This was a great night’s craic hosted by Assistant PRO Francis Quinn, with reminiscences of players from the 1940s to 2000s! Jerry and Francis secured recordings from Paddy O’Hagan, one of only two Clonduff players to ever win six County Championship medals (the other was the later Henry Brown) and is the last surviving member of the County Team that secured Down’s first All Ireland title – the Junior in 1946! Next up on video was Leo Lowry who regaled us with stories from the 50s – he and his family attended on the night; then it was the turn of John (Darner) O’Hagan who had us all in stitches with his anecdotal stories of his playing days – particularly the story about sustaining a ‘blood injury’ on the cheek only to discover a week later someone’s tooth had embedded itself in his cheek – on confronting the tooth’s owner some time later the Castlewellan player revealed that he’d lost two teeth and wondered where the other one had gone!
The second part of the show was a ‘live’ panel of players from the 1980 and 2000 Championship winning teams – P O McConville, Martin Farnon, Arty Noel McConville (1980); Ross Carr and Cathal Murray (2000). The three Eddies pictured above – Eddie Gribben, Eddie O’Hagan and Eddie McParland played in 1950s and 1960s but were a bit shy about sitting on the panel. It was a great idea to kick off our 125 celebrations – great entertainment and inspiration!
