Dermot Earley Snr RIP

[Fear ón Srath Bán]

Mickey Harte, in today's Irish News:


I would like to join with all in the GAA to extend my sincere condolences to the Earley family on the passing from this life of Dermot Snr.
I always admired him as a genuine sportsman with exceptional talent, and in recent years I was fortunate to meet him on a number of occasions and it came as no surprise to discover that he was a true gentleman off the field too. Ar dhéis Dé go raibh a anam.

[Tatler Jack]

Everything I could say about Dermot has already been said in the tributes on this thread. I still can't believe he is gone and the past 2 days have been a bit of a haze. Not alone a great footballer and sportsman but a truly great person who made us proud of our county.

My sincere condolences to all of his family - their loss is enormous.   But I hope the knowledge of the warmth and deep affection that was felt for Dermot throughout the country and beyond will be some solace at this difficult time.

Thanks Dermot for all you gave to your county - ní bheidh bhúr leithid arís ann.

[zoyler]

Out of computer contact for a few days and just catching up. Only met him once and like Awrlick it was in WA - on a boat trip down to Freemantle - he was on a tour with an Army team and what stood out was both the respect and admiration all yhe other Army lads had for him. AS an Armagh man I well remember all the tussels back in the 70s and early 80s. 

A wonderful tribute from Matt but I think he may have got the ref wrong over the shoulder with Kennelly -  I don't think it was Alderidge - was it not the Murray idiot from Monaghan ?

In any event a huge and sad loss to both the GAA and the country.

[ross matt]

Out of computer contact for a few days and just catching up. Only met him once and like Awrlick it was in WA - on a boat trip down to Freemantle - he was on a tour with an Army team and what stood out was both the respect and admiration all yhe other Army lads had for him. AS an Armagh man I well remember all the tussels back in the 70s and early 80s. 

A wonderful tribute from Matt but I think he may have got the ref wrong over the shoulder with Kennelly -  I don't think it was Alderidge - was it not the Murray idiot from Monaghan ?

In any event a huge and sad loss to both the GAA and the country.

Pretty sure it was Seamus Aldridge Zoyler but could be wrong.
Great tribute to the man on last night's Sunday game. McStay in particular was excellent.

[Rossfan]

Out of computer contact for a few days and just catching up. Only met him once and like Awrlick it was in WA - on a boat trip down to Freemantle - he was on a tour with an Army team and what stood out was both the respect and admiration all yhe other Army lads had for him. AS an Armagh man I well remember all the tussels back in the 70s and early 80s. 

A wonderful tribute from Matt but I think he may have got the ref wrong over the shoulder with Kennelly -  I don't think it was Alderidge - was it not the Murray idiot from Monaghan ?

In any event a huge and sad loss to both the GAA and the country.

Pretty sure it was Seamus Aldridge Zoyler but could be wrong.
Great tribute to the man on last night's Sunday game. McStay in particular was excellent.

If ye're talking AIF 1980 ...that unmentionable from Monaghan was Ref that day.
McStay was excellent last night alright. Fair play to him.

[Donnellys Hollow]

Earley shows up 'exhausted' stars

Without question, the heroic sporting endeavour of the week belonged to Dermot Earley Jnr, who played so well for Kildare against Antrim just hours after burying his father last Saturday.

That he performed so powerfully at the end of such a tiring, emotional and traumatic week is testament to his remarkable physical and psychological endurance.

It makes some mockery of Fabio Capello's suggestion that the pampered England players, who performed woefully in defeat to Germany on Sunday, were too exhausted to do themselves justice in the World Cup.

Indeed, the next time you hear any complaints over the demands placed on players, just mention Dermot Earley's week. That should end the debate pretty quickly.

http://www.independent.ie/sport/gaelic-football/earley-shows-up-exhausted-stars-2239497.html


Well said. A truly moving occasion in Newbridge on Saturday night that I certainly won't forget in a hurry. Dermot showed tremendous courage that was characteristic of his father. Also, fair play to the Antrim squad who went over to the sideline to allow the Kildare team to line out in the centre of the field during the minute's applause. I thought it was a great gesture.

[dec]

A class player and an important leader. I first attended Croke Pk as a long haired teenager when Armagh played the two games against Roscommon and remember being impressed by Earley. RIP.

My first game at Croke Park was the 1977 semi final replay. Earley and that late 70s/early 80s Roscommon team were unlucky to come up against the Kerry/Dublin teams that had moved so far ahead of the other counties at that time.

[Declan]

Thought this was brilliant - John Waters in today's Times

Soldier was among our nation's greatest

The death of the former chief of staff reminds us that our highest offices are still amenable to the highest values, writes JOHN WATERS

THERE WAS a moment last Saturday afternoon in Newbridge, Co Kildare, just after the completion of the military honours, when the crowd gathered around the last resting place of Dermot Earley did not know whether to remain or disperse. In that moment of hesitation, a male voice was raised in final salute: "Up the Rossies!"

