John Mulligan

Originally published: Town Tattler Vol 1 Issue 4

Who would have thought a young boy from Killenard who kicked with Port and O’Dempseys and whose background was mainly soccer, would become a legend of Portlaoise GAA. That’s what he is. The patriarch of a great Town family from Craydon Court, meet John Mulligan.

Tell us about the early days...

I am originally from Ballycarroll, Killenard and when I was 10 year old we moved to Portarlington. I played U12 football with O’Dempseys and when we moved to Portarlington, I played U12 for Portarlington. We won the county championship in 1966, beating Portlaoise in the final after a replay. Two stand-out players for Portlaoise that I can remember from those games are Billy Bland and Tom Prendergast.

In 1966 England won the World Cup and suddenly soccer became very popular. Down our end of the town we all started playing soccer and we used to train in the Mill Field, which was the GAA Grounds. As the ban was still in operation, we were soon banned from playing soccer on the pitch. As a result we all stopped playing GAA and we formed Arlington Soccer Club in 1967.

Our next issue was where could we train? A woman by the name of Molly Coogan allowed us to use her garden on Sundays to train on and we paid her a small fee out of our pocket money for this. Although we were only school kids, we ran a hop, disco, which was a huge success to raise money and two of the older players, 16 and 17 years, got a lift in an Odlums lorry to Dublin and they went to Elverys and bought our first set of jerseys, togs and stockings.

At that time Emo House was owned by the Jesuit Order and we used to cycle out there to play the Jesuit novices in challenge matches. We went from strength to strength and soon managed to get the use of a field from a sympathetic farmer and we registered the Club in the Leinster Junior League. We had two teams playing in Division 1 and 2 of the Counties League.

Around 1970 the Club purchased a field which is the present grounds used by the Club, Castle Park, Lea Road, Portarlington. The nearest we ever got to winning anything was getting to the FAI Junior Cup Final in 1972. I played soccer with Arlington up to 1979 and played Junior and Senior Football with Portarlington for two years.

Now living in Portlaoise I joined Portlaoise Soccer Club in 1980 and we had a major win in 1981 when we won the Whitley Cup. I finished playing soccer due to injuries around 1987. I then coached the juvenile soccer team for a few years. This team included Kevin Fitzpatrick, Colm Parkinson, Owen Delaney, Niall Collins, Declan Daly, Fearghal Fennell and Thomas Mulligan who went on to play with Portlaoise GAA Club and Laois.

How did you get involved with Portlaoise GAA?

I got involved in the Juvenile Club in 1990. My own four lads were starting to get an interest in sport and they loved football and hurling and had little interest in soccer. I went to the Juvenile AGM and I was apprehensive about going as I knew nobody and I was coming from a soccer background. However, I was made feel very welcome that night by Ned Murphy RIP and Michael Reynolds.

How did you find getting stuck in with the club?

My first night at the Juvenile AGM, I met Ollie Hughes, Mayo, and Joe Daly, Cork, for the first time. We got the job of looking after the U12 B football team and we got to the semi-final that year.

The following year we were with the U12 A football team and we got to the final but lost it. That was the only time we lost a final. The following years we were with U14, U16, and Minor and U21 teams and never lost a championship game.

To this day I am still great friends with Ollie and Joe. There are so many great memories from those days that it’s hard to pick out individual ones, but the joys of winning and seeing what it meant to players is something very special.

We were blessed with the quality and commitment of the players we had from U12 to U21. Some of these players included Aidan Fennelly, Colm Byrne, Brian McCormack, Michael Nolan, Brian Fitzpatrick and Joe Phelan to name but a few.

Management was something that developed in me when I had to give up playing soccer. It was the next best thing to playing.

How did your move to Laois GAA come about?

I attended a GAA coaching course in Tullamore in 1999 and I met Sean Dempsey there. He asked me if I would get involved with him in coaching a Laois U14 football squad for a Leinster championship and Laois were in Division 1.

I got involved and we got to the Leinster final only to be beaten by Dublin. The following year, Sean went with the U15 team and I took over the U14 team. I had a great management team with me, namely Pat Gorman, Emo, Noel Fleming, Graiguecullen, and Sammy Byrne RIP, Stradbally.

We went on to win Leinster A Championships at U14, U15 and U16. In 2003, we teamed back up with Sean Dempsey as manager and we won the Minor All-Ireland. In 2004, we won a Minor Leinster title and lost the All-Ireland semi-final to Kerry under controversial circumstances.

In 2005, we got involved with Laois U21 footballers but lost to Kildare in the championship. In 2006, we won a Leinster U21 championship and lost the All-Ireland semi-final after a replay to Cork. In 2007, we won another Leinster U21 championship and got to the All-Ireland final only to lose again to Cork in the final minutes of the game.

