Packy McGarty

Packy McGarty (1933 to 2021) was a Gaelic football player from Mohill, County Leitrim, who represented Leitrim at senior level for 23 years, between 1949 and 1971, playing his first senior game at the age of 16. He played in four Connacht Senior Football Championship finals with Leitrim from 1957 to 1960. In the 1958 final Leitrim were narrowly beaten by a Galway team built around the players who went on to win three consecutive All-Ireland Senior Football Championship titles, and many spectators said his display there, in which the Galway backs tore his jersey to shreds, was one of the all-time great Gaelic football forward performances. He played on his first Connacht Railway Cup team at the age of 20 and won his first Railway Cup with Connacht in 1957. He won a Connacht Junior Football Championship in 1962 and was on the Leitrim team beaten by Meath in the All-Ireland Junior Football Championship final. He was named on the Gaelic football team of the century of great players who never won an All-Ireland medal, and he was the only Leitrim player chosen on the Connacht GAA team of the millennium. He later lived in Clondalkin in Dublin, where he owned a grocery shop for many years, and he died in April 2021 aged 87.