Brothers in Sport

by Donal Keenan

  ‘Those days you wouldn’t even think of being bored. There was always something to do. If we weren’t on the green, we would be out in the fields with the men helping on the land. You’d get fifteen shillings for a day’s work and you handed up twelve shillings and six pence to your mother.’

  Among the older lads kicking football around the green were Seán Grogan and Tony McTague. The Grogans were a football-mad family and Seán Grogan was named captain of the Offaly minor team in 1964. Tony took the frees. They won the Leinster title by beating Laois by a single point. They went on to win the All-Ireland title, Offaly’s first in any grade, beating Cork in the final. The seeds for success were being firmly planted.

  The Lowry family was growing all the time. Éamon, Joe, Jimmy, Mary, Brendan, Michael, Eileen, Kieran and Tom joined Rose and Seán. Éamon played football with Offaly during the 1970s and was captain of Ferbane when they won the County Championship in 1974. Everyone joined in the adventures on the green. They didn’t need organised sport. They managed for themselves. Under-age and schools football were not as organised as they are today. County trials were held for the minor team and clubs sent in four or five players for those trials after which a team would be picked for a Championship game the following Sunday. There were no formal training sessions. They were different times, Seán says. ‘I remember when I was picked for the minors and a few days later a parcel arrived at the house. It had an O’Neill’s football in it. Whoever sent it remained anonymous and to this day I don’t know who the donor was. I remember pumping the ball and the whole terrace came out to play with it. It was a huge thing to have an O’Neill’s ball. Of course, after two days it was kicked out on the road and a car ran over it. But it shows how times were.’

  Seán also played at under-21 level for Offaly and at the age of nineteen, in 1971, he was called into the Offaly senior panel for the Championship and ended up with an All-Ireland medal as a substitute. He felt privileged just to be associated with the team that would make history by bringing the Sam Maguire Cup back to Offaly for the first time. A year later, he was wearing the number six jersey as Offaly retained that title by beating a famous Kerry team in a replay. ‘I was just twenty years old and life was wonderful. I had two Leinster senior medals, two All-Ireland medals and two Leinster under-21 medals. I thought this was going to happen every year.’

  He was young and happy. Life was to be enjoyed and there was no better way to enjoy it than by winning big football games. Ferbane won the Offaly Senior Championship in 1971 for the first time since 1914. It was getting better and better. The club was always a priority. ‘I’ve always said if you haven’t a passion for your club you will never make it. When I’m eyeing up a footballer I never worry too much at first about how good he is; I go back and see what kind of lad he is. You’d often hear “he doesn’t bother with the club much” and that means he is no good to me.’

  Seán enjoyed playing with good players and there were plenty of them on the Offaly team on which he became a regular as the 1972 Championship progressed. The quality is apparent just in reading the names: Martin Furlong, Michael Ryan, Paddy McCormack, Larry Coughlan, Eugene Mulligan, Martin Heavey, Willie Bryan, Seán Evans, Seán Cooney, Kevin Kilmurray, Séamus Darby, John Smith, Paddy Fenning, Murt Connor, Nicholas Clavin and Mick Wright among them. It was an injury to Clavin that gave Seán his chance. He would remain in the Offaly colours for another eleven seasons.

  They won the Leinster Championship by beating Meath and Kildare. They accounted for Donegal in the All-Ireland semi-final and then met a star-studded Kerry team in the final. Mick O’Connell and John O’Keeffe formed a powerful midfield partnership; Donie O’Sullivan and Micheál Ó Sé were two of the outstanding defenders; the forwards included Brendan Lynch, Dan Kavanagh, Mick Gleeson, Éamon O’Donoghue and Mick O’Dwyer. Kerry were the traditional giants but, on 24 September 1972, Offaly were the better team yet had to be satisfied at the end with a draw, 1–13 each, in front of 72,000, a new record for the reconstructed Croke Park.

  The replay was fixed for 15 October. Kerry led early in the second half until a speculative ball from Paddy Fenning was allowed to fly straight into the net. Offaly seized the initiative – Bryan out-fielded O’Connell; McTague scored 0–10 of Offaly’s 1–19 in a convincing victory. There wasn’t a happier man in Ireland than Seán Lowry, was there? Maybe one. ‘My father, Ned. It was a great time for him. He had brought me everywhere as a boy, gave me all the encouragement I could ask for. He didn’t rant or rave, just had a quiet word here or there, little words of encouragement and advice that meant so much.’ He was fifty-four then and died at just sixty in 1978. ‘I’m so glad he saw me win an All-Ireland but it is sad that he was not around for 1982.’

