Paddy Gallagher recalls when St Eunan’s last made it a double - 1972

St Eunan’s are in hurling heaven this week following last Saturday’s shock SHC final victory over Setanta.

The win was the club’s first since 1972 and one of those winners, Paddy Gallagher, from just across the road was in the O’Donnell Park stand to witness another chapter in St Eunan’s history being written.

“We beat Burt in the final and it was a bit like Saturday’s final. It was a huge shock at the time,” Paddy recalls of 1972.
“Burt were the hot favourites. They had won the previous 10 finals and no one gave us a chance. They were a good team with men like Jude Campbell, Liam and Pearse Callaghan and the three Whoriskey brothers.

“They were all great hurlers and I think we caught them on the hop. It was a low scoring game, I remember we led at half-time. I was in the full-back line and all I remember was we were under a fair bit of pressure in the second half and we held on to win by five points.”

The final score was 3-3 to 2-1. The Letterkenny team was made mostly of outsiders but there were a number of locals on the team too. As well as Paddy, his late brother James was in the middle of the field and Dickie McGranaghan, from nearby Ballymacool Terrace, played at right half-forward and scored one the three points.

“As far as I can recall, the rest were men from down the country,” Paddy adds. “John O’Brien was from Galway but is well-known through hurling circles throughout the county and still lives in Letterkenny here.

“They were mostly south of Ireland men. A number of them worked in the bank and I think one of them was a doctor up in the hospital.

“A good few of them were from Cork. Dan O'Leary, the left-half forward, was. He was Christian brother and he taught in the boys school.

“The main behind the promotion of hurling and who got it up and running in the town was Kevin Staunton, who was a manager in the IAWS Cooperative.

“Kevin got the hurling going first in the late 1950s and I remember we won an U14 county championship in 1958 and an U16 county championship in 1959.

“We went under the name of Na Lamh Dhearg back then. I am not sure how it worked but it was still under the umbrella of St Eunan’s and we played all our matches and trained in O’Donnell Park.

“Kevin put in a lot of work to get the hurling up and running in the town and it went well for 10 or 12 years or so. But then Kevin moved away and the hurling fell away in time. That is what led to the decline in hurling in the club after ‘72 and a few years later it stopped altogether.”

The Gallaghers are steeped in Gaelic football in the Cathedral town, with Paddy’s father Anthony involved in the championship success back in 1927, under the name of Letterkenny Rovers.

St Eunan’s also won the senior and minor football championships in 1972. Paddy, along with his brother James, won both Donegal football and hurling championship winners medals in the same year.

Paddy, once again manning the left full-back berth, was part of the team that had a comfortable 2-12 to 1-8 win over Clan na Gael - a Four Masters, St Nauls and Pettigo amalgamation.

“We had a very good team at the time with a number of household names like Seamus Hoare, John Hannigan, my brother Anthony, Sean Ferriter, Joe Winston and Paul McGettigan,” Paddy adds.

“My abiding memory from that game is that I scored a point, something which I didn’t do too often. I scored when the man I was marking had gone off, he must have picked up an injury, but they were slow to get a sub on so with no one to mark I sauntered up the field and scored the point.” Paddy would love to see some of the St Eunan’s dual players follow in his footsteps this Sunday.