The late Paddy Prendergast and the Donegal good luck charm

The death of Paddy Prendergast, the Mayo full-back in their most recent All-Ireland success, was announced on Sunday morning, aged 95.

The Ballintubber native and former Garda spent most of his adult life in Tralee, having lived in Donegal beforehand.

Full caption: The Downstrands football team called the Lilywhites: Back row Sgt Gill, John Moore, John Mc Bride, Paddy Shovlin, Paddy Mc Hugh, Dinny Shovlin, John Gillespie, Peadar O' Donnell, Vincent Rankin, Packie Mc Glinchey. Middle row: Pascal Mc Hugh, Paddy Prendergast, Michael Mc Hugh, John Mc Cole, Bernie Mc Nelis, Mickey Gallagher. Front Row: Packie Moore, Phoncie Kennedy, Packie Shovlin, Danny Mc Laughlin, Mickey Boyle. PHOTO GERALD MCHUGH

Prendergast lined out for Dungloe, Ardara and Donegal Town and played for Donegal in the 1946 Ulster SFC semi-final loss to Cavan, 5-8 to 0-3, having made his championship debut in the 4-5 to 1-9 quarter-final victory over Monaghan. 

“I just got a declaration form saying ‘please declare for Mayo’,” said Prendergast in an interview with AIB in 2017. “I had no intention and no desire to declare for Mayo when I was playing for Donegal, who I had been playing with for two or three years. I was born in Mayo but I ended up playing for Donegal because I was stationed there as a member of the Políní, the constabulary, and I was playing with Dungloe and jaysus we had some great matches against the likes of Gweedore.

“In actual fact, when we travelled to Gweedore for the championship, on that Sunday the priest who said mass in Gweedore had a football on the altar. I always said afterwards that he blessed three-quarters to them and a quarter to us!

“They were wonderful battles with them. So I was happy as Larry playing with Donegal, it’s a huge county and God knows at times travelling to matches was difficult because cars and roads were bad and so on. But a lovely people.”

At that time, Prendergast played for Dungloe and was part of the Rosses side that lost the Democrat Cup final in 1948 to Donegal Town - the same year he decided to play football for his native county.
Prendergast was full-back for Mayo in their 1950 All-Ireland win over Louth when he was playing for Ardara and played the year after when they regained the Sam Maguire beating Meath.

He was the last surviving member of that 1951 panel and Mayo have lost 11 All-Ireland finals since.   
Local legend has it ahead of the 1950 decider the Ardara club presented Prendergast with a bunch of white heather.

The story goes that an Ardara club member had come across some white heather grown on his land which was very rare.
White heather is reputed to be lucky and the club decided it would be a good gesture to present Prendergast with a sprig of the heather so club captain Harry O’Donnell, who was going to the Croke Park, was commissioned with the job of presenting the heather to the Mayo man the night before the game, which he duly did. 

And as the result - a 2-5 to 1-6 win for Mayo - shows, the good luck charm worked. It might take another sprig of Ardara white heather to lift the curse.

In his early days in Donegal, Prendergast was a guard stationed at Clogher Garda Barracks in Portnoo. He played football with the local Downstrands football team called the Lilywhites.  

He had transferred to Donegal Town and was playing his club football with Donegal Town when he won the second All-Ireland in 1951. In a career move he quit the gardai and took up a position as a commercial traveller/representative with Cassidy Wholesalers in Donegal Town before moving to Dublin then Kerry.