Joe Carroll: Many Louth players’ lineage filled with winners

We’re always inclined to make family connections when a big game comes around. Would he be any relation of so-and-so? Is he a son of your man who played in that famous final we are always talking about? These are the sort of questions that are asked. Let’s take a look at the Louth panel and see what’s there.

Dylan McKeown, who made his senior debut in the Offaly match, has a good lineage. The 20-year-old is a grand-nephew of Patsy Coleman, who won an All-Ireland medal in 1957 and played in two subsequent Leinster finals, in ’58 and ’60.

But for the injury he sustained in the Leinster Championship, Patsy would have been the one to be presented with the Sam Maguire. Meanwhile, McKeown’s grandfather, TJ Coleman, won a championship medal with St Mary’s in 1968.

Ciaran Downey is a grandson of Jim Downey, who was best known as ‘Skinner’ in the days when he troubled defences playing on the championship-winning Newtown Blues, performances that won him a number of games with the county side.

Sean Reynolds, part of the extended Louth panel, is surely one of tomorrow’s men. The same could be said of his Stabannon Parnells colleague, Harry Butterly.

The former is a son of Gerry, who won championship medals with Parnells, and grandson of Brian, also a championship winner and a selector with the 1957 All-Ireland Louth team. Brian’s brother, Mickey, played on the Louth team beaten by Mayo in the 1950 All-Ireland final.

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Harry Butterly’s father, Pat, is another to have tasted county championship success with Parnells, while his grandfather, Paddy, was on Louth’s 1957 Leinster-winning panel. Harry was on last year’s successful junior championship Parnells side, which puts three generations of the Butterly family among the medal-winners.

The Reynolds’s have achieved the same feat, with the addition of Cathy, Gerry’s sister, captaining the Louth team to victory in the 1998 All-Ireland ladies’ junior final.

Conor Early’s grandfather, Seamus McBrearty, would have been well known to Mickey Harte, as there was no greater supporter of the Tyrone team, not only as a regular at all of their games, but as a valued member of the fundraising initiative, Club Tyrone, from its beginning.

The late Seamus was born in Tyrone, but spent most of his working life in Dundalk in the banking profession. He lived in Ravensdale and had a solid association with the St Patrick’s club, acting as its secretary for a number of years. There would be no-one as proud to see the Louth No 9 trotting on to Croke Park.