GAA club will honour legendary stalwart with Hall of Fame induction
SHAMROCK GAELS GAA club will this week induct the sixth person into the club’s Hall of Fame - long-serving stalwart, Seamus Cawley.
A native of Doongeela, Seamus hails from a family of six siblings.
The family shop, located at what was commonly known as ‘Cawley’s Cross’, catered to a wide catchment area, serving the local community for over 50 years from the 1930s on up into the early 1980s. Seamus’ immersion into the GAA at an early age was perhaps inevitable, as ‘Cawley’s’ was noted for being a strong GAA household. Seamus’ father, Hugh, was a lifelong GAA man and his brother, Hugh would become prominent in the GAA at National level as a member of Coisti Bainisti, in addition to being chairman of the Croke Park Committee and also the first president of the Friends of Sligo Football.
One of Seamus’ earliest childhood memories was listening to the historic radio broadcast of the 1947 AllIreland Final from the Polo Grounds in New York and by the late 1950s he had started to become aware of the exploits of the great Sooey team of that era.
Seamus tells of cycling to Sooey in 1959 with his neighbour, John Mulvaney, to see a league match between Sooey and Keash.
All the talk that day amongst the large crowd present was that Sooey had the potential to win that year’s Sligo Senior Championship, which they duly did, thereby igniting a passion and pride of place that stayed with Seamus to this day.
Seamus’ footballing career with Sooey began shortly after that in the early 1960s and by 1964 he was a member of the Sooey Junior panel that won a remarkable ten out of fourteen games in that season, albeit that silverware eluded them that year.
By the following year, 1965, Seamus had graduated to the Senior team whilst also still a member of the Junior panel that captured the 1965 Foley Cup. Seamus continued to feature for Sooey in 1966, when they won the East Divisional League Final and again when they were beaten finalists in the 1967 and 1970 Foley Cups.
Work commitments curtailed Seamus’s subsequent playing career but he was to don the boots and togs again in 1984 when he played on a team representing past players from Sooey, Knockalassa and Shamrock Gaels that took on the Shamrock Gaels Senior team of the day in a match which formed a centrepiece of the club’s Centenary celebrations.
The game ended up in an honourable draw and amongst the other notables on the ‘veterans’ team that day were Gerry Keaney, Micheál Reynolds, Paddy Joe Quigley, Gary McDermott and Paddy Gannon.
In 1987 and ever willing to step into the breach, Seamus finally donned the maroon and white of Shamrock Gaels by stepping in as corner-forward to make up the numbers when the club hadn’t sufficient players to field a team in a Foley Cup game against Eastern Harps in Ballymote - and duly scored a goal!
In 1983, Seamus joined the Shamrock Gaels Executive committee at the behest of Vincent Henry during a period in which the club was starting to make inroads at both Senior and underage levels.
In 1985 he was elected vice-Chairman of the club and it was a proud day for Seamus and his family when, at the 1988 AGM, he was elected chairman of Shamrock Gaels, succeeding Gerry Keaney.
This was a period of unprecedented success on the playing fields for Shamrock Gaels as the club won its first Senior Championship two years later in 1990 and again in 1992.
Off the field it was also a period of intense activity and growth for Shamrock Gaels.
Under Seamus’ leadership, the club set about purchasing and subsequently developing the grounds at Coola.
As chairman of the club, Seamus was to the forefront of the mammoth fundraising activities required to firstly purchase the land, the huge subsequent undertaking of developing the new pitch and finally, the construction of the dressing room complex and spectator stand.
All of this was completed over the ten year period of Seamus’ Chairmanship and culminated in the official opening of the club grounds on May 3, 1998, with a challenge match between Sligo and Kerry.
This was an immensely proud day for Seamus and the club. In his address to the large gathering present that day, Seamus paid particular tribute to his fellow executive members, who had toiled so hard over so many years to develop all aspects of the club and seeing their long cherished dream of having their own club grounds being finally realised was an emotional day in many respects for all of these individuals.
Having successfully led the club through ten years of considerable growth, both on and off the field, Seamus stepped down from the Chair at the 1998 AGM.
However, this was not to be the end of his service to the club as he immediately assumed the position of County Board Representative, a position he diligently attended to for a further ten years and during which time he was noted for being a strong advocate for the club’s interests at County Board.
Outside of his work in the committee rooms, as a true and loyal clubman, Seamus has never been found wanting whenever the call came to serve, whether that was as a selector with various club team managements over the years, most notably the Under 21 Championship treble-winning teams of 1987,1988 and 1989 and the 2018 Intermediate Championship winning team; manning the gates at Markievicz Park or various other Connacht venues on big match days; being a willing and inscrutable umpire at matches or for many years helping with the general maintenance of Shamrock Gaels Park, an often overlooked and sometimes thankless task.
Aside from the GAA and farming, another consuming passion in Seamus’ life is traditional Irish music.
In 1965 he was a founding member of the hugely popular Patrician Ceilí Band, in which he was the drummer and in later years he was also prominently involved with Riverstown Comhaltas.
Seamus and his wife, Patricia, herself also to the forefront of many community activities over the years, remain ever-present and supportive of all Shamrock Gaels activities to this day.
Responding to his induction into the club’s Hall of Fame, Seamus said: “On behalf of Patricia and myself I wish to thank Shamrock Gaels GAA club for their kind induction into the Shamrock Gaels Hall of Fame, which I gratefully accept.
“I became a member of Shamrock Gaels in 1983. We contested the Minor and Intermediate finals in 1984 - St. Mary’s beat us in Minor final and we lost to Geevagh in the Intermediate final.
“The following year, 1985, we came and won the double in Intermediate. And in 1986 we won the Senior League. A sign of things to come. I became Chairman of the club in 1988, having taken over from the great Gerry Keaney, who retired. It was a hard act to follow as I soon found out.
We won 3 Under 21 titles in the late 80s and 1990 was the big year for everyone in the club, winning our first Senior Championship.
“As chairman at the time, I would like to thank the wonderful panel of players and management who made history for the club with their lovely brand of football. We won it again in 1992. It was then time to turn our attention to develop our own grounds and after a hard few years of fundraising we opened our new pitch and clubhouse in Coola in 1998. I stepped down as Chairman at the following AGM.
I was then appointed County Board Rep., a position I held for ten years. After that it was time to call it a day.
“The GAA is a wonderful organisation and I’m glad to be part of it. Our games are the best in the world but it’s not all about winning it’s about playing and being involved.”
“Success will come!”