In 2005, 2006 and 2007 I was involved with Leinster Railway Cup football teams as a statistician. The teams were managed by Val Andrews and the selectors were Paul Caffrey and Sean Dempsey. Leinster won the Railway Cup in 2005 and 2006 in Boston and lost in 2007 to Munster.

For me this was a great experience to be in the company of the best footballers in Leinster and also have the experience of being with a really top quality management team. Also, in 2006 when Liam Kearns was manager of Laois Senior footballers I did stats for him for a season.

In 2011, Justin McNulty, who was the Laois Senior football manager, asked me to be a selector with the team. I was a selector until 2013 when Justin McNulty stepped down as Manager. Again, this was a great experience to be with your own county at senior level playing in Division 1 and Division 2 of the National League.

How was taking over as Portlaoise Senior Football Manager?

Taking over Portlaoise Senior Footballers was a challenging task, as there is always a huge expectancy of success and rightly so. I was very lucky with the management team that I got with me and the panel of players available at the time.

I had Allan Daly as a selector who was young, with fresh ideas and the same age as a lot of the players. Brian Delaney and Martin Parkinson brought a wealth of experience and knowledge with them and had been with numerous club teams who had won championships. Not to forget they managed a U14 Féile team that won an All-Ireland title in 1993 and were Laois Minor selectors in 1996 and 1997 when the Laois Minors won two All-Irelands.

Pat Ryan was also a selector and trainer. Pat had already achieved tremendous success with Ballyroan Senior footballers as a manager and trainer and had a reputation as a top-class boxing trainer throughout Ireland.

The panel of players available for those years, 2008 to 2010, was extremely talented. Although Colm Parkinson and Zach Tuohy transferred and Peter McNulty RIP passed away, we still had a really good panel of players.

Starting out we knew that if we did not win at least a county championship we would be regarded as failures, but we knew that we were capable of going further than that.

Tell us about winning and losing

We won three county championships, two league titles and a Leinster final, which was great and we had some great games and victories in doing so. But our aim was to win an All-Ireland Club title as the panel was good enough to do that, we felt.

From my perspective, what we won was grand but failing to win an All-Ireland title still leaves me disappointed. Winning any match is a highlight for me. Losing any match is a low point for me.

The next generation Mulligans

Luckily, I had four lads who played football and hurling from a young age with the club. They were very fortunate to be on some really good football and hurling panels and enjoyed a lot of success.

There really are some tremendous memories. Apart from winning county championships, being part of U14 Hurling and Football Féile teams that got to All-Ireland semi-finals, winning All-Ireland Féile titles in Hurling and Football, winning an All-Ireland U16 Hurling tournament in Carlow, winning an All-Ireland Colleges Senior Hurling in 1998, winning All-Ireland minor football finals in 1996 and 1997, getting to a Leinster Senior Hurling final in 1998 and winning Leinster Football titles in 2004 and 2008 and getting to an All-Ireland Club final in 2005.

Who were the best players you’ve watched?

It’s hard to single out best players I have seen, because there are so many that you could mention, so I will stick to Laois.

Again, there have been some really top quality players in Laois in every decade, but if I had to pick two players from the 80s in hurling and football, it would be Tom Prendergast and John Taylor.

What makes a good manager?

For me what makes a good manager is someone who is well organised, genuine, can converse with players and selectors and is able to listen to others.

How did Junior C Hurling draw you back in?

Getting involved with the Junior C Hurlers in 2018 was something that happened unexpectedly. I was speaking to Eugene Deegan and James Brown one night in Peigs after a county final and they asked me if I would get involved with the Junior C Hurlers.

At first I thought they were just joking as I had never been involved with a hurling team before. I thought about it and decided why not try and give it a go. I asked Seamus Fitzgerald if he would be interested in getting involved and he said he would. Seamus has a great knowledge of hurling and assessing players.

I have to say prior to this Jason Lalor and Eugene Deegan had been managing the Junior C hurlers and they had been doing a great job in keeping players interested and getting matches.

I met with Jason, Eugene and Seamus and we decided that we were going to do things differently as regards training and matches. We had our first training session on the 13th of January 2018 down at the Leisure Centre and every player paid €5 per session for the use of the facility.

The skill levels were not great at the start but by March when we went out to Rathleague, the skill levels had improved greatly and lads were fitter. The league started and we adopted a policy of going for a social drink after every game. This worked brilliantly for camaraderie and team spirit.

As you can use any number of substitutes in Junior C, we adopted a policy to play as many players as possible in every game and we ended up with a panel of 29 players.

We got to the league final but lost out narrowly to The Harps in the final. For the championship then, we trained hard and had great commitment from the players. We got to the championship final and beat Ballyfin in the final on the 29th of August 2018.

Between training sessions and matches, the players had put in a total of 58 sessions, not bad commitment for Junior C players.

We also had a great captain for that campaign and that man was Denis Kavanagh. It was a great victory for all the lads and a trophy that the club had never won