Inside Track: Will we see a new Paddy Farrell now that he’s among the elite?

Paddy Farrell doesn’t always get backing for the suggestions he makes at County Board meetings, but on the night a few months when he said that every club delegate should get an All-Ireland ticket, well, we just stopped short of giving him a standing ovation.

He represents St Bride’s at these monthly get-togethers, while I make the case for Dundalk Gaels....most times.

Paddy’s ticket suggestion went down well with delegates, but it was never going to get backing from the top table. It came after he’d asked how the Board’s allocation was being distributed. He didn’t get an answer, just a promise the information would be available at the next meeting. It wasn’t.

Is he likely to pursue the issue at future meetings? Maybe and maybe not. If he doesn’t, it’s not that he’s lost the fire in his belly, but because he is now a member of the establishment, rather than a thorn in its side, as has been the case ever since he first took up the cudgels on behalf of Bride’s and at other times, Knockbridge hurling club.

It’s now President Paddy. Having a few weeks earlier been presented with a Lifetime Contribution to Louth GAA, the sprightly octogenarian was named an Honorary President at the Board’s convention in the Darver Centre of Excellence earlier this month. He takes his place alongside Frank Lynch, Peter Brannigan and Paddy McMahon.

It’s an honour usually reserved for past chairmen, but because of his contribution over the years as a club official, county team selector, avid supporter and, as he’s best known, a monthly meeting contributor (sometimes agitator), he got the accolade. This time, he got a standing ovation.

Paddy likes to reminisce. As he chatted with Peter Fitzpatrick after being honoured, he recalled many games and happenings, not all of them, you’d have to say, with the fondest of memories.

Because he had his whistle tucked away in his rugby-style togs, the referee failed to get it to his mouth in time to disallow the goal that robbed Louth of the 1950 All-Ireland; Louth minors should never have been asked to play the 1951 All-Ireland semi-final in Roscommon against the home county; Armagh and Dublin played in an All-Ireland junior football semi-final at the Athletic Groiunds and it had to be abandoned when fighting broke out. There were others.

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Paddy’s club, St Bride’s, won their one and only Louth senior championship in 1943. There was a row in the club afterwards, and fourteen players left to go to other clubs. Why he mentioned Dundalk Gaels as one of those to benefit – getting two transfers – and not any of those to where the other dozen had departed, had this delegate slightly perplexed.

Probably the best known of the dozen was the player who captained the Bride’s team, Jack Treanor. He went on to be a founder-member of Roche Emmets, and was a proud man when Mickey Brady emulated his 1943 feat 15 years later. Interestingly, the club Jack left and the one he joined both wear the St Brigid’s Cross today.

And those All-Ireland tickets? Maybe Paddy will remember his former colleagues when he goes to collect the ones he is entitled to now that he has letters after his name. Congratulations to a committed GAA man.