11 Years Ago Today - Cormac McAnallen

[AZOffaly]

Hard to Credit it, but today is Cormac McAnallen's 11th Anniversary. He'd be 35 or so now I suppose, and probably finished his inter county career with the rest of his comrades from 2003. I can still remember the sense of shock from his passing, even as someone who never met him and wasn't a Tyrone fan.  Someone so fit, strong, talented and with his life ahead of him shouldn't be taken so young, but I suppose a lot of good has come from his legacy in terms of the Cormac Trust.

RIP

[seafoid]

It was shocking news. There were some lovely tributes to him at the time

http://guestbook.sparklit.com/entries?gbID=106048&start=2000&gbaction=viewResponses

Name: laura Address: st catherines
Tribute: Cormac was my favourite teacher, i was only at st.catherines for > a few months but every morning he would say hello and now and again he  would stop for a talk. If i ever got lost or had a problem it was mr mc anallen i would go to. He was my guardian angel. Now he can be all ur guardian angels too. Cormac was special, i was so happy 4 him wen he won sam. it was all he wantd. sam and ashleene. But for him to go away with someting that only affectd 1 in 100000 ppl i wish it was me that was taken. so many people wouldnt b so sad. i cant blev he is gone. my world will never be the same again. a legend. hero. superstar. Hes the greenest grass, the brightest star, the sparkling sea, hes an angel in heaven with my Daddy
 
Mary queen of the gael
Sos ónár n-obair, solas don bhealach
 
If you could change 3 things in football
1) get rid of the ball
2) introduce a smaller ball
3) introduce hurls.
 
Name: Martan O Ciardha
Address: RTE/Raidio na Gaeltachta
Tribute: Díreach mar a tharla do chuile dhuine a chuala an scéal, baineadh croitheadh go smior asam nuair a chuala mé faoi bhás Chormaic Mhic an Aillín, go nDéana Dia trócaire ar. Bhí sé de phribhléid agam bualadh leis cúpla uair agus ba léir, fiú dóibh siúd nach raibh an phribhléid sin acu, go mba dhuine uasal, álainn é a raibh tréithe as an ngnáth aige. Mo chomhbhrón ó chroí dá mhuintir, dá ghrá-geal agus do mhuintir Thír Eoghain.
 
Name: Brian White
Address: Wexford
Tribute: Sincere condolences. Terrible loss for Football and for Tyrone. He never gave any problems on the pitch and was a true gentleman. May he rest in Peace.
Leaba i measc laochra Ulaidh go raibh aige.

[J70]

Read it on Aertel or Ceefax that morning (do they still exist?). Only a week or two previously he had captained Tyrone when they annihilated us in the McKenna Cup final.

Think it was later that year that Marc Vivian Foe died of the same thing, right? And the Hungarian lad for Benfica was around then too.

[seafoid]

http://www.irishtimes.com/news/disbelief-after-death-of-tyrone-s-brilliant-young-man-1.1133764

The GAA club dominates the Co Tyrone village of Eglish, and Cormac McAnallen, who died suddenly yesterday at the age of 24, dominated the club, writes Frank McNally in Eglish. A placard on the front still wishes him well in last year's All-Ireland final, the only representative on the county team of a community too small to have a pub. Inside, the centre-piece of the trophy cabinet is his 2001 Young Player of the Year award. Everywhere else are photographs. Cormac as a baby. Cormac with the Sam Maguire. He won everything in inter-county football, most recently Ulster's McKenna Cup, the last silverware to elude him and his first as county team captain. But he still turned out for the club on Sunday in a challenge match that everyone agreed was beyond the call of duty. Yesterday the lads who played alongside him, some of them his team-mates since the age of 10, gathered trying to make sense of the news that he was dead at 24.

