Latest news with #KevinHeffernan
The 42
08-07-2025
- Sport
- The 42
Former All-Ireland winning Dublin captain Seán Doherty passes away
ANOTHER OF THE great Dublin team of Kevin Heffernan has passed to their eternal reward, with Seán Doherty, the captain of the Dublin team that achieved a breakthrough All-Ireland senior football title in 1974, passing away at the age of 78 following a short illness. Doherty was full-back for that final win Dublin enjoyed over Galway, and would go on to fill that role again for their victories in the deciders in 1976 against Kerry and in 1977 against Armagh. He won an All-Star for his performances in the 1974 season. He was later a selector with the Dublin senior football team who won the 1987 National League. More to follow…. Advertisement
Irish Times
08-07-2025
- Sport
- Irish Times
Former Dublin football captain Seán Doherty dies at age of 78
The death has taken place of Seán Doherty, captain of Kevin Heffernan's 1974 All-Ireland winners. He was 78 and is the fourth member of that ground-breaking team to pass away, after Anton O'Toole, Brian Mullins and earlier this year, Paddy Cullen. 'The Doc' was a traditional full back, a big presence under high ball and a physical marker. He won three All-Ireland medals, 1974, '76 and '77, and six Leinsters, 1974-79. In that breakthrough season of 51 years ago, his performances were described as 'outstanding' and he won that year's All Star in the position. In all, he played in five successive All-Ireland finals from 1974-78 and was a replacement in a sixth, the following year. Captain again in 1975 when Dublin lost their title to Mick O'Dwyer's youthful Kerry, he was succeeded the following season by Tony Hanahoe. READ MORE In the famous 1977 All-Ireland semi-final against Kerry, it was a towering catch by Doherty from a long free driven in by Ógie Moran that began the move for Bernard Brogan's goal, which sealed Dublin's comeback win with three minutes left. There was controversy in the 1975 All-Ireland when his challenge on Mickey Ned O'Sullivan took the opposing captain out of the match and hospitalised him. The pair were long reconciled and shared in the social reunions between Dublin and Kerry players. Dublin captain Seán Doherty lifts the Sam Maguire Cup after the 1974 All-Ireland SFC final. Photograph: Connolly Collection / Sportfile O'Sullivan told Dermot Crowe in the Sunday Independent earlier this year the two had never discussed it since, preferring to leave it 'behind the white lines'. His last championship was in 1979 and after retirement, he went on to be involved with the county at senior level. When Heffernan finally stepped away from management in 1985, he was replaced by a triumvirate of his players Brian Mullins, Robbie Kelleher and Seán Doherty. Although they served for only one year, he was retained as a selector in the succeeding management of Gerry McCaul, which won the 1987 NFL, defeating Kerry in the final and two years later, deposed Meath in Leinster before losing that year's All-Ireland semi-final to Cork. Doherty was born in Wicklow in 1946 and spent his early years there before moving to south Dublin where he was a member of Ballyboden Wanderers, later Ballyboden St Enda's. In later years he was also player manager with St Anne's. Although his first career was as a plumber, he subsequently became a well-known publican in Rathfarnham. In later years he returned to his native Wicklow in Glenealy.
RTÉ News
23-06-2025
- Sport
- RTÉ News
'The Jacks are back': how the Dubs put their stamp on Gaelic football
Analysis: The swell in support for Kevin Heffernan's high flying Dubs in the 1970s signalled something significant and new for the GAA By 'The Jacks are back'. The legendary broadcaster Michael O'Hehir proclaimed as much in his All-Ireland final television match commentary, by which time The Memories, a popular act on the Irish showband circuit, had already rhapsodized about it on a 7-inch single released by Rex Records. The Likes of Heffo's Army by The Memories from 1974 It was 1974 and the 'the Jacks' in question were the Dublin Gaelic footballers – 'the Dubs' - who had emerged from relative obscurity to win that September's senior football title. 'From poverty to plenty in twelve short months', as one sports journalist put it. In the telling of Gaelic football's story, this would come to mark a defining moment in the sport's modernisation - and not just for the higher standards for strength and fitness that appeared to have been set. Rather, it marked the moment where Gaelic games, so long associated with the recreational rhythms of rural Ireland, acquired a distinctly urban accent and its spectator appeal began to extend to a cohort of city and suburban youth that had no previous relationship with the GAA. Former Dublin footballer and St. Vincent's clubman Kevin Heffernan spearheaded this breakthrough. He observed how his team had succeeded 'to a large degree' in replacing 'the names of English soccer stars in the minds of young footballing enthusiasts and by their example in Irish sporting life' to having 'contributed to maintaining the national identity in the city.' Variations on this observation abounded. There was a near consensus