  Seán looks back now and reflects on how football has changed so dramatically. ‘It was very direct then. Kicking skills were so much better. That was the benefit of how we played as kids on the green in Ferbane or anywhere in Ireland really. At home, I could kick the ball 150 times in an evening. Now lads go training and they mightn’t see a ball at all. And then they go home to the PlayStation.’

  Offaly retained the Leinster Championship in 1973 but lost to Galway in the All-Ireland semi-final. ‘I think now I should have savoured those days more because there were barren years to come,’ says Seán. But through those years Seán, Martin Furlong and Séamus Darby kept the faith. Their success had fired the imagination of the youth of the county in the same way as the team of 1960 and 1961 had inspired them. For six years they had to sit and watch as Kevin Heffernan’s Dublin revolution brought new colour to football and Mick O’Dwyer turned to coaching and created the Kerry team many now call the greatest ever. They could not have known the part they would eventually play in the story of that team and in the history of football.

  * * *

  Seán Lowry was one of the senior members of the Offaly team when they finally broke Dublin’s grip on the Leinster Championship in 1980, after winning the provincial final by two points. He lined out at full back in the All-Ireland semi-final against Kerry which Offaly lost by five points. It was the dawn of a new era for Offaly. Eugene McGee had set a plan in place when coaching both the under-21 teams and the senior team, and it was beginning to bring results. For three years between 1977 and 1979 Brendan Lowry was a regular member of the Offaly under-21 team, winning Leinster titles in 1977 and 1979. For the second victory, Michael had joined him on the team. Brendan had flirtations with the Offaly seniors during the National League in 1978 and some tournament games a year later. Michael was also blooded in the League in 1979. But for the 1980 Championship the two younger Lowry brothers were absent.

  Though his potential was obvious from his early teens, Brendan did have distractions. He had another sporting passion – soccer. The ban on GAA members playing other sports such as soccer and rugby had been lifted in 1971, but traces of the ban mentality lingered. Brendan doesn’t recall any obvious displeasure at his other pursuit, but it did interfere with his football. He was enjoying some success with the local soccer club and that encouraged him to continue playing. He also admits that he had a difficult relationship with Offaly manager McGee in the early days. ‘I didn’t get on with him until I got to know him and he wasn’t an easy man to get to know.’

  Michael had a small problem with McGee as well, though the reasons were more practical. He was based in Dublin at the time and would travel to under-21 games with McGee, who was also living in Dublin, and another member of the team, a law student from Clara called Brian Cowen. ‘We played Carlow in the Leinster Championship and were surprisingly beaten. Eugene never spoke the whole way back to Dublin from Carlow. Brian and myself sat in the back and never opened our mouths. He dropped us in O’Connell Street and I think we were lucky we got that far. He was furious.’

  For the 1980 Leinster Senior Championship Brendan and Michael decided they would take a break from inter-county football. ‘I was on a course in Dublin and decided to concentrate on that for 1980,’ says
Michael. Brendan focused on his soccer and enjoyed it immensely. Michael was back in time for the start of the National League in the autumn of 1980 but Brendan took a little persuasion. ‘It was my mother at first who began to encourage me to play again. And then Seán began to convince me that I could enjoy it and that we could be successful.’

  In the summer of 1981 the Lowry brothers and Dinny Wynne travelled together to Offaly training sessions. Seán’s versatility was being utilised again. He was playing at full forward that year, with Brendan on his right flank. They won the Leinster Championship again and beat Down quite comfortably to qualify for the All-Ireland final and another clash with a Kerry team going for a fourth consecutive title. It was a tough, close game played in difficult weather conditions and a goal from Jack O’Shea in the closing minutes set up by some intricate play by Eoin Liston, Mikey Sheehy and John Egan closed the game out for Kerry. Seán’s prediction that Brendan would make a big impact on his return was proven correct when Brendan won an All Star award. ‘I was also an Offaly Sports Star of the Year that year for soccer,’ Brendan recalls with a laugh.

