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2001 – When Tyrone grappled with Foot and Mouth shutdown

The Tyrone and Cavan teams before the 2001 Ulster SFC Final at St Tiernach's Park, Clones.

The Tyrone and Cavan teams before the 2001 Ulster SFC Final at St Tiernach's Park, Clones.

By Michael Devlin

These are unprecedented times of course, but the current GAA shutdown does slightly resonate with the Foot and Mouth crisis of 2001 that wreaked havoc on the Gaelic Games calendar for several months.

Go back 19 years ago and Tyrone were still in search of their first national senior football title, but minor and U-21 All-Ireland success saw the Red Hands go into the new millennium with fresh hope of making the big breakthrough at senior level.

That year of 2001 Tyrone were going well in the then Allianz Division 1A and a spot in the league semi-final was in sight, only for their campaign to come to an abrupt end.

An outbreak of Foot and Mouth disease in south Armagh at the end of February saw the immediate postponement of all inter-county GAA fixtures, and when another case arose in Ardboe, Co. Tyrone, in mid-March, that adjournment was extended until the start of April.

In the national interest of protecting the agriculture industry and economy in the face of a potential catastrophe, Tyrone were thereby excluded from taking part in the league, and their semi-final spot went to Roscommon.

A case was also identified in Louth, thus also ending their league campaign prematurely. The newly promoted Wee County had made a solid start to life in Division One including a win over Paidi O’Se’s reigning All-Ireland champions Kerry.

Like Tyrone though, they were unable to take part in the remainder of their campaign, which eventually ended in a relegation play-off with Donegal eight months later in October.

The GAA season resumed on April 1st and the league played to its conclusion without Tyrone in the final four, and Mayo beating Galway in the final.

“I suppose at that time we might have had a bit of a chip on our shoulder about it all,” says the then Tyrone joint-manager Eugene McKenna, “but from our point of view it was very much, ‘get over it and start working on the next match’. We didn’t dwell too long on it.”

“We had a brilliant young team coming, that U-21 team with the likes of Brian McGuigan, Owen Mulligan and the late Cormac McAnallen were coming through, Sean Cavanagh was coming through from minor, so we were building.”

There were to be more disruptions to the GAA season however, when another case of the disease popped up in Cushendall, just two days after the Ardboe outbreak.

It would have ramifications on Antrim’s opening Ulster SFC fixture with Derry the following month. A 30-day exclusion period was imposed on the Saffron footballers, while Derry players within close proximity to the Ardboe outbreak were not allowed to link up with the county team for the same period of time.

Tyrone's Brian McGuigan in action during the 2001 All Ireland SFC Quarter-Final against Derry.

Tyrone's Brian McGuigan in action during the 2001 All Ireland SFC Quarter-Final against Derry.

“I remember a picture of Paul McFlynn and Johnny McBride sitting in the stands for a league game because they weren’t allowed to play,” says Brian McGuigan, from the Ardboe club.

“We have social media now and we can see everything all the time, whereas then you were really going on phone calls and what you were seeing in the newspaper.”

A young McGuigan was a rookie in McKenna and Art McRory’s senior squad at the time - but was also a key part of the Tyrone under-21 team, managed by Mickey Harte, that were due to play Fermanagh in the Ulster final that month.

He recalled: “I was involved in the U-21s, so I wasn’t training with seniors. When the U-21s were cancelled, I didn’t even train with the seniors then. Only when the ban was lifted I went back to training. The lough shore ones - me, Chris Lawn and Martin Conway from Moortown - were involved in the Tyrone setup and we weren’t allowed to go back to train.”

The defence of their provincial U-21 crown against Fermanagh was put into jeopardy when the Ardboe outbreak emerged.

“I can mind the U-21s going well at the time, but the whole thing came to a standstill,” says McGuigan. “At that team we had a good team and we knew we had the chance of winning an All-Ireland. Everyone was thinking, ‘Right we’ll go on ahead without them’, but Mickey put up a good fight and it got postponed.

“People were saying Fermanagh should advance to All-Ireland semi-final, and play the Ulster final at the end of the year, which didn’t really stand well with us because if you win the Ulster final you want to go on and represent Ulster in the All-Ireland series. Mickey got his way, the Ulster final was put off and we went on to play in the All-Ireland.”

Tyrone would go on to retain the Clarke cup in October of that year, defeating Mayo in the final. The seniors meanwhile, won the Ulster title, but bowed out in the All-Ireland quarter-final to Derry, who they had beaten on the way to the provincial title.

Club football went ahead in Tyrone during the crisis, with the exception of ties involving clubs from the 10-kilometre exclusion zone around the outbreak in Ardboe.

The Tyrone county chairman at the time, Cuthbert Donnelly, was in close consultation with Croke Park on a daily basis as to how to implement the safest way of running club football in the county during the crisis.

“Clubs at the time weren’t allowed to travel into those infected areas,” recalls Donnelly. “I remember going through these exclusions zones. You had to pull in, there were disinfectant mats there and you had to get out and wipe your feet on the mats. It was a very serious situation at the time.”

The Foot and Mouth crisis came to pass and normal life resumed, and while League and All-Ireland glory eluded Tyrone for another season, a long-waited first senior national title came a year later in 2002 with a nine-point victory over Cavan in the 2002 Division One final.

GAA matches were postponed due to the Foot & Mouth outbreak in 2001.

GAA matches were postponed due to the Foot & Mouth outbreak in 2001.

In 2003, Mickey Harte moved into the senior hot-seat, and the rest is history, with the Red Hand County winning their first ever Sam Maguire that summer.

From the despair of the 2001 shutdown and exclusion, inside two years Tyrone had not only recovered, but won their maiden Allianz League Division 1 and All-Ireland championship crowns – a quite remarkable comeback.

“Did the respite, not jokingly looking at it, but did it drive us on after that?” wonders Donnelly. “You never know if that would have been the fuse that lit it.”

The 2001 Foot and Mouth epidemic devastated Ireland’s farming community, but it pales in comparison to the chaos currently being caused worldwide by the Covid-19 virus.

GAA activity has been suspended at all levels, but the importance of the club couldn’t be more prescient, with many offering help to those in their communities who have been severely impacted by the Coronavirus pandemic.

Across the country clubs are going above and beyond to assist those in need, and it’s that civic responsibility and willingness to help that Donnelly believes is the GAA’s strongest suit.

“The clubs are absolutely flying as far as trying to do things within their community. They are the leaders in their communities. Every club are out offering their services and helping people. They are absolutely brilliant in times like this,” he said.

“Here in Tyrone, the work of the Health and Well-Being Committee have seen them helping people, advising them what to do and where to go.

“With the help of God, the people will do what they can and it can be controlled. I’m not a medical person but I think that if we do what we’ve been advised to do, it will be controlled, added Cuthbert.”

Brian McGuigan, a father with a young family, is encouraged by how GAA clubs are reacting to the situation. “When the outbreak first came out for the Coronavirus, your first thought was how GAA would be affected. But now it’s much bigger, and I think we are all really looking for calm,” says McGuigan.

“You don’t mind doing all these measures, as in two months’ time that everything is going to be ok and the fatalities are going to be as low as possible.

“It’s good to see all the clubs are rowing behind it. You just hope that helps us overcome this, because we do have great community spirit in Ireland. Maybe other places aren’t as lucky as we are that we have such a tight-knit community.”