that the coming of the Dubs was a matter of profound significance not just for the GAA in the capital, but for the broader welfare of the Association as a whole. There are several reasons for this. For a start, the team's record in winning three All-Irelands in four years represented levels of success that were, at the time, unprecedented for a team populated by native Dubliners. The early development of the GAA in Dublin had been driven more by the city's rural migrants than by native Dubliners, and it was these who had founded many of Dublin's first GAA clubs (many centred around workplaces or occupations) and filled the ranks of the county's teams. They were sufficiently good to helping the county to an impressive 19 All-Ireland titles - 14 in football, five in hurling – by the time the GAA's Silver Jubilee was reached in 1934. There was no sustaining this success rate. Dublin's fortunes waned noticeably after 1925 when the GAA introduced a new rule that permitted players to play for either their county of birth or residence. Dublin county teams consequently drew from a shallower pool of players and fewer All-Irelands were won. Post 1925, indeed, Heffo's Dubs became the first Dublin team to enjoy a period of sustained success - and Jim Gavin's would be the next with the five-in-a-row. But how did Heffernan, aided by selectors Donal Colfer and Lorcan Redmond, do it? The answer is superficially simple: by gathering around him the right people and getting them to play in a way that suited them best. Heffernan stressed that he wanted the right type of players, as opposed to necessarily the best players. He wanted players with character; players who would commit fully to the vision he set out for them. Once he had that, he explained that the job of management was three-fold: (i) to improve their individual skill levels; (ii) to ensure that they each achieved maximum fitness and (iii) develop field tactics that made the most these attributes. From RTÉ Archives, highlights of 1977 All Ireland football semi-final between Dublin and Kerry with commentary from Michael O'Hehir This he did to a dramatic effect. The fast movement of players and the ball helped to create space and scoring opportunities. The fluidity it brought to the game led writer Ulick O'Connor to extol that it was 'like watching soccer in the air', a tribute that doubtless disturbed some GAA traditionalists. The Dubs' swashbuckling style did not sweep all before it, however. It met its match in a young Kerry team under the tutelage of Mick O'Dwyer which surprised many by winning the All-Ireland title in 1975 and surprised even more by going on to become one of the greatest teams of all time. Heffo's Dublin and O'Dwyer's Kerry met five times in five years in championship football during the 1970s in a rivalry that a captivated media played up as a clash of opposites: urban versus rural, city versus county, culchie versus jackeen. This was a form of stereotyping that only partly stood up to scrutiny. As journalist Mick Dunne observed of their 1975 All-Ireland final encounter, Kerry had only one farmer on their side, despite being standard-bearers for the Irish countryside, and Dublin counted market gardener Paddy Reilly from St. Margaret's in rural north Dublin amongst its ranks. There was also no shortage of so -called "townies" in the Kerry team, the difference being, Dunne pointed out, that 'Dublin city is so much bigger a town than Killarney or Tralee." That it certainly was, and the disparity in size became ever more pronounced throughout the 1970s. Indeed, the rapid spread of new suburban housing was such that it would end up tipping the capital's population over the one million mark for the first time by the close of the decade. The rise of 'the Dubs' coincided with this moment of major demographic development and was a gift to a GAA that was increasingly anxious about its place in an Irish society that was no longer predominantly rural-rooted. It was therefore notable that as support for the Dubs snowballed from 1974 onwards, the team tapped into a youth culture that, on big match days, turned Croke Park (and the Hill 16 terrace in particular) into a riot of colour and noise which bore resemblances to images that TV would have made familiar from cross-channel soccer stadiums. 'We got pages of Dublin stories, badges, scarves, tee-shirts, pop-songs and all the other things that go with being successful sports teams nowadays', journalist Eugene McGee noted in late 1974. 'But in Dublin's case, we got it all to a degree that the GAA had never before experienced.' If the story of the GAA's subsequent development in the capital owes more to patterns of club organisation and to well-resourced coaching and games development strategies, the swell in support for Heffo's Dubs still signalled something significant and new for the GAA. It culturally connected the association to a growing constituency of urban youth and inspired a support base that in subsequent decades would prove both a rich source of Croke Park spectacle and a driver of GAA revenues.
Irish Daily Mirror
17-06-2025
- Sport
- Irish Daily Mirror
Gaelic football in Dublin was "absolutely dead and we were absolutely useless."