  ‘Losing that final was a huge disappointment,’ recalls Michael, made even worse when they faced the enormous crowds that awaited them on their homecoming to Tullamore the following evening. ‘The people of Offaly must have been broke with all the games they were going to week after week following the hurlers and the footballers. Yet here they were again supporting us even though we had been beaten. You knew you just had to go out and try to win it the next time.’

  Seán remembers a meeting of the players in the weeks following the final. ‘We knew then that there was only one team around who could beat us and that was Kerry. We believed we had the beating of Dublin, Roscommon, Galway or whoever came out of Ulster and we were confident that we could push ourselves to another level.’ A training camp in Spain in the spring of 1982 helped cement the bond between the players. They could feel a team coming together. Richie Connor was captain for a second year and provided strong leadership, feeding off the experience and strength of character of Martin Furlong and Seán Lowry, who had reverted to playing at centre half back with Connor playing at centre half forward. The squad contained five sets of brothers: the Lowrys, Richie and Matt Connor, their cousins Liam and Tomás O’Connor, Pat and Mick Fitzgerald and the Darbys, Stephen and Séamus.

  They had a comfortable ride through the Leinster Championship, beating Louth, Laois and Dublin. Galway provided tougher opposition in the All-Ireland semi-final, but Offaly emerged with a one-point win. They were set up for round three with Kerry in another final – Offaly stood before the history-makers again. The country was consumed by talk of five in a row for Kerry. Songs were written, T-shirts were made. The parties had begun before the final had even been played on 19 September. At their training camp in Ballycommon outside Tullamore, the Offaly team and management were making plans of their own. Seán describes the approach: ‘We decided that no matter what happened we would mark our own man at all times. At no stage would two players go for one Kerry player and leave another free. If that happened Kerry could wipe you out. We needed to be disciplined and we were. If they tried a one-two, the two was marked. If your man passed the ball, you went with him. That meant they had to kick a lot of ball from 40 and 50 yards for scores because they had no one to kick it to.’

  Michael had his own worries. A hamstring injury had bothered him all summer. He had it strapped for the semi-final but found it too restrictive and cut the strapping off. He wasn’t 100 per cent fit but he was selected to start at right full back. Seán was at centre back and Brendan at left full forward. Michael didn’t last the game and was replaced by Stephen Darby. ‘People often wonder if I was upset at being taken off, but there is no point in dwelling on it. It happened. We still won the All-Ireland. That’s what matters.’

  What was noticeable in the Lowry clan in the build-up to the final was the confidence of the players, especially the younger ones like Michael and Brendan. ‘We had no nerves,’ says Brendan. ‘Those come when you’re thirty. I was doing what I enjoyed.’ Michael told his uncles that Offaly would win by five or six points. ‘I was telling everyone I met that we would win. There was this great belief throughout the team. We were confident together. Even when we went behind in the final we felt we could win it.’

  While Offaly adopted a disciplined approach defensively, they were also expansive in attack. The half back line of Pat Fitzgerald, Seán and dual player Liam Currams each briefly hiked upfield to get on the score sheet and contribute to Offaly’s one-point lead at half time, 0–10 to 0–9. ‘I was always confident,’ says Seán ‘that if we didn’t concede a goal against Kerry we would win. They had a habit of scoring goals that put teams away.’ Offaly’s strict defensive mode kept the options to a minimum. Martin Furlong, the goalkeeper, did the rest. In the fifty-second minute, the referee, P.J. McGrath, awarded a penalty to Kerry for a foul on John Egan. Mikey Sheehy stroked the ball to Furlong’s right. The goalkeeper dived and blocked it and Pat Fitzgerald cleared the lines.

  The next significant moment of a dramatic game came with two minutes left when Séamus Darby, a substitute, scored the winning goal. Kerry were two points up when Seán beat Tom Spillane to the ball and passed to Pat Fitzgerald. He was fouled and took a quick free to Richie Connor, who spotted his cousin Liam running up from his position at full back and passed it to him. Liam made some yards before sending a high ball to the edge of the Kerry square. Tommy Doyle and Séamus Darby went for it. There was contact. The ball fell to Darby. ‘The minute it left his boot I knew it was going in,’ recalls Brendan. ‘And people are still talking about it today.’

