James Christy

Jimmy Christy opens the interview by discussing efforts to revive Gaelic football in Derrynoose, Co. Armagh, in the early 1970s. The game had, he says, previously ‘faded away’. Christie’s introduction to football comprised, for the most part, of informal games in Kelly’s field, though he would have looked up to some well-known local players who would have played with a successful Derrynoose team in the early 1960s. Christie, aged 21, was chosen as club captain in 1973 and he charts the success of the club in that year’s junior championship and his subsequent call-up onto the Armagh county team.