Love Your County: Offaly

Our Love Your County series continues today with a focus on Offaly, the county that has had some very dramatic days in Croke Park.

Sporting Pick: All-Ireland Football champions, 1982

Steeped in tradition in both codes, we couldn’t pick just one sporting moment for Offaly, so we plucked from one in both codes. The first is the All-Ireland win in 1982, perhaps the most famous victory in All-Ireland history, with Seamus Darby famously depriving the Kingdom of an historic five-in-a-row.

Having lost the previous final to the same opposition 12 months earlier, Offaly were very much the underdogs coming into the game, only scraping past Galway by a point. However, Darby would etch his own place in GAA history with a dramatic late goal and deny a great Kerry team their own bit of history. Kerry fans may want to look away now.

Sporting Pick: All-Ireland Hurling Champions, 1994

The county has just four senior hurling titles to its name, but their third success in 1994 was as dramatic a finish to a decider that Croke Park has ever seen. Known by many as the “five minute final”, they hit Limerick for 2-5 in the closing stages to rescue a game that seemed to be slipping away from them.

They eventually won out on a scoreline of 3-16 to 2-13 over a shell shocked Limerick side, with the Dooley brothers of Johnny, Joe and Billy, plus the Pilkington siblings of Johnny and Declan contributing to a grand total of 2-14 between them.

Visit Clonmacnoise

Meaning the “Meadows of the Sons of Nós”, the monastery of Clonmacnoise is steeped in history having being built way back when in 546. Many of the high kings of Tara and Connacht were buried here and there is a lot to be learned on the banks of the River Shannon.