Jimmy Lucey

Jimmy Lucey (James Lucey, 1941 to 16 February 1969) was an Irish Gaelic footballer born at Caragh Lake in County Kerry. At club level he played with Glenbeigh-Glencar and Laune Rangers, and he won a County Championship title with the divisional side Mid Kerry in 1967. After a brief spell with the Kerry minor team in 1958 he was drafted onto the Kerry senior football team during tournament games in early 1962, and he finished that season with an All-Ireland Championship title after lining out at midfield in the final defeat of Roscommon. His brother Noel Lucey played in the same final, and a third brother, Vincent, played in the 1965 final that Kerry lost to Galway. His inter-county career ended in 1966, by which time he had also won a National League title and several Munster Championship titles. Outside sport he joined the first Army Apprentice School class at Devoy Barracks in 1956, became a fitter and mechanic in the Cavalry Corps, served two terms with the United Nations in the Congo and was one of the 154 soldiers involved in the Siege of Jadotville. He died of Hodgkin's disease on 16 February 1969, aged 27, the first member of Kerry's 1962 All-Ireland-winning team to die.