory scans and check-ups that might keep him on the sidelines for longer than he would wish. Then he awoke to a text message explaining that the situation had deteriorated and to say a prayer. “I couldn’t believe it. None of us could.”
Kennedy spent most of the following days with other Mohill players in the McGuinness house. He was vaguely aware of the fact this local tragedy had a national dimension and recalls Christy Cooney, the GAA president, visiting the house and seeing Mícheál Ó Muircheartaigh, the radio man there also. County players came from far and wide: some he saw, others he was told of. When the funeral cortege left the N4 from Dublin, the first guard of honour was formed in Dromod.
“In a strange way, it brought everyone closer together. Philly enjoyed life, no question and he would have had a lot of friends. Everyone knows everyone and they wanted to contribute. It was a community thing.”
As it happened, work had just begun on Mohill’s GAA grounds on the week McGuinness died. It wasn’t long afterwards that it was decided to rename the ground after the young man. That work is on-going, a draw for a summer-long fundraiser will take place on the weekend of the All-Ireland final.
“The playing pitch is finished but we wanted to get the park looking appropriate for a memorial when we open it,” explains Eileen Abbot of the Mohill club.
“So instead of just targeting our local area, we sent two tickets to every club in Ireland and we got a good response. We have a wall that is there for over one hundred years and as you can imagine it doesn’t look that attractive so the whole community in the town want it to look the part and for it to be a fitting memorial. But it all takes money. The sign on the entrance will be the Philip McGuinness Memorial Park.”
And that, too, will strike a chord with McGuinness’s peers every time they go and play there. McGuinness came from a distinguished football family: his late father Michael was on the Leitrim team of the Millennium. Such was Philip’s effervescent style – “the Brian Dooher of Leitrim” was how John Morrison described him last year – that it was clear he was going to play a major part in Leitrim’s plans. He played both hurling and football at county level as a teenager and was drafted into the senior panel while still in his teens.
“He was always there or thereabouts but it was only in latter years he really nailed that wing-forward spot and made the position his and you could see the qualities he showed with Mohill coming through,” says Ciarán Kennedy.
“The heart of our team,” was how Moran, the Leitrim manager paid tribute to the Mohill man in the days following his death. It would have been nice to imagine something wonderful or inspirational could have happened Leitrim football in the weeks after that tragedy but it doesn’t work like that. Leitrim were beaten in the Connacht championship by Roscommon and exited after meeting Kildare in the qualifiers. The sprawling championship rolled on.
Staying competitive and getting experience is always tough in Leitrim. The numbers are small, players leave for college and work and, more recently, for emigration. Circumstance as much as adventure inspired Moran to pick seven debut players for what promises to be a highly testing visit into the tiger’s cage that the Sligo venue has become.
“And a lot of the other players have just a season or two behind them,” Martin McGowan says. “It is strange, some of the lads playing this week would never even have played or trained with Philip in the Leitrim squad.”
But even after the current generation have finished up, the absent number 10 means that his name will still be mentioned in Leitrim dressing-rooms long after many others have been forgotten.
What happened to Philip McGuinness was just desperately unlucky, desperately sad. But for a momentary departure from all reasonable outcomes in an on-field clash – the kind of challenge that the flame-haired bundle of energy had thundered into all his life – he would be out there for Leitrim tomorrow, one of the senior players, cajoling the kids around him. He lived it.
Martin McGowan has one clear recollection of McGuinness’s final few weeks with Leitrim. His last match for the county was in the league against Limerick. After that, they had arranged for him to train with the Ballina Stephenites club for a few weeks as he was working in Belmullet: the twice weekly drive was too punishing. McGowan had not long arrived in Bunbrosna for Leitrim’s regular Tuesday night training when he saw Philly McGuinness’s car pulling up.
“A big smile on his face. He couldn’t bear not to be out there training away from everyone and missing out.”
Anyone wishing to participate in the Phillip McGuinness Memorial Park draw can purchase a ticket through Mohill GAA club.