Although the immediate reflex was to laugh, it was in truth a devastating moment, perhaps the most achingly sorrowful of Roscommon's saddest week for a long time. Instantly, the gathering was transported by that verbal reveille from the uncertain sunshine of Co Kildare in the high summer of 2010 to the dancing light of some indeterminate 1970s summer afternoon, and a different crowd, perhaps emerging euphoric from an encounter at which the all but superhuman powers of Earley had been on display, to a world indescribably enhanced on that account. Or perhaps back to a Roscommon streetscape on some half-remembered summer's evening, and the shouted accounts of triumph or heroic failure carried breathlessly from mouth to mouth, and the intense pleasure of being part of that family of which Earley was such an adored elder brother.

That cry spoke of football as metaphor, as agent of communal cohesion, as the drama of the tribal march towards an unknown destination. It conveyed defiance, nostalgia, hope, love, supplication, but also the merest hint of fear for a future without the chieftain about to be interred.

It is striking how deeply Earley's death has resonated, and not just on account of his relatively youthful and unfathomable striking-down. It is difficult to think of a comparable sporting figure, who had not achieved the primary honour, but who withal, as has emerged here, could scarcely have been more revered had he a display-case of All-Ireland medals at his back.

I met Earley only once, last year, just before the onset of his illness. Since his death, his handshake has become one of those clichés in which the media tends to excel, but I have no conscious memory of any vice. I remember a deeply impressive man who for an extended moment connected with me as surely as anyone I have ever met.

I remember his ease and confidence, a manifest capacity for affection, an exceptional sense of authority without aggression, as though he was so aware of his own strength that he matched it with a deliberate gentleness. He possessed in abundance the classical qualities of manliness: strength, energy, fearlessness, honour and physical grace, but carried them with a humility that was instantly distinguishable from false modesty.

In a time when leadership of almost every kind is disintegrating around us, Earley bore witness as Army chief of staff that the qualities of a sublime sportsmanship could be available to the public realm. By his pedigree and record, he provided reassurance, even as the State seems increasingly to turn into a nuisance or a monster, that the higher offices in the land are still amenable to the highest values of humanity.

Earley was a shining light of an Ireland that, if you stayed in Dublin and relied on the media for your sense of things, you might imagine had disappeared. But it is still here, in the countryside and smaller towns, an Ireland where people are easy about being unfashionable, where values relate to the fundamental principles of existence rather than ideological agendas, where "parish pump" is not a pejorative metaphor. This is a disarming Ireland – garrulous, ironic, exuberant, but with a compassionate heart that derives from a deep but comfortable sense of its own centre.

Earley's personality, grace and bearing spoke of that place which, at the level of formal discourse, we have spent several decades trying to dismantle.

A memorial card handed out at the funeral outlined the five points of his Plan for Life: "1. Enjoy time with my family; 2. Give the best to my work; 3. Give back to my community; 4. Spend my leisure time well; 5. Make time for God in my life".

These are the tentpole values, without which everything collapses, and yet they adumbrate a worldview that, in the hubris of our recent period, has been pejoratively designated "conservative".

Earley's life and personality demonstrated how wrong this is. A thoroughly modern man in the persona of a mythic hero, he could step on to the world stage without changing anything about himself, exuding – without affectation or self-consciousness – a nobility unmistakably forged in the fields and byroads of west Roscommon. He was intensely proud of his origins in Gorthaganny. When he spoke of his home place, it was as though it was the centre of the universe.

He embodied an Ireland that we urgently need to stop taking for granted. His passing has allowed us briefly to look in regret at the waning of values we are no longer permitted to mourn for their own sake.

He was Roscommon's gift to the nation in our time, the very best that we could give. And that was something to behold.

[magickingdom]

i was just going to post that article declan, like you said brilliant...

[Louth Exile]

22 minute interview done with Dermot in 08, podcast through link below
http://www.newstalk.ie/downloads/the-late-dermot-earley/

[5 Sams]

Divine intervention??? He's still playing a blinder

[All of a Sludden]

I was thinking of Dermot all through that game today. Well done the Rossies. Mighty.

[caughtredhanded]

The manner and spirit of that win today would be a fitting tribute indeed to a Rossie hero.

[rossie mad]

Some people might know this already but there is a special commeration of the life of dermot and his football career going on at the moment in the GAA museum in croke park.
I was chatting a county board delegate and he told me it started last week or two and will run till march.I believe Michael Glaveys club in roscommon had a big input as well as Roscommon and Kildare county boards.
A smaller commeration will be ever present in the museum after march as a permanent fixture.
I know this will be of great interest to the roscommon and kildare posters on here but im sure that alot of gaels on here will also be intrigued by it so hopefully you all can get time between now and march to visit it.
The great man deserves to be remembered like this and its a credit to all concerned who organised it.

[Donnellys Hollow]

Today is the first anniversary of Dermot's death:

http://www.kfmradio.com/kfm-podcasting/sport-podcasts/gaa-dermot-earley-19-6-11.html