Master of many sporting codes

With the blanket coverage of the 2008 Olympics in Beijing it is worth noting that another man, a long adopted son of this area, had the prospect of Olympic glory but for issues surrounding national affiliation to the great games in those years after the 2nd World War. Paddy O"Flaherty was Ireland"s long jump champion in 1947 and with the Olympic Games taking place the following year he would have been an automatic favourite to represent the country in this sporting discipline at the Games . However, the NACA were not affiliated to the Olympic Council of Ireland at that time and hence Paddy"s achievement went unrecognised in terms of the selection of the team that went on to participate in the Olympics of that year. The fact that Paddy"s best long jump record was an impressive 23.5 feet and that the jump by the overall winner of the gold medal was not much greater always harboured the belief that Paddy might have won a medal in 1948. However, he is quite happy to hold the Monaghan long jump record at 21 feet accomplished at Emyvale Sports in June 1951. However, Paddy is quite philosophical about his missed opportunity - people participated in sport at that time because of their love of it - a far cry from today when there is so much sponsorship and so much money behind amateur events, including the Olympic Games. He is quite happy to hold the Monaghan long jump record at 21 feet accomplished at Emyvale Sports in June 1951. Paddy came to Clones in 1951 as a meteorologist and was in charge of the Clones Met Station until his retirement in 1987. He has been an active figure in the life of his adopted town and of this region since then. Many people will recall his ability as a golfer (he had a handicap of 1) while he still continues to command the respect of bridge players from all over Ireland for his incisiveness in calling it correctly in terms of the most difficult match decisions. Growing up in Galway Paddy O"Flaherty was born in 1925 in Galway City. He recalls that those years following on from national independence were difficult in terms of financial circumstance. 'You could buy a large box of oranges for a shilling', he recalls. He was born just beside the Mercy Convent and went to school at the age of 3 - a not unfamiliar occurrence at the time. It was the start of his life of education which saw him progress at the age of 7 to St. Joseph"s National School (always known in that part of Galway as 'The Bish' - short for 'The Bishop"s'). He recalls that there were very good teachers at 'The Bish' such as Padraig O"Finlay who became Chief Inspector of Schools for the Department of Education. It was an all Irish school and Padraig O"Finlay taught Irish - giving his pupils a wonderful understanding and command of the language. Paddy has fond memories of his days at St. Joseph"s National School although he does recall that there was a fair bit of corporal punishment meted out to pupils who transgressed the school rules. The only consolation was that everyone got a slap if they didn"t conform to the school regime and there were no favourites or school pets. Even in his early Primary school years Paddy demonstrated his unique athletic ability across a number of codes. The Galway County Sports were a huge sporting event in the Connacht region at that time. The generous media coverage, particularly in the Connacht Tribune, of the County Sports was an indication of their importance in the sporting and community life of the area. In the 1938 Galway County Sports, barely 13 years of age, Paddy put in a grandstand performance taking first place in the U14, U15 and 220 races. He was also a member of the winning relay team of that day. Paddy was presented with the Perpetual Challenge for being the best all round athlete of the year. In those days there was no training or coaches to guide you. 'You just ran and ran because there was nothing else to do', he recalls. After the halycyon sporting days of 1938 it was time to move on - the demands of education and academic development came calling. Paddy won a scholarship to Ballyfin College in Portlaoise. It was a boarding school and no-one could have went there without a scholarship unless you were very wealthy, he says. Also run by the Patrician Brothers it provided the boys with a good education that would stand them in good stead for their lives. In keeping with the times the school regime was spartan and the cane was liberally used. 'If your shoes were dirty going into class you got 3 slaps', says Paddy who remembers that the Brothers wore a green sash and had the cane suspended from their belts. Ballyfin was also an all Irish school and the scholarship boys were put into second year when they arrived. 