Athy's victory laid a 100-year-old ghost to rest

WHAT a wonderful victory Athy senior footballers achieved over the footballers of Naas in the Kildare Senior Championship Final of 2025. The Naas champions had won the county final for the previous four years and were understandably firm favourites to add a fifth consecutive championship title to their record.

Athy last played Naas in a senior county championship final on 4 May 1924 in Newbridge. Naas won on that occasion, scoring 2-5 against the Athy team’s failure to raise a green or white flag during the game. I was puzzled when I first saw the scoreline, knowing that Athy had won the junior championship in 1907 and lost the junior title final in 1913 to Naas by four points.

My puzzlement was understandable when one considers the good footballers who played for Athy in that 1923 senior final; players such as Eddie ‘Sapper’ O’Neill, who later captained a New York team which defeated All-Ireland champions Kerry. ‘Sapper’, it was claimed, was also a sub on the County Kildare senior team defeated in the 1919 All-Ireland. He continued to play for the county until April 1923.

Myra Grant, Jim Clancy, Tom Forrestal and the Moore brothers, Tom and John, all good players, were also members of the Athy team in 1924. Michael Mahon who also played that day is believed to have been a sub on the 1919 All-Ireland winning Kildare county team.

The 1923 county final defeat remains a mystery, and it is perhaps explained in a subsequent press report, which read: ***‘The performance of the Athy Jazz Band, who paraded in fancy dress before the match, was more memorable than that of the injury-hit football team.’*** That defeat of almost 100 years ago is now laid to rest with Athy’s wonderful victory in Newbridge last week.

I have not so far been able to confirm Michael Mahon’s All-Ireland medal, which I’m told was given to a relation who lived in Kilcullen after he emigrated to America. If Michael’s All-Ireland medal is confirmed, he was one of only two Athy club players to have possibly won senior All-Ireland medals prior to last Sunday.

This year’s Athy championship winning team included an All-Ireland winner in Cathal McCarron, who played for Tyrone in the successful All-Ireland championship win of 2008. Cathal, who was a defender on the Athy team on Sunday, played a hugely important part in Athy’s victory, scoring two points from play.

Another All-Ireland medal holder was Brian Smith, a member of the Louth All-Ireland winning team of 1957 who lived and worked in Athy for a number of years. However, he played his local football with Castlemitchell.

Unfortunately, we don’t have any local All-Ireland medal holders, except possibly the earlier mentioned Eddie ‘Sapper’ O’Neill and Michael Mahon. We do, however, have wonderful footballers, many of whom have family links with previous generations who also played with Athy. In my article which appeared a week or so before this year’s final, I referred to those family connections.

Among those I mentioned was Pat Dunne, a member of the Athy management team. Pat’s grand-uncle Barney Dunne was the winner of four senior county championship medals while playing for Athy in the 1930s. His teammate Paul Matthews was also the winner of four championship medals, although I was not aware of this until quite recently. Both men, now deceased, were important leaders of the Athy senior teams during the club’s golden age of the 1930s, which saw Athy win senior championship finals in 1933, 1934, 1937 and 1942.

The Athy club subsequently went through lean years, which saw Athy defeated in the opening rounds of the senior county championships every year between 1947 and 1953. The club lost its senior status soon afterwards and would play at junior and intermediate level for some years.

The club would wait for 45 years to win another senior championship, with a win in the 1987 final, when the team led by Mick Fennelly beat Johnstown Bridge on the score 2-9 to 0-9.

The next time we saw success was in 2011, when the Athy team was captained by Michael Foley, an All-Star player, followed by a welcome victory in 2020, when the team captain was David Hyland, who also captained this year’s team.

The family links between the members of this year’s winning team and past teams is well defined and recognised. One such link is that of young Colm Moran, whose father (also called Colm) played for Athy and County Kildare for many years. I mention Colm Junior because of his extraordinary scoring record in the quarter finals of this year’s championship, when he scored an incredible three goals and eight points.

Congratulations to all the players on the Athy football panel, whether you played in the final or not. You were all an important part of the team throughout the championship and during training. Congratulations also to the team’s management of Conor Ronan, Paddy Dunne, Ross Bell and James Eaton.