Louth senior league medal has been on two trans-Atlantic trips

Mary Staunton-Lyons was on a visit to an antique fair. There’s one held in her area on a Sunday each month, and Mary hardly ever misses. She doesn’t go to pick up a bargain, but instead items of interest.

There’s one stall she always visits. On sale are pieces of jewellery and other such items. She was there one week when a piece caught her eye. It was a medal.

On examination, Mary saw that it had the GAA stamp on it, and being a life-long supporter of the game, with a special grá for Mayo, bought it.

It was engraved, and on further examination she found that it was a Cardinal O’Donnell Cup medal, presented by the Louth County Board.

It was for the 1942 renewal of the league competition, won by none other than Dundalk Gaels, whose name was also inscribed.

Nothing very unusual about all of this, except that the antique fair was staged thousands of miles from here, in Alameda City, California.

Understandably, Mary didn’t know anything about the Cardinal O’Donnell Cup, or, indeed, who Dundalk Gaels were. So she asked around among her Irish friends.

One of them was Mal Rogers. Yes, the same Mal Rogers who played a key role in Geraldines winning the 1982 Louth senior championship, wearing the No 14 jersey in the defeat of Kilkerley Emmets in the final.

Mal’s been in America for quite a number of years, and is a good friend of the Lyons family. He was able to tell Mary all she wanted to know about Louth football, and maybe a wee bit about Gaels.

When Mal recently said he was coming home to Ireland for a while, Mary insisted that he take the medal with him and, as she said, return it to “its rightful place.” Mal passed it on to his friend, Niall Lambert, of the Gaels parish.

So, the medal is now in the clubhouse on The Ramparts, soon to be put on display. It’s not known, however, who won it. That year, Gaels also won the championship, the only one to have been decided in the committee room.

Make that committee rooms. Gaels were beaten in the final by St Mary’s, but after a whole series of objections and counter-objections, with meetings taking place at local and provincial levels, it was established Mary’s had fielded an illegal player.

There’s more to the story from America. The lady from whom Mary bought the medal said she often goes to England to supplement her stock. It was on one such trip that she came across the medal.

So, having first of all been brought to England – presumably by the winner, and maybe sold – the medal was then transported across the Atlantic and on to California.

It has in recent weeks made the return journey, which puts into thousands the air miles it’s been taken on.

No surprise that Mary is a staunch Mayo supporter. She and her husband, Redmond, are from Louisburgh, but have been living in the United States for the past 35 years.

They still follow their county with a passion, and for Mary, there’s the joy of knowing her father, Joe Staunton, was at right-half-back on the Mayo side that beat Meath in the 1951 All-Ireland final. His medal is a feature on her necklace.

This ‘51 win is growing in significance with each passing year. Almost three-quarters of a century on and the Westerners are still waiting for a repeat.

For the record, the Dundalk Gaels panel for the 1942 championship was: Tommy McArdle, Matt Twomey, Terry Doherty, Vincie Carolan, Paddy Boland, Joe Leonard, George McAdam, Paddy ‘Joe’ Clarke, Jack Regan, Willie Cantwell, Paddy ‘Babby’ Byrne, Paddy ‘Jemmy’ Crossan, Pada Regan, Paddy Hoey, Vincie McArdle, John Duffy.