Patsy Lynch, a true Breffni icon

Cavanman's Diary

Cavan’s recent ascension to the throne as high kings of Ulster football is still sinking in for some supporters. The win last November, on the anniversary of the death of John Joe O’Reilly, will hopefully be the start of another period of footballing prosperity.

It has been said in the past that Cavan had three truly great teams. There was the side of the late 1920s through to the late 1930s, the brilliant team of the 1940s through to 1952 and then the team of the 1960s, who didn’t pick up an All-Ireland but had signature victories over the best teams in the land and won four Ulster titles.

Hughie O’Reilly spanned all five All-Ireland wins either as player or trainer; Mick Higgins played in the latter three and was trainer in the 60s. A man whose contribution is often overlooked, though, is Patsy Lynch, whose colourful and highly successful career in the GAA is worthy of a book in its own right.

Lynch, the son of a butcher from Market St, Bailieborough, was just 16 and a half years old when he played full-back on the Cavan team that won the All-Ireland Junior Championship in 1927, the county’s first All-Ireland in any grade. His record as the youngest man to line out in an All-Ireland final – in fact, he was just a boy – stands to this day.

Lynch later won a senior All-Ireland medal at full-back alongside household names such as Jim Smith, Hughie O’Reilly and Big Tom O’Reilly (then a teenager and referred to as ‘Young Tom’) in 1933, and, like Smith, who came from down the road in Killinkere, he was a folk hero by the time he was in his 20s. After the ’33 final, tar barrels were lit in Bailieborough and a brass band headed a torch light procession to the Lynch family home to pay homage.

His playing career appeared to be over after he wound up in hospital following the 1934 semi-final against Galway, with the Irish Press even speculating in 1935 that he would “never don the blue of Cavan again”. Don it he did though, returning in the new role of full-forward late in his career.

By the late 1930s, he was routinely described in the national press as a veteran, despite the fact that he wouldn’t turn 35 years of age until 1946.

In 1944, Lynch took over as chairman of Cavan county board, meaning he was at the helm for the All-Ireland success in the Polo Grounds in 1947 and the All-Ireland and National League double the following year. By then, he had moved to Dublin, where he immediately went into business as a butcher, and he decided to step down as chairman, telling the assembled delegates that, in his opinion, the county chairman should be resident in the county.

Interestingly, Seamus Gilheaney, who replaced him in the chair, had actually appealed to the other candidates, MJ Mullen and Sonny Magee, to withdraw from the race such was Lynch’s standing that he deserved to be returned unopposed. However, he had made his decision.

The high-point of his tenure was undoubtedly the 1947 All-Ireland final success. After Cavan defeated Roscommon in the semi-final, the players and officers remained in the capital so that they could apply for passports, obtain visas from the American embassy and receive vaccinations against smallpox.

The staff at the consulate began work at 7am to process the visas, while the Department of External Affairs hastily prepared the passports. The Cavan panel stayed in Barry’s Hotel on Sunday and Monday nights, a crowd of well-wishers clapping them off on Tuesday afternoon. For 21 of Cavan’s travelling party of 25, it would be a first time to cross the water, but football had taken Lynch, Hughie and Big Tom to New York before when Cavan travelled 10 years earlier.

Twenty-five places on a Trans World Airline (TWA) flight from Rineanna had been booked and Cavan decided that their party would be made up of the starting team plus Hughie O’Reilly and masseur John McGeough.

There were two exceptions: Willie Doonan, after his experiences in the war, refused to fly and he alone of the Breffni starting side would take the boat along with the remainder of the subs plus Lynch and county secretary Hughie Smyth; while John Joe O’Reilly, due to army commitments, would fly separately, with his wife Olive, on the morning after the rest of the playing contingent took off.

Kerry sent players who were familiar with the sea, Dingle men mainly, and the rest would also go by air on the same flight as the Cavan players. Before that, though, the Cavanmen would endure a week of hard training in Ballyjamesduff.

Those travelling by boat left Cavan first, skipping town from Bally’duff early on the morning of Monday, September 8, en route to Dublin. There they stayed the night, taking the train to Cork the following morning. For our man Lynch, the journey south was particularly memorable.

On the way down, he met his future bride, Ms Lilian Farrelly, from the Old Cabra Road in Dublin, who was on her way to Cobh to embark on a holiday in the US.

The pair would be married a couple of years later and had three children.

On board the Mauretania, Lynch did some light training with the players but mostly it was a case of relaxing, writing postcards and enjoying the trip.

The weather was fine, although in the middle of the ocean, the seas got rough and some passengers struggled with sea-sickness.

On the third night, they were especially bad. The Kerrymen, though, weren’t affected. When they had met to decide who would travel by air and who by sea, the likes of Paddy ‘Bawn’ Brosnan, a fisherman, Batt Garvey and the other west Kerry players chose the boat. They loved the water, and seasickness was never a worry.

On the fourth morning, after the rough weather, Garvey and a few others came down for breakfast and, while their table was full, most of the passengers were too ill to eat. Garvey was amused by the sight and, tucking into their breakfasts, asked an English waiter who would win if there was a prize for eating most food on the trip.

“If you stopped eating now for the rest of the journey, you would still win,” came the reply.

By then, Patsy Lynch was 37 years of age and had still been lining out with Bailieborough, having reinvented himself as a full-forward after picking up that injury in a clash with Galway’s John Donnellan back in 1934. By then, his legend was secure anyway.

Patsy built up a successful business in Irishtown in Dublin and remained a fiercely committed Cavanman throughout his life, serving as President of Cavan county board in the early 1990s. He died in Dublin in November 1994, aged 81.