  This victory was about more than the goal. Seán points to the quality of the players available. ‘Just look at the full forward line we had – Johnny Mooney, Matt Connor and Brendan Lowry. They were three serious footballers. We were charmed to have them. That was as good a line as ever played football. You couldn’t get three finer footballers ability-wise. Brendan’s first half that day was brilliant.’

  Margaret Lowry didn’t attend matches and did not make exceptions for the All-Ireland final. But she greeted her sons on the Monday night when the team returned to Tullamore. And she was with them on the Wednesday night when they brought the Sam Maguire back to Ferbane. ‘It was a pity dad wasn’t there,’ says Michael, ‘but it was special to see mam when we got home.’

  The three Lowry brothers did bring the Sam Maguire Cup back to Ferbane National School. Michael also brought it to another venue a week after the final – the Bridge House Hotel in Tullamore – where it had pride of place at the top table at his wedding to Margaret. ‘It is always forgotten,’ he says, ‘that the girls made sacrifices for football too. Seán was married to Nuala, Brendan had married Brigid and we were gone a lot of the time. You left for training around six in the evening and you might not be home until near midnight. Your weekends were never free. There was hardly time for family life. But they put up with it.’

  Seán’s career in the ESB brought a move from Offaly to Crossmolina in Mayo with whom he won a Connacht Championship in 1985. His daughters Rachel and Sarah were eight and six years old respectively when they moved to Mayo. Rachel married a Crossmolina man, Gerry O’Malley, and Seán and Nuala are now proud grandparents of Tom and Ella. Sarah played ladies’ football with Mayo and competed in an All-Ireland minor final, but finished on the losing team. ‘I think I appreciated 1982 more than the previous All-Ireland wins because I was thirty and I was coming to the end of my career. And it meant so much to have my two brothers playing with me. Brendan was a fabulous talent. It is the sign of a great player that even when he is a marked man he can still deliver. He had a great radar, great natural ability. Michael was a harder man, he was the backbone of Ferbane for many years.’

  Brendan and Michael helped Ferbane to an incredible five consecutive Offaly senior football Championships between 1986 and 1990 and won another two titles in 1992 and 1994. They were also Leinster
club champions in 1986. They continued playing with Offaly until the early 1990s. One major incident involving a team-mate, however, had a massive effect on the brothers and the entire county of Offaly. During Christmas 1984 Matt Connor was involved in a serious car accident and would never walk again. ‘That knocked the heart and soul out of all of us,’ Brendan explains. ‘If we had Matt for a few more years you wouldn’t know what we might have achieved, but it didn’t matter really.’ Michael recalls Matt’s power. ‘I blocked a shot of his one day and I had pins and needles in my arm for two days. It’s a pity there isn’t video footage of some of the goals he scored in club matches because they were brilliant.’

  Once his playing days ended, Brendan began coaching at club level and was manager of Westmeath for three years. In recent years, he and Brigid have been travelling all over Ireland and abroad supporting Shane’s golfing exploits. After a brilliant amateur career, Shane is now taking the first steps in the professional ranks. ‘I suppose it is a dream realised,’ Brendan says proudly. ‘He has worked very hard for this. It is not an easy life. It can be very lonely, but he is working hard and he will get the rewards.’ Sixteen-year-old Alan is also showing promise and is playing off a handicap of four. The boys have a sister, Sinéad.

  Conor Lowry, Michael’s son, played minor football with Offaly this year. His brother Eoghan is also playing with the club, Ferbane-Belmont. ‘Everyone says Conor is like me and Eoghan is another Brendan. That means Conor will be doing all the work and Eoghan will be kicking points without looking at the posts,’ laughs their father.

  Seán has returned to live in Offaly. He was an advisor to the Offaly GAA Board in the appointment of two county team managers, Kevin Kilmurray and Richie Connor, but he has no coaching ambitions himself. ‘I just don’t have the enthusiasm for coaching,’ he says. ‘It’s too stressful now.’ But he still loves his football and keeps a close eye on developments. ‘I have had a great life, a charmed life. There were ups and downs but you couldn’t praise it enough. I lost more money through playing football, but I wouldn’t change one second of it. I know people will say it is easy for me to say that because I was successful. But it was about more than success. It was about the people you met, the friends you made, the GAA family I call it.’