'We must have got special tuition', he thinks aloud as he looks back over his five years spent there. Playing against the Rackards The game of hurling was big in the sporting life of the school. Paddy was taught the skills of this fast moving game at Ballyfin and his mental commitment and natural skill meant that he was picked for the school team participating in those intense Leinster inter schools hurling championships of that era. St. Kieran"s of Kilkenny were the dominant competitors - the cream of Kilkenny hurling went there and so teams like Ballyfin and other second level schools in Leinster were regularly subjected to a tough hurling lesson given by the boys from St. Kieran"s. However, in 1942 Ballyfin caused an upset. Paddy recalls: 'Nickey and Bobby Rackard were playing that day and we beat them on their own patch in Kilkenny'. It was a tremendous victory and demonstrated that hurling was a game that could be mastered successfully and played at the highest level beyond the confines of St. Kieran"s and Kilkenny. Paddy concluded his student days at Ballyfin in 1942. He then proceeded to third level - to University College Galway where he studied for a science degree. At university he won the Connacht Long Jump Championship - a feat he achieved for a total of four consecutive seasons. The hurling skills taught to him in Ballyfin ensured that local hurling teams in his native city came calling for his services. He played for Erin"s Hopes who won the Galway Intermediate Championship in 1942. He remembers scoring a goal with his hand (he was a good handballer) that year a feat emulated later in the All Ireland Hurling Final by one of the hurling greats. Sport was his great passion and Gaelic football, rugby and soccer were also close to his heart. He was on the team that won the Connacht Senior Cup for Rugby in 1946, playing full back or on the right wing. Joined Met service After university he joined the Irish Meteorological Service and was posted to Dublin Airport on May 12th, 1947. While based at Dublin Airport he won the Long Jump Championship of Ireland and was now recognised as one of the country"s most promising young athletes. However, sport was very low on the radar in terms of self advancement. It didn"t give you any special status and you had to give first priority to your job and be appreciative of the fact that you had one. Paddy was then appointed to Shannon Airport and this in affect put paid to his up and coming athletic career. The staff of the Met Service was small at that time and if anyone got sick the service was in terrible trouble, he remembers. In order to further develop the service the Government decided to build about half a dozen met stations throughout the country which would be manned by fully qualified Meteorological staff. Things continued to be pretty tough for the overworked staff in Shannon and one day in 1951 while Paddy was sitting doing a chart in the Met station his boss dashed in and said, 'Would anybody like to go to Clones'. Without thinking Paddy replied, 'I will'.He immediately incurred a sense of trepidation about making such a rash commitment and recalls asking a colleague, 'Where is Clones, Tony'? and the reply 'I think it is in Cavan'. Life in Clones Paddy arrived in Clones on March 19th, 1951 - the Met station in the Border town had been opened for a year at the time. It was the start of a close relationship with Clones and the counties in this Border region - Paddy married a local girl and became a hands on stakeholder in the local community. He was appointed Met officer in charge of the Clones station in September 1958, a position he held up until his retirement from the service on May 12th, 1987. Clones over half a century ago was a bustling town with a busy railway junction. A man who grew up in the much larger Galway City, Paddy was struck by the fact that when a person was walking up Fermanagh Street they had to move out on to the roadway in order to pass the crowds of people, often three or four deep, coming from the opposite direction. He says that Clones attracted many holidaymakers each summer particularly from Scotland. The Border town also benefited from the fact that it was the first place the trains from the North reached en route from Belfast. It wasn"t long after his arrival in Clones that Paddy met his future wife, Kathleen, nee Connolly, a member of a local business family. They were married in 1952 and have a grown up family. He remembers playing hurling for Clones alongside such dedicated hurlers as Pearse Murphy, Dan Kerr and Mick Quigley. He played on the Monaghan county hurling team which relied heavily on Guards, Customs men and Departmental officials from the South and West who were skilled in the game. One such match was a curtain raiser to the Ulster Football Final and was a game played with remarkable vigour and tenacity by the opposing sides. Convert to golf For a man who is renowned as having been one of the best golfers in these counties Paddy"s embrace of the game of golf came very much by accident than by design. 'Jimmy Magee persuaded Ted Foley, my boss, to join Clones Golf Club. Jimmy was a very good golfer but Ted Foley had no one to play with and he said to me "You better join"', recalls Paddy who took his boss"s views seriously and joined the club. He continues: 'I couldn"t play at all. Eventually Christy Greene, the great travelling professional, came to Clones. This was 1954 and his lesson to me was to put back the ball two inches, rise it an inch and fly away. The next day I went out and won the Col. Madden Cup'. Word soon spread through esteemed golfing circles in counties Monaghan, Cavan and Fermanagh of this new golfer who could play with such accuracy and precision. He was picked for local teams and played in the Ulster Cup, Cowdy Cup and other major regional golf competitions. The late Baldwin Murphy then asked him to play in the Connacht Alliance in Sligo and in the early sixties he won a few winter alliances in Rosses Point and was asked to play for Connacht next year. He played for Connacht for the next ten years. Paddy makes the point that he was entitled to play for Connacht because he was from Galway. Baldwin Murphy and he were members of the Sligo Club for about twenty years and throughout his golfing career he played on all of the good courses in Ireland . He regards Royal Portrush as being