The late Bernard Conaghan was a ‘dyed in the wool GAA man’ - John Joe O’Shea 

Bernard Conaghan was laid to rest in Killybegs on Tuesday and the legacy he leaves with the local GAA club is as solid as they come. 

Leading the tributes this week, John Joe O’Shea described Bernard as “a dyed in the wool GAA man” and totally dedicated to the Association and Killybegs GAA club.

“Bernard was a one off, in that he was a dyed in the wool GAA man, which, as I discovered very early when I first arrived in Killybegs back in the mid 1970s, was rare enough,” said the Kerry man, who moved to Donegal over 50 years ago to take up a teaching position in the old Killybegs Tech.

“Coming from Kerry, sport to me was Gaelic football,” O’Shea told the Democrat this week. “But I soon discovered when I docked in Killybegs, this was not the case. Soccer was the main football game and the main sport in the town.

“Apart from Bernard and one or two others, you would have been hard pressed to find an out-and-out GAA man, but the late Bernard was the most diehard of them all.

“Killybegs won a senior championship in 1952, long before Bernard’s time. And they did not win a championship again until 1988.

“Other than a junior championship in 1976 and an Intermediate title in 1979, there were a lot of lean years in the 1960s and 1970s. 

“But Bernard ploughed a lone furrow through those and worked night and day to keep the club afloat through what were barren years. 

“The arrival of Jimmy White as a top coach, and group of young and very talented footballers made up of Manus Boyle, John and Barry Cunningham, Barry McGowan, John Bán Gallagher, the Carberry brothers, Denis and Paul, Conor White and David Meehan; that was the answer to Bernard’s prayers and a reward for his resilience and dedication to keep the club afloat in those lean times.

“That group of exceptionally talented footballers backboned a team that went on to win five championships in eight seasons in 1988, 1991, 1992, 1995 and 1996 and I was fortunate to manage the first of those sides back in 1988”. 

It was after the 1988 success that John Joe experienced a caring and generous side to the late Bernard on a personal level. 

“The presentation of the medals for the 1988 championship win was given out at a special function in the Abbey Hotel. 

“It was naturally a great night. The 1952 team that had won the club’s one and only championship 36 years earlier were also honoured the same evening.

“The day after the function, Bernard arrived at my house in Donegal Town with a large salmon.

“It was generally felt that the management did not get much of a mention at the function the night before, and the salmon was Bernard’s way of showing his gratitude, and the club's gratitude, for our part in the winning of the championship. 

“I felt it touching and, to me, it said a lot about Bernard and the man he was and a man I’m delighted to say was a very good friend of mine right up to the end.  

“In all my time in football, I have come across a lot of good and dedicated GAA men but I don’t think I have ever come across any man or woman as dedicated and committed to his club as Bernard Conaghan was committed to the Killybegs club”. 

Bernard was 82 at the time of passing. He was a native of Calhame, outside Dunkineely and moved to Killybegs to work in the Ice factory on the pier, where he was a hugely popular figure when the port town and the fishing industry were in their pomp. 

He is survived by his devoted wife Susie, children Brian, Gary, Sue-Ann and Noreen. Also sadly missed by his siblings Mary (Jimmy), Michael (Marion), Patricia, Angela and Susanna, sons-in-law Chris and Pauric, daughters-in-law Siobhan and Debbie, grandchildren, extended family and many kind friends.              

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