Loughmacrory hope to write another chapter in rags to riches story 

By John Harrington

If you need to know something about Loughmacrory GAA club, then Seamus Mullan is your man.

He’s literally written the book – a 460-page club history that marked the club’s 50^th anniversary two years ago.

Mullan, now Loughmacrory Club President, was the right man for that particular job. He was there when it all began in 1973 and has given more to the administrative side of the club than anyone else.

He was a stalwart throughout what he calls the “bad old days of the ‘70s and ‘80s”, so he still can’t quite believe that they are the newly minted Tyrone Senior Football Champions.

“It's only getting in to me now that we're county champions,” say Mullan. “It's only slowly, slowly getting in to me.

“On the pitch after the final there were people crying but my emotions weren't like that. I mean, I was over the moon and we were all going around hugging each other on the field and what not.

“But the reality of it is only now really seeping in. It's only slowly dawning on me...you’re saying to yourself, ‘hold on, we're county champions! Junior champions? No, senior champions!’

“I feel quite privileged that we have reached the promised land. It doesn't always work that way, I appreciate that. You have to pinch yourself. We have the best Christmas yet gotten already.

“I remember in the poor old days when we were in a bad place at junior level but now the whole community is just wrapped around the club. We're top of the tree in Tyrone and it really is something. I never dreamed that I'd live to see it. If I was to die now I'd die a happy man!”

Until 1973, Loughmacrory lads played their football with Carrickmore GAA club as they’re all the one parish, but in 1972 a few good men got together and decided it was time to strike out on their own.

They met with some resistance, but they persevered and Loughmacrory St. Teresa’s was born.

“Certainly a lot of people would have been very opposed to setting up a second club in the parish,” says Mullan.

“Some of them even had the idea that maybe we could maybe play for the junior team and they would have first call on all the players for the senior team.

“We were saying, 'No, no no, we wanted our own team.' God rest Joe Martin who wrote the history of Tyrone GAA, he was Carrickmore Chairman and anxious there would be no objection to us and that was very important. I feel like if they had really put up a big battle that they could have stopped us.

“Some of them probably though, well, they'll not last too long anyway, let them go ahead!”

The loss of their Loughmacrory contingent certainly didn’t seem to bother Carrickmore too unduly as the racked up nine county championships from 1977 to 2005 to move top of the honours list in Tyrone where they still remain.

Loughmacrory shivered for many years in their shadow, all that changed when they beat their neighbours after a replay in this year’s Tyrone SFC semi-final. There are many in the club who will tell you that win was even sweeter than the county final victory over Trillick.

“There's one secondary school in the parish to which all the children from both clubs go so you can imagine the craic,” says Mullan.

“The buzz after the final was just unbelievable. Especially playing a draw the first day, that was really exciting to have a replay in a county semi-final between two teams from the same parish with the rivalry that's there.

“Then to win that replay with the last kick of the game…in the bad old days you would never have imagined we’d have a moment like that.

“In fairness to Carrickmore, I met some great Carrickmore friends on the pitch after the county final.

“Very magnanimous people to be there at all who were delighted for us. And I've gotten loads of text messages as well from Carrickmore people as well. Fair play to them, they were very happy for us.”

Loughmacrory’s rise to prominence is down to hard work as these rags to riches stories generally are.

The club put a big emphasis on underage development and engaging with their local community and are now earning the dividend.

“People who wouldn't have been much interested in football in the bad old days of the 1970s and 1980s, suddenly all of these families became involved and the club is now very much at the heart of the community,” says Mullan.

“Huge work has gone into the underage structures and now we have a really good group of very talented players who played a lot of county underage.

“Of course, it helps too when you have a family of five boys who are all over six feet tall and are all good footballers, the Donaghy clan.”

The Donaghy brothers have certainly had a huge impact this year as have two of the brightest young attacking talents in Tyrone football, Eoin McElholm and Ruairi McCullagh.

All-Ireland U20 winners with the Red Hand County in 2024 and 2025, they’ve played with a maturity this year for their club that has belied their youth.

“A man introduced me to his girlfriend recently and he introduced me as 'a brother of Eoin McElholm's granny'!”, chuckles Mullan. “That's my new claim to fame!

“Eoin and Ruairi have been just fantastic. I call them 'The Terrible Twins'. The two-pointer that McCullagh scored to win the semi-final replay against Carrickmore summed him up. It was just top-drawer. He was bold enough to go for it with the last kick of the game because he's just full of confidence.

“Confidence is a big thing with this team, and expectation. We all now expect so much from them and they have the confidence to deliver on that.

“Those two have won MacRory and Hogan Cups with the school and underage All-Irelands with Tyrone so they're just very confident footballers.

“What they’ve achieved and the way they’ve done it has glued the community together even that wee bit more tighter. At the homecoming the crowds of people at the crossroads, what we call 'The Corner', was unbelievable.

“The team came through on an open-back lorry and there were just children everywhere looking up at their heroes. My book was called 'Making Our Own Heroes', which is what we have actually now done.

“Those children will have those memories for years to come. There will never be a first again.”

Loughmacrory’s year of years might not be over just yet. They’ll go into Saturday’s AIB Ulster Club SFC quarter-final against a very experienced Kilcoo as underdogs, but they’ve made light of that tag all year.

“Kilcoo weren't going for a Down title this year, they were going for Ulster and All-Ireland titles so I don't know if we can compete with them, but I do know our players don't think like that,” says Mullan.

“They haven't shown any fear all year. Old boys like me would be scared of these big names. Errigal Ciaran would have been someplace way up in the clouds, but for these young boys big names mean nothing to them at all.”