the best course in Ireland. Pa Fla, as he is affectionately known, was first and foremost a dedicated member of Clones Golf Club. He was secretary for a number of years and was Captain when the new club house was opened in 1961. At the Captain"s Dinner in 1961 he invited all the previous captains then living back for the occasion. He played golf up until five years ago and during his career went down to a handicap of one in Rosses Point. Not bad for a man who decided to take up the game in order to please his boss. In more recent years Paddy is probably better known in the field of bridge playing. He states that bridge is a modified form of whist. Mrs. Heaney, wife of the newly arrived Manager of the Northern Bank, Max Heaney, persuaded him to start a bridge club. Her husband was a proficient bridge player and gave him a selection of written movements of the game. Paddy studied what he had been given and taking up the challenge gradually deciphered the intricacies of bridge and the different movements involved. He started a club in Clones in the early 60s - although he points out that there were already clubs in Cavan and Cootehill. Cavan would have been one of the first bridge clubs in the region, he says. Clones Bridge Club started to attract people from other areas such as Enniskillen and there would be 12 or 14 tables a night such was the level of interest. 'These people in Enniskillen wanted to set up a bridge club of their own and they asked me to teach them. It was then that I started to teach bridge in Enniskillen every Monday night, Dessie Dolan collecting me and taking me there', he relates. In the 1970s Paddy became secretary of the North East region which includes counties Meath, Louth, Cavan, Monaghan and North Dublin and held that post for the next twenty years co-ordinating and providing a leadership focus to the region"s bridge activities He then stepped down and handed on the baton to others in order to concentrate on directing - which is running tournaments rather than playing. He was appointed National Tournament Director and directed several international matches in the succeeding years. While he has stepped down from all of this busy activity now he is still on occasions contacted by other directors who seek his advice in relation to how to call a particular match decision. Still mentally sharp Paddy continues to keep up his bridge involvement with local clubs such as Clones and the two clubs in Cavan Town, the Crannog Bridge Club and County Cavan Bridge Club. He always runs the Dr. Cullen Cup for the County Cavan Bridge Club each year, a role from which he derives much satisfaction. Times changing fortunes As he looks over he life Paddy has a vivid recall of people and events both in Clones, the local counties of Monaghan, Cavan and Fermanagh and indeed of his native County Galway. He marvels at the apparent wealth of today and the austere poverty of the times of his youth. The 1960s marked the upturn in Ireland"s socio-economic development and he recalls the birth of new fundraising efforts that were taking place across the country at that time to finance the running of churches, parochial halls, schools etc. In the early sixties word came to Clones of a new game that was a big hit in America and which was a wonderful means of raising funds for parochial needs - the game was Bingo and the then Parish Priest of Clones, the late Monsignor Ward, asked Paddy, Luke Brady and others to launch and run a weekly bingo in Clones. This parochial command meant Paddy and his friends had to start from a green field situation in that they knew practically nothing about the game of bingo and so Paddy went off to learn about it. When the local group of organisers felt that they had sufficient knowledge to get the show on the road they decided to have a launch - as well as having the usual prizes for a line, a house and the regular jackpot they came up with the further idea that the last game of the season should have as its top prize a holiday in New York. He remembered St. Joseph"s Hall being packed on the night concerned. 'We made a fortune for the parish, I recorded everything and gave it to the Monsignor. Over the years the bingo has played an important role in defraying parochial debt', recalls Paddy. The sixties were times of considerable change - the 2nd Vatican Council heralded in a new era of lay involvement in the Church but one of the practices which continued to linger on from a bygone era was the taking up offerings at funerals. The practice was a relic of the past and caused annoyance to many priests and clergy alike as it appeared that the status of the deceased was measured by the amount of offerings generated at their funeral. However, the funding generated from the offerings was necessary in the running of the parish and Paddy tentatively approached the Monsignor about replacing the offerings for a more streamlined method of Church funding. So the introduction of the weekly and monthly envelopes began and were emulated in other parishes soon after. It enabled priests to have a modicum of funding necessary to run churches and other other parochial needs. Priests, including those in Clones, were living in virtual penury at the time, he recalls. Overall Paddy looks back with satisfaction on the opportunities that life has given him. He is appreciative of the friends he made in athletics, in other sporting codes and at the Bridge. He is a fountain of knowledge in terms of golf and bridge and keeps in ongoing contact with the people and players in both sporting codes.