Latest news with #Kerryman
Irish Daily Mirror
a day ago
- Sport
- Irish Daily Mirror
New York-born Kerryman marks All-Ireland winning week by making Cambridge switch
Shane McLoughlin has swapped League Two sides - by leaving Newport County for Cambridge United. The Kerryman, who was born in New York and spent the first five years of his life in the Bronx before his family moved home to Castleisland, has signed a one-year deal with the side that suffered relegation from League One last season. McLoughlin earned the move after a successful trial period with the Cledara Abbey Stadium side. The 28-year-old midfielder, who grew up playing Gaelic football and soccer in the Kingdom, was busy finalising his switch as his home county claimed All-Ireland glory over Donegal at the weekend. A former Ipswich Town prospect, he made two first-team appearances for the Tractor Boys before moving to Wimbledon in January 2019. After playing more than 80 times for the Dons, he joined Morecambe, and then Salford City, and in the summer of 2023 he signed for Newport County. While at Newport, he featured in their FA Cup clash against Manchester United, which ended in a nervy 4-2 win for the Red Devils. Ahead of that game, McLoughlin spoke to MirrorSport about the rise of soccer in the Gaelic football stronghold of Kerry, and how the arrival of senior League of Ireland football there would lead to more players emerging from the Kingdom. 'I feel now the pathways are different with the League of Ireland coming to Kerry,' he said in January of last year. 'As you see with Gaelic football, the athletes are there, the natural talent is there, it's probably just that Gaelic football was grabbing the players at a younger age. 'But that pathway is there now and hopefully you will start to see more players coming through and coming across, and even getting into the League of Ireland.' As for his latest move, McLoughlin added. 'I have been in the last week and have gotten an idea of what the club is about, what the manager wants this season and what the lads are striving for. 'It's a big club for this division and I am raring to get back into it now. I can't wait for Saturday and the season ahead.' Cambridge boss Neil Harris was thrilled with his new signing. Harris said: 'He is a versatile midfielder who will add strength to the department, with an ability to cover other positions, too. I am looking forward to working with him further over the coming season.' Get the latest sports headlines straight to your inbox by signing up for free email .
Irish Independent
2 days ago
- Sport
- Irish Independent
Here are all the details for the victorious Kerry team's homecoming this evening
Kerryman After Kerry's hugely impressive win over Donegal on Sunday, the wheels are now in motion to welcome back the conquering heroes to both Tralee and Killarney on Monday evening. The team's arrival in Tralee is estimated to be at around 6.15pm. An open top bus parade through Boherbee will kick things off before a welcome home reception at the Ashe Memorial Hall on Denny St that is provisionally scheduled for 6.30pm. There will be plenty of live music in the build up to the team's arrival from 5pm onwards. After Tralee, it's on to Killarney where another open top bus parade from Fitzgerald Stadium to the Glebe Car Park (via Lewis Road and College St) with the welcome reception set to start at approximately 9pm. The team will then travel to the Gleneagle Hotel where the celebrations will continue with a victory Super Ceilí for supporters. Doors will open here at 9pm. Send us you're matchday and homecoming photos!
Irish Independent
3 days ago
- Sport
- Irish Independent
Kerry's powerhouse Joe O'Connor: ‘It's just unbelievable. What a day'
The Austin Stacks man said: 'A lot of us have lost a few All-Ireland finals, and other big games, and we wanted to right the wrongs. We had setbacks throughout the year as well, and we just kept going at it' Kerryman After the outstanding year that he has had, there was something fitting about the fact that Joe O'Connor was on hand to bury the ball in the back of the Donegal net in the very last minute of the All-Ireland football final at Croke Park. An unrelenting force of nature from the beginning to the end of every game this season, the Austin Stacks powerhouse still had the energy to get on the end of substitute Killian Spillane's assist to put the icing on the Kingdom cake.
Irish Daily Mirror
3 days ago
- Sport
- Irish Daily Mirror
Kerry captain White praises fans in heartfelt speech after epic All-Ireland win
Gavin White remembered the fans that were no longer with us as he collected the Sam Maguire Cup from the steps of the Hogan Stand. The Kerry captain was immense in today's All-Ireland final and delivered a true captain's performance as an awesome Kerry side breezed past Donegal to win by 10 points. Moments after the final whistle, White followed GAA President Jarlath Burns to the podium and delivered a rousing speech to the thousands of Kerry supporters in attendance and the millions watching around the World. After thanking teammates, management, sponsors and family, White reserved special praise for the Kerry supporters. "Lastly, to our own Kerry supporters, the ones looking down on us from above and ones scattered across the globe, at home in the Kingdom and especially the ones in Croke Park today, we are most grateful for the miles you've travelled, the prayers you've sent and the candles lit. "Don't ever underestimate the impact you have on the Kerry team's of the past and of the Kerry team. "When we needed ye most this year, ye backed us in your thousands. Your voice was heard and you drove this Kerry team over the line. "I hope you celebrate Sam Maguire number 39 as much as we do. Ciarraí abú!" During his speech, White also paid a special tribute to manager Jack O'Connor, who was given perhaps the biggest honour of all for a Kerryman when GAA President Jarlath Burns suggested that with five All-Irelands in his back pocket, he deserved to be mentioned in the same breath as the legendary Mick O'Dwyer.
