It Occurs To Me: Michael Oliver McIntyre - a footballer who ‘broke the mould’

I was absolutely delighted to see Seamus Carr being awarded the London Donegal Person of the Year. 

‘The Twins’ – he and Padraig – as they were affectionately known, were an integral part of the Carrick fabric when we lived nearby. 

Both were great footballers, Padraig winning an Ulster senior medal in 1983 and he and Seamus were on the legendary 1978 Naomh Columba team, when they claimed the championship, league and Comórtas Peile na Gaeltachta treble. 

A year ago, Peter Campbell had a lovely piece commemorating the Naomh Columba team that won the Junior Championship in 1974. 

Bottom right of the photo, kneeling beside each other, are Seamus and captain Michael Oliver McIntyre. On Saturday, December 27, there is a fundraising dance in the Blue Haven in memory of Michael Oliver, whose untimely death 20 years ago, shocked and saddened family, friends and GAA lovers the length and breadth of the county. 

All proceeds go to Palliative Care, Donegal, and tickets are €20, available in local shops. You can check the club’s Facebook page too. 

Michael Oliver McIntyre and his wife Carol Anne

As Alan Foley put it so eloquently after his passing in December 2005: “The first man ever from that particular club to lift the Dr Maguire Cup was Michael Oliver, who captained that famous team. 

“He passed away after a short illness. As vice-chairman Paddy Beag Gillespie noted at the graveyard on Monday afternoon at Carrick, ‘Just as he did on the field, Michael shall lead us all again, this time in heaven.’ 

“Michael Oliver and his contemporaries of the late seventies broke the mould in Donegal GAA terms. It was unfashionable, perhaps inconceivable, for a team like theirs to pick up the silverware in late September or early October. 

“The south-west of the county had been starved of success and sides like Glen, Ardara and Killybegs had not been serious contenders for some time. 1978 changed all that. 

“A dozen years later, Michael Oliver and more or less a newer generation of team-mates repeated the success and although a defender by trade, the effervescent character proved coolness personified to score a late assurance point against Killybegs on the day to seek the second coming of Dr Maguire. 

“These successes punctuate an involvement with the club that stretched over five decades. From the 1965 under-14 coup right through to the current chair. Roles included player and manager, selector and mentor, trainer and administrator. For both club and county. 

“So involved was he that recently his wife Carol Ann – whom he had just celebrated his silver wedding anniversary with in June – asked her husband to take more of a back seat in the wake of his sickness – a request he gave his word to adhere to. 

“A few hours after the Annual General Meeting, Carol Ann obtained information as to who had been elected Chairperson. A certain Mr Michael Oliver McIntyre. Such was his devotion. In today’s scattered society infiltrated with divided loyalties, the likes of Michael are difficult to come across. 

“His adoration was single-minded, but shared to include more than football. The other three f’s were also close to the heart. Family, fishing and friends. The farm in Malinbeg on which he provided a livelihood for himself, his wife and father, his two sons and two daughters ran straight to the sea and strand. 

“Lobster and crab pots were to be seen dotting the picturesque horizon on a summer’s evening looking out at Rathlin O’Beirne Island. Either that or the simpler fishing rod methodology. 

“A member of the St. Eunan’s College McLarnon Cup winners in the late sixties, it borders on problematic to try and fathom just how much the man actually did for football.

“Little was ever left to chance and half measures were not a part of the equation. Speeches were not ceremonial but examples were to be heeded. The legacy of Michael Oliver and the foundations he laid will live on.”

“We’ll have a senior manager in place by the weekend and it will be a Donegal man,” Brian McEniff said in 2002, a day after being installed as the new Donegal chairman. 

There was intense speculation that Michael Oliver was the man…it wasn’t to be. I was privileged to know him…Carol Anne was, and still is, a dear friend of my sister Mary. 

Although our Bogagh home was in Kilcar – mum’s first cousin Big Frank O’Donnell had played for them…and for Donegal…and my first cousin Christy Gillespie won a medal in 1980 – my father was a staunch Naomh Columba supporter. 

He was stationed in Glen, but more than that, there was a conspiracy theory that he was also motivated by ‘divilment’! In any event, the rivalry between the two clubs was intense, and once I happened to be standing on the sideline beside dad at a derby match, when a tough Kilcar man and a good friend, who was fruitlessly attempting to gather a ball as it slid away from him, managed to put on the brakes before he ran into us, and hissed at me: “You f….. traitor you!” My father laughed and said: “Go over to the other side…that’ll totally confuse him!” It didn’t!

The All Stars

I was bursting with pride watching our lads get 4 All Stars. What an example Finbarr Roarty is…19 years old, modest, and dedicating his award to his 100-year old granny Kitty. Outside of Donegal, the amount of good will he has generated is incalculable.

A good slap

Billy Connolly once said: “Part of me is Irish... My family comes from the west coast, so whenever I come to Ireland, I get a wee tingling in my heart that I’m where I belong.”

In his gigs, he tells yarns that really register with the Irish, particularly Donegal folk, whose influence on Glasgow is huge. 

One of his jokes is about his mother who often warned him that he needed ‘a good slap’...and then administered it. “If that was a good slap,” laughed Billy, “I’d hate tae get a bad one!” 

READ NEXT: National Broadband Plan connection available to 1,600 premises in south-west Donegal

The only reason I mention this is that a friend from Derry rang me out of the blue last week and thundered: “Yon Paisley buck needs a quare slap!” “Who?” I queried, “Not Ian Beag again surely?” “No,” says your man, “the other buck…Kyle!” 

Ian Mór Paisley was actually born Ian Kyle Paisley and managed to name both sons after himself. Anyway, the reason my ‘mucker’ wanted to give him a good slap or a quare slap was because the Rev Kyle Paisley called on King Charles to cancel the engagement with Pope Leo or to abdicate and “let someone else take his place who is a true Protestant.”

 Kyle Beag said poor Charlie should “uphold the Protestant faith” and in praying with the pope is “breaking his oath” and “not upholding his promise to defend a reformed faith when he mixes in that kind of way.” 

Jesus wept…and will weep again! To compound matters, the Orange Order Grand Masters of Ireland, England and Scotland called on Charles to “reflect on his coronation oath” and the “promises he made before God” when he became king. 

An article in The Orange Standard said …“the fact remains that in his 2023 coronation oath, King Charles swore to ‘maintain in the United Kingdom the Protestant Reformed Religion established by law’ and Orangemen and women should ‘not to be discouraged or deflected from our solid foundations, which are rooted in the truths of the Reformation.’” 

“In October 1555, Latimer and Ridley were burned at the stake for their beliefs. Winds of change will always blow; they have done so down through the centuries and will no doubt continue. Nevertheless, it is important to remain steadfast in the Reformed faith, even in the face of opposition. 

“The Grand Masters of Ireland, England and Scotland have jointly written privately to His Majesty to encourage him to reflect upon the solemn commitments of his coronation oath and the promises he made before God.” 

Kyle Beag was having none of it! “The Protestant faith historically and theologically is a world apart from Catholicism,” he told the BBC. 

“I don’t for the life of me see how he can engage in that kind of corporate worship.” 1555!…they’re obviously bang up to date as usual! As they say in Derry, “You’d never get tired slapping them!”

Thought for the day

“The comfort of the rich depends upon an abundant supply of the poor.” ― Voltaire