The Dublin/Kerry rivalry of the 1970s is explored in the new RTE documentary 'Hell for Leather - the Story of Gaelic Football.' Dublin came out of nowhere to win the 1974 All-Ireland title, capturing the imagination of the capital and sparking a rivalry with Kerry that revived the game in the capital. That All-Ireland final win over Galway in '74, under the late Kevin Heffernan, got it all going. Robbie Kelleher - one of the stars of that side - has no doubt about the effect the rise of the Dublin side of the 1970s had on the game in the capital and further afield. 'Gaelic football was absolutely dead,' four-time All-Ireland winner and four-time All Star Kelleher told RTE. 'I often tell a story of a friend of mine who was a teacher in Joeys in Marino, which was a hotbed of GAA and he went into a class of 15 year olds and asked could they name anybody in the Dublin team. 'And not one kid in the class could name one fella on the Dublin team whereas they could have named the Leeds United reserve team at the time 'It was seen as a kind of an ignorant game that culchies played. George Best and Denis Law were the idols. 'Then suddenly after '74 Jimmy Keaveney, Brian Mullins and Paddy Cullen, they were up there with the George Bests and Johnny Giles' of this world.' That was only the start of it for Dublin: 'Kevin felt you never really won an All-Ireland unless you beat Kerry along the way,' continued Kelleher. 'We beat Galway in '74 and then we were hot favourites against Kerry in '75 and they turned us over. 'Then when we beat them in '76 that was it for Kevin. That was his lifetime ambition achieved and he just packed it up after that. He'd said I've done everything now. We've ticked the box. We've beaten Kerry in an All-Ireland final.' The year it all ignited though was 1974 and that victory over Galway in the All-Ireland Final. 'It was an extraordinary day because we had come from such low depths,' said Kelleher. 'I don't think they had betting in those days, but if they had, we would have been at least 100/1 at the start of the year to win the Championship. 'I had played for four years before that. We were beaten by Longford one year, Laois another year, Louth another year. 'We won two matches in four years so we were absolutely useless. At the start of the year we were hopeless 'Kevin Heffernan said there used to be more seagulls in Croke Park than there were spectators 'It came from nowhere. We beat Wexford unconvincingly in the first round, Louth in the second round. The big one was Offaly. 'Offaly had been very successful in the early 70s and we beat them in Croke Park.' Dublin gathered serious momentum from that victory and would go on to soar to new heights. 'Then it just grew from 200 people in Croke Park watching us and suddenly we had 70,000 people in Croke Park,' said Kelleher. 'It was incredible then, the colour and everything. 'Before 74 you didn't have flags and things like that. The day of the All-Ireland in '74, I remember walking out the tunnel for the minor match and just looking up at Hill 16 and saying just wow, the colour was amazing. 'It was incredible and there wasn't great barriers in those days. My great memory from the end of the final in '74 when it was clear we were going to win was Heffo was down at HIll 16 end. 'With 'Sweet Aftan' (tobacco) in his mouth and he was trying to keep the spectators back from running onto the pitch. 'After the match the pitch was crowded and some fella came on anyway and he grabbed the crest off my jersey, ripped it off.' Kelleher says he could move freely around Dublin without anyone approaching him. 'I think it's very different in a metropolitan city the size of Dublin,' he says. 'If I was a star Kerry player and I walked down the middle of Tralee or Killarney everybody would know who I was. When I walked down Grafton Street nobody would know who I was. 'I am more likely to be recognised in Tralee or Killarney than Grafton Street. It's a bit different. We had a great run. I was very fortunate to be part of a great team at an exceptional time. Do I feel I am part of history? Not really. 'What I think we did do was change the course of the GAA, particularly in Dublin, but even nationwide. 'The image of the GAA changed very considerably, out of the Dublin/Kerry rivalry that existed in the 1970s. You can go through various phases in the GAA. A particularly important phase was the '70s and the rivalry of Dublin and Kerry. 'A lot has happened since then. You look around the clubs in South Dublin and the amount of work that's being done every Saturday morning is just quite incredible, but I think that changed the face of the GAA, not just in Dubin but countrywide.'
BBC News
03-04-2025
- Sport
- BBC News
Kerry GAA great Mick O'Dwyer dies aged 88
Kerry GAA legend Mick O'Dwyer has died at the age of Waterville native won four All-Irelands with The Kingdom as a player before taking over as manager and establishing the county as the game's dominant force in the 1970s and ' a period of fierce rivalry with Kevin Heffernan's Dublin, O'Dwyer's Kerry side lifted Sam Maguire eight times in 12 seasons. O'Dwyer also had a hand in 23 Munster titles and 11 National League titles during his more than three decades involved with his native stepped down from Kerry in 1989 and went on to manage Kildare, Laois, Wicklow and Kildare, he won a pair of Leinster championships and took the county to the All-Ireland final of 1998, their first since 1935, where they were beaten by would add another Leinster title with Laois in 2003, the county's first in 57 years.