Irish Times
3 days ago
- Sport
- Irish Times
Ian O'Riordan: Con Houlihan would have been 100 this week – what would he make of this year's All-Ireland final?
They say one kind way to remember your heroes is not just the year they left this mortal world, but the year they entered it, which for Con Houlihan is now a century ago in the winter of 1925. Con once said he was born on the night of a blizzard in Castle Island (not Castleisland, and God help the person who misspelt his part of the Kingdom), where he would always call home, even after he moved to Dublin to join the Press Group when already into his 40s. By that stage he'd established himself as a sportswriter of promise, learning his trade in the Kerryman among other places. It was 'where the first three days of the week are spent studying the racing sheets and in other nefarious activities, until about 10 o'clock on Wednesday – in the morning that is – all purgatory breaks loose'. Con enjoyed a great affinity with all sports, though he once admitted 'which sport I would pick if forced by a cruel master to confine myself to one – the answer is racing. That game abounds in stories, not all of which – I need hardly mention – can be published.' READ MORE He described the 1985 meeting of England and the Republic of Ireland at Wembley Stadium as his first foreign mission for the Evening Press, apart from a National League game between Roscommon and Dublin in Dr Hyde Park on a wet Sunday in the previous November. That 1985 game at Wembley was where Ray Wilkins seemed to be clean through to score the winner, if it wasn't for for a young man named David O'Leary, who 'saved the day with a clawing tackle', according to Peter Byrne, formerly of this newspaper. 'In fact, he saved the night,' said Con, 'but I wouldn't quibble with the man from The Irish Times, that last bastion of the semicolon.' Con would later travel the globe, covering the World Cup and the Olympics, including Barcelona 1992 when, in the sweltering heat, and dressed in trademark jumper and anorak, he began walking up Montjuïc to get a closer view of the men's marathon. 'Then the Wall hit me,' he wrote, 'and it never recovered.' There is also his immortal line about missing Italia '90 because he was away at the World Cup. Jerry Kiernan crosses the line to win the Dublin City Marathon in October 1982. Photograph: Billy Stickland/Inpho He loved athletics too, often writing about Jerry Kiernan – the 'celebrated long-distance runner who grew up in Brosna, on the eastern verge of that great expanse of bog and little fields' – and John Lenihan, the farmer from Bearnageeha, who became World Mountain Running champion in 1991 and, according to Con'of all our unsung heroes, just about the most unsung'. There were few subjects closer to his heart than Kerry football, and I know that because of the honour in sharing some special evenings at what he called his 'harbour' in Portobello. Events invariably began with Con pulling out an old £20 note from under the telephone next to his chair and politely insisting I go round the corner to Spar and purchase two bottles of Yellow Tail wine, describing it as 'easily drinkable'. In select moments he would reminisce about Kerry and the All-Ireland final, never losing his draw to the third Sunday in September, knowing that back in Castle Island the turf was already saved. This July final would be truly befuddling. For him it all began 'in the same year as an unsuccessful artist called Adolf Hitler had started a commotion' and Con was at an age 'deemed fit to be unloosed on the good people of Dublin'. [ Prose and Con — Frank McNally on the rise and fall of a famous local newspaper Opens in new window ] 'On that September long ago, I hadn't been beyond Tralee; Dublin seemed to me a city of magic – as enchanting as Paris or Petrograd or Samarkand itself. Fuel was scarce and thus an institution known as the Ghost Train began voyaging to Dublin and into folklore. 'It departed from Tralee on the stroke of midnight (and if you believe that ...) and only God knew when it would reach Dublin – and I suspect that there were times when even He wasn't too sure. Women wept as their menfolk set out from home, fearful (perhaps in some cases hopeful) that they would never see them again.' It was also during one of his early visits to Dublin for an All-Ireland football final that Con recalled spotting a well-known delicatessen advertising a variety of 'sandwhiches' and later feeling properly confused at a small restaurant that was offering the choice of three 'deserts'. Nothing dismayed Con more than the gradual decline of the English language. From his early days with the Kerryman the signs were there, when he once heard a certain sports reporter say to the editor, Séamus McConville: 'You are capable of thinking that a colon is part of your backside.' Con Houlihan embraces Irish Press chairman Eamon de Valera, after a settlement averted the closure of the group in 1990 This remains right up there with some of Con's own immortal words, 'a man who will misuse an apostrophe is capable of anything'. He considered himself akin to those who emigrated from Kerry to settle in places like New York and London, and the need to recognise some loyalty to the place you are living while never losing sight of the place you are from. That was never better expressed more than after the 1978 All-Ireland football final when his 'friend girl' Harriet Duffin, who certainly considered herself a true Dub, was in Croke Park to see a young Kerry team take apart Dublin. When asked how she was coping with such a defeat, Con's simple response became folklore: 'House private. No flowers.' This was the 1978 final where Kerry put five goals past Dublin, one of which came after Dublin goalkeeper Paddy Cullen argued with the referee over the awarding of a free. 'And while all this was going on, Mike Sheehy was running up to take the kick – and suddenly Paddy dashed back towards the goal like a woman who smells a cake burning.' Con always said the idea of a natural-born footballer or hurler was a myth, but sometimes myths are more powerful than the truth, especially when it comes to Kerry football.
