Donegal Sports Star Special: From top Gaelic footballer to Donegal Sports Star golfer

Sean McCormack was a Donegal Sports Star award winner in 1977. The Sligo native played Gaelic football for Donegal and Sligo and club football in Donegal with Aodh Ruadh and in Mayo with Crossmolina.

But it was in golf that Sean, who now lives in Milford, won his Donegal Sports Star award.

Sean was the 1977 Donegal Sports Star Golf award winner.

He was the captain of the Portsalon Golf Club team that reached the semi-final of the Ulster Cup in ‘77, the first Donegal club to do so.

Sean McCormick was also a skilfull Gaelic footballer who played with his native Sligo for just one season and with his adopted Donegal for the best part of a decade.

After successive first round exits in the Ulster Cup in 1974, ’75 and ‘76, Portsalon finally got their act together in ‘77 and they put a formidable team together with Sean McCormick captain.

“Portsalon was only a small club at the time but we had learned from the experience of the previous three years. We put a good team together.”

They defeated Letterkenny in Donegal and Strabane, City of Derry, which was a much bigger club than Portsalon, and Armagh in Ulster to qualify for the semi-final. This was a first for a Donegal club.

“We played Mourne from Co Down in the semi-final in Royal County Down. It was on a home and away basis and while we pushed the boat out and gave it our best we lost the match.

“But we introduced a lot of people to Portsalon for the first time and many who came back for years afterwards and still come to this day,.

“The Mourne Club was made up of a lot of GAA men. I played against Kevin Mussen. Kevin was a member of the great Down All-Ireland winning team of 1960 and ‘61 and I hadn’t met him from the time we played against each other in the Ulster Championship.”

Portsalon made it to the semi-final again in 1978 and again came up against the Mourne Golf club and lost again.”

Portsalon was owned by the Portsalon Hotel at the time. But a number of years later the members were given an opportunity to buy the course.

And despite having only £74 in the bank, the members took the plunge and bought the course.

We negotiated the price down and we bought it for £60,000, but the question now was how were we going to pay for it.

“It was decided to run a draw and we were the first club in Donegal to run a £100 draw. We ran it over ten months and sold 1,500 tickets and made a profit of £150,000.

“We ended up with a golf course and £90,000 in the bank, which was a good deal all round.

“We have continued to develop and improve the club down the years and last year, 2017, Portsalon was voted the 16th best golf course in Ireland.

“This is something we are very proud of; it is a fantastic golf course and attracts large numbers of visitors to the area year after year.”

Sean McCormack grew up in Tubbercurry in Sligo, but moved to Ballyshannon in Donegal as a young man.

He played one season for Sligo, 1954, and was a member of the Sligo team beaten by a crack Galway team in the 1954 Connacht final.

“I came to Ballyshannon in 1954. I worked with the ESB at the generating station.

“I played with Sligo in 1954. We reached the Connacht final and were beaten by Galway; a Galway team that included the great Sean Purcell and Frank Stockwell. “Galway only beat us by a couple of points in that final.”

Sean’s career in a Donegal jersey spanned two decades. He played from 1955 to 1961 and all that time too played for Aodh Ruadh.

“We had terrific footballers in Donegal at that time. Players like Cookie Boyle, Mickey Ruadh Gallagher, Gaoth Dobhair; Jim the Natch Gallagher, Patsy Brogan, Jackie McDermott, Sean O’Donnell, Dom Murray, Joe Carroll, Peadar McGeehin and Denis Hegarty were all brilliant footballers.

“My first game with Donegal was in Irvinestown in March of 1955 and my first championship game with Donegal was against Monaghan in Bundoran, in the summer of 1955.

“We beat Monaghan handsomely in that game. Myself and Sean O’Donnell have the same birthdays and we were making our championship debuts in that game.”

Sean played in two championship finals and lost both and he also was club secretary for a number of years.

St Eunan’s beat us in 1956 and Dungloe beat us in 1957.

“We had a good team. Jim ‘Natch’ Gallagher, Jackie McDermott, Matt Regan, Teddy Loughlin, Hugh McGonagle, Eoghan Roe O’Neill, Joe O’Neill, John Murphy and Michael Cooney were on those two teams.”

Sean had moved on by the time Aodh Ruadh and Bundordan joined forces to form the great St Joseph’s team of the second half of the 1960s.

However, he does recall a meeting during the time he was Aodh Ruadh secretary of finding himself in a room on his own with a room full of Bundoran people.

“I was the sole representative from Aodh Ruadh that was sent out to meet a Bundoran delegation to discuss an amalgamation.

“I was sent out to Bundoran on my own because the Ballyshannon men were not all that enamoured with the idea.

“There was a great anathema between Ballyshannon and Bundoran at that time. Ballyshannon men like the Dodger were not all that in favour of an amalgamation.

“The amalgamation did not happen at the time. It took another four or five years before it happened but that was the meeting that got the ball rolling.”

Sean played his last game for Donegal in 1961 and also ended his playing days with Aodh Ruadh, after he he was transferred to Mayo in 1862.

He played for one season with Crossmolina with whom he won a Mayo junior championship.

Sean is 82 (he turns 83, on the last day of January) and he is as passionate about Gaelic football and Donegal as he was in his playing days.

But the game of golf and Portsalon Golf Club is now, and has been for some time, his number one sporting obsession.

The 42nd Donegal Sports Star awards are being held on Friday, 26th January in the Mount Errigal Hotel, Letterkenny. Tickets are available from the Mount Errigal, the sole selling agent.