The Tyrone GAA family gathered around them. Peter Canavan arrived in the late afternoon, followed by manager Mickey Harte.  Harte had learned the news in a phone call at 5.30 a.m. and it had already been a long and terrible day. But he reminded everyone that this was foremost a tragedy for McAnallen's family and the girlfriend he planned to marry. Of the loss to football, he said: "He was more than a player. He was a big, big man in any squad." He was the second of Tyrone's 1997-98 minor team to die. But where Paul McGirr's loss was the result of a freak on-field accident, McAnallen's death in the night was a mystery. "He was the fittest, strongest man on the Tyrone panel," said former Eglish chairman Conor Daly, in disbelief. "He was in fantastic condition."The disbelief was shared at St Catherine's College in Armagh, where the young history and politics teacher worked.  McAnallen was a key figure at the once all-female school, not least for the 10 boys (among 1,000 girls) who recently joined for its Irish-language stream. But the principal, Ms Margaret Martin, saw in him something more than a popular, gifted teacher. "He was part of the new Ireland. Unafraid to stand up for his language, culture, sport. He just had a deep pride in his country and everything about it."The college held special assemblies yesterday to break the news, followed by services at which students read tributes. Most mentioned his sense of fun. "He carried that Tyrone bag around the school with nothing in it, just for badness!" complained a second-year student, adding: "I thought everything of him - he was brilliant."
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Yesterday's sad events recall the passing just over 51 years ago of a previous football captain from Ulster. John Joe O'Reilly, who captained Cavan in the Polo Grounds final of 1947 and again in 1948, died of influenza within months of winning a third medal in 1952.  There is something unfathomable about the death of sportspeople. Their vigour, fitness and sense of physical omnipotence give an aura of invulnerability and we are all traumatised by its violation.  Cormac McAnallen only scratched the surface of his potential. His switch to full back was the final piece in Mickey Harte's All-Ireland jigsaw and the confidence he instilled gave the whole defence coherence and force. But there would have been so much more for him to do.  Instead he will be forever young with a bright and hopeful face to the great, unfulfilled future stretching eternally before him.
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Paddy McIntosh's rasping voice shuddered to a halt yesterday as grief over Cormac McAnallen's sudden death finally overwhelmed him. The youth coach surveyed the desolate main hall of the tiny GAA club in Eglish and tried to make sense of the loss of a young star idolised by all ages. omnths earlier, McIntosh (54), spent the proudest night of his life in the same building when McAnallen and his victorious team-mates swept in after Tyrone's historic All-Ireland win.The local hero he nurtured from a 10-year-old into one of the finest talents of his generation had dedicated his success on the pitch to him. But now, McAnallen had been snatched from a community that basked in his achievements and, for McIntosh, the pain was almost unbearable. His speech crackling with emotion, the coach said: "Cormac stood on that stage the night Tyrone came here with the cup and, even before he mentioned his parents, he talked about me. "It was the greatest thing ever said about me to have a lad who had won an All-Ireland medal say I was the biggest influence on his career." Even though he won medals at all levels and represented Ireland in the International Rules series against Australia, McAnallen was always desperate to play for his club.  "He would turn up for friendlies and pester to get on. You tell me another county player who's like that?" challenged McIntosh. As the youth officer tried to deal with his anguish, banners celebrating the player's successes still adorned the clubhouse. The rest of the Eglish team had also gathered in the tiny village's clubhouse. Numbed by the death of a player and friend who inspired them, they simply had to be with each other. "This is the only place for us today," said 25-year-old midfielder Conall Martin, who readily admitted his dead team-mate had been a hero to them all. He said: "Cormac was a role model and when he talked, everybody listened. The term legend is too lightly used but that's what he was." Forward James Muldoon, a school teacher like McAnallen, said the depth of his loss had not even begun to sink in. Like everyone else in the tight-knit committee, the players were dumbfounded at how someone so fit could collapse and die so suddenly. The GAA star, who was set to marry his fiancée, Aisling, within months, had gone to the gym on Monday night with some of his club mates.
But hours after arriving back at the house where he lived with his parents, Brendan and Bridget, and brothers, Donal and Fergus, he was found dead in bed. Pupils at St Catherine's Grammar School in Armagh, where he taught history and politics, wept in the classrooms as they learned McAnallen was dead. But back in Eglish, villagers were making urgent arrangements to deal with their grief and offer support to the family. Terry McCann, who runs the local grocer's and post office, told how his packed shop learned what had happened. "About a dozen pe ple were in here when the morning news came on the radio and they just stood in stunned silence," he said. McCann (52), insisted the area had never experienced a shock like it. The Gaelic footballer had captured the imagination of local youngsters in a way that even the top names in English soccer would be jealous of. "Instead of running about with Michael Owen or David Beckham shirts on, all the children wanted Cormac's gear," he said. One of the shop owner's first customers was the Sinn Féin MP for the area, Michelle Gildernew. She was left sobbing at the death of a close friend she had known since childhood.  Gildernew, who visited the family, was laden down with food to take to a local community centre where other mourners were gathering. She said: "The family are showing great dignity but the shock of this simply hasn't hit them yet. "We have lost an ambassador, the first Eglish man to captain Tyrone football team, but they have lost a son." As the family tried to come to terms with their shattering loss, the supermarket run by McAnallen's parents four miles away in Benburb, remained locked up.  A hand-written note on the door said simply: "Closed due to death in the family." But with the streets of Benburb desolate and the whole of Eglish seemingly coming together to comfort each other, rarely can a family have been so extended. One woman, who asked not to be named, clutched a photo she had taken with McAnallen on that night he brought the Sam Maguire Cup to Eglish, and tried to explain what the player meant to the area.  "He was just our boy, it's as simple as that.""