Our Family and the GAA - The Bellaghy and Derry Years
1956Bellaghy win their first county championship.
TEAM
T.MaddenE.LennoxV.MulhollandP.KearneyL.MulhollandH.CassidyK.MulhollandG.McCannW.StrathernW.CassidyT.GribbenC.MolloyJ.LynnD.J.CassidyA.O'Neill
Wolfe Tones GFC BellaghyCHAMPIONS195619581959196019611963 The above were in my playing years
They have since won the title in1964,1965,1968,1969,1971,1972,1975,1979,1986,1994,1996,1998,1999,2000,2005,a total of 21 timesbut only one four-in-a-row.
I had the honour of captaining this great team in the 1960 and 1961 seasons.
Mostly The Fifties And Early Sixties
The McCann and McAtamney families have played Gaelic Football and camogie since the now senior members of the families were schoolchildren. At club level they played with Bellaghy, Portglenone and Ballymena. At county level many of them played with Derry or Antrim. The reports and photographs on this page should bring back memories of those days.
How many members of this Derry Junior team can you identify? Unfortunately quite a few of them are no longer with us. The team is listed in the programme for the All-Ireland Senior Football Final of 1993. They had been beaten by Cork in the All-Ireland Junior Football Final in 1955. Derry beat Cork in the Senior All-Ireland Football Final in 1993.
The All-Ireland Junior Semi-final referred to was played at Charlestown in Co Mayo.
Junior teams in those days were selected from promising young players and older, usually ex-county, players. Players who took part in the Senior County Football Championship in a particular year(and I think possibly in the previous year as well) were not eligible to play on the County Junior Team in that year.
I played my club football with Bellaghy, first on the minor team from 1950 until 1953, when I had reached the upper age limit of 18. In my final year as a minor I played for the county team and we were thoroughly trounced by Armagh in the championship of that year. I had also been playing on the Bellaghy senior team during my two final years as a minor and continued playing on the senior team until I retired at the end of the 1963 season. During my years as a senior player with Bellaghy I also played for the Derry County Junior and Senior teams. I did not make it on to the Derry Senior Team that contested the 1958 All-Ireland Final.
I was however a member of the official team set-up for that final, having been elected to represent Derry on the Central Council of the GAA in January 1958. I often wonder if, at 22, I was the youngest ever member of the Council.In addition to the honours listed in the coloured panels above, Bellaghy won the first ever Ulster Senior Football Championship in 1968 and went on to win it again in 1971,1994 and 2000; and also won the 1972 All-Ireland Senior Football Championship.
My brother Ben was a member of the All-Ireland winning team and over the years many of my Doherty and McNally cousins played for Bellaghy and also for the Derry County Team. My nephew Joseph Diver played for Bellaghy and also for Derry County with great distinction.My nephews Tommy and Paul McCann played for the Greenlough Club and also for Derry County. Paul was a member of the Derry county team that played in the National League semi-final in 1987.
A number of my Convery nephews played for Portglenone, notably Tony who also played for Antrim County.
My nephew Brian McCann also played for Portglenone and Antrim and both of them were members of the team that won Portglenone's first ever County Championship title this year (2014).
Congratulations to them and to Portglenone!
On the McAtamney side of the family all my wife Frances's brothers,'Joey', Aeneas, John, Vincie and Anthony played for the Portglenone Club and most of them also played for Antrim County at various levels. Anthony merits special mention for not only did he play for Portglenone and Antrim, but was also a member of the Ulster Railway Cup Team on a number of occasions. Anthony's son Enda played for All Saint's Ballymena and Antrim County.
The McAtamneys were also a Camogie family. All the girls, Frances, Mairead, Theresa and Sheena played for the Portglenone Club and Mairead also played for Antrim County, winning two All-Ireland medals, and was selected on 'The Team Of The Century' in the year 2000. Many of their nieces also played for Portglenone and Antrim County winning county and All-Ireland medals.
Here I have drawn a line under the fifties and early sixties, but before we leave that era I want to remember family members and others mentioned above who are no longer with us:
my wife Frances; my mother and father Tom and Annie McCann; my sister Rosemary; my brothers Paddy and Willie John; my nephews Dermot, Sean, Paul and Seamus McCann; my mother-in-law and father-in-law Jeannie and John McAtamney; my sister-in-law Theresa Grant and my brothers-in-law Aeneas and Anthony McAtamney; Tommy Madden; Vincent Mulholland; Willie Strathern; Tommy Gribben; Jimmy Brennan; Willie Higgins and the many others from both Bellaghy and Derry and players and officials from other clubs who were my friends and very much part of my life in those days.
May they all Rest In Peace!
