Multiple handball champion Downey passes away
IN 2000, the modest, courteous and unassuming Paddy Downey was honoured with the Irish Handball Hall of Fame award to mark his phenomenal and historic contribution to a sport he graced with dignity and flair during a golden era in the 1950s and 1960s. This week sports fans all over Kerry are mourning the passing of Paddy, originally from Caherina, Tralee and later Old Marian Park, who died peacefully on Monday in his 90th year.
In an illustrious sporting career, Downey, a member of the Jones Club in Tralee, won 17 senior All-Irelands titles including two softball singles, seven softball doubles, four hardball singles and the same in the corresponding doubles.
He is the only Kerry man to win the 60x30 Senior Singles title, winning in 1958 and 1961 and the Hardball Senior Singles which he won from 1958 to 1960 and again in 1962.
He won 11 All Ireland Senior Doubles titles, seven 60x30 with Jimmy O’Brien in 1955, 1956 and from 1960 to 1964. He also won three Senior Hardball title with
O’Brien in 1959, 1960 and 1963. Downey also won one Senior Hardball Doubles title with Tipperary native Jimmy Hassett in 1953.
Whenever the sport of handball is discussed and debated, one game stands out in the history of the sport. Sixty-five years ago, 13 was a lucky number for Paddy Downey, one of the greatest handballers from the golden era of the sport. Thirteen was the number of times the serve changed hands at 20-20 in the fifth and deciding game in that year’s All-Ireland Softball Junior Singles final between Downey and Des Dillon from Clare. Downey won the contest recording the closest scores in any All Ireland final, 21-20, 20-21, 21-19, 20-21 and 21-20. This was a classic game between two of the greatest exponents of the sport in Ireland.
IN his younger days, Downey and his friends played handball against the gable walls of cottages on Strand Road in Tralee. They would practice by striking the ball against the large typeface letters used for printing posters. This continued until the construction of a handball alley in The Green during the late 1940s.
Downey was a stylish player and soon made an impact in the sport. He lost in the 1950 All Ireland Junior Softball Doubles final to the McCormack brothers from Mayo. In 1951 he tasted success winning the All-Ireland Junior Hardball Singles and the Softball Doubles with Tim Commane. From 1960 to 1964, he would blaze a trail of success winning five senior Softball Doubles titles in succession with his friend Jimmy O’Brien.
In a 2004 interview with The Kerryman, Downey vividly recalled playing Joey Maher from Louth in a senior hardball final in Ballymore Eustace. “I remember Canon Carroll stopping play to say the Angelus. It was getting dark and they had no lights in the alley. So the game was switched to Clogh in Kilkenny and we started again at nine o’clock that night. Joey didn’t want to finish the match and I said to Canon Carroll to give him the cup. I said I could not come back another day because my wife was expecting a baby. The Canon eventually got Joey to play on and I won the match by four games to three.”
Paddy Downey took up racquet ball to keep fit after he retired and, in the 1980s, was instrumental in the development of 40x20 courts in Tralee. He will be fondly remembered as one of the greatest sporting stars that Kerry has ever produced. May the sod rest gently on his noble soul.
Paddy, was the beloved husband of the late Maureen and dear father of Miriam (Foley), Aeda (Sugrue) and the late Gerard.
He will be sadly missed by his loving family, his grandchildren Garrett, Audrey, Eithne, Sorcha, Ian, Janna, Laura, Jane and Gary, great-grandchildren Chloe, Luke, Emily, Ava, Ryan, Críoa, Eliza and Alex, brother John, nephews, nieces, sons-in-law Frank and Nelius, sister-in-law Anne (Sayers), relatives, neighbours, friends and the entire Kerry sporting community.