Tyrone Ulster & All-Ireland Minor Football Champions 1947

£34.50

It was to be at under-age level in the mid and late 1940s that Tyrone Gaelic footballers first made an impact on the national scene. The first signs of this came in the memorable Hogan Cup victory by St. Patrick’s College, Armagh in 1946, with players from Tyrone – notably the legendary Iggy Jones and Jim and Eddie Devlin – featuring prominently in the Armagh college team. The final against St. Jarlath’s, Tuam, Co. Galway – like Armagh, a great nursery of footballing talent – is regarded as one of the greatest games ever played. Jones’s hat-trick of second half goals was described by Pádraig Puirséal, who reported on GAA for forty years, as “the most outstanding display of Gaelic football skills I ever hope to witness” and represented the first occasion when a footballer from Tyrone came to national prominence. Another Ulster minor crown for Tyrone in the same year was further evidence of the emerging under-age talent in the county.
The following year was to prove even more significant, as a Tyrone team took the pitch at Croke Park for the very first time, facing Mayo in the All-Ireland minor final. Tyrone came from 4-2 to 0-2 down at half-time to restrict the westerners to a single point in the second half, and with a flurry of goals managed to overturn the massive interval deficit to win by 4-4 to 4-3. Tyrone repeated this success in 1948, beating Dublin by 0-11 to 1-5 to take their second national title in succession.
Back: J. McQuaid (Co. Sec.), J. Colton (Dromore), C. Fox (Dungannon), P. Clarke (Gortin), Mick Cushnahan (Derrytrest), Liam Campbell (Coalisland), Sean McGrath (Clonoe),
Michael Bradley (Brackaville), Tom Sullivan (Coalisland), Robert McNulty (Urney), J.J. O’Hagan (Clonoe), Vicent Cullen (Dungannon), F. O’Nell (Co. Board), A. Montague (Co. Treas.).
Front: Dan McCaffery (Omagh), Malachy Dargan (Cookstown), Michael Vaughan (Dromore), Paddy Donnelly (Fintona), Jack Poyntz (Dromore),
Peter O’Reilly (Trainer), Eddie Devlin (Cookstown) Captain, Jackie McConnell (Gortin), Harry Hartop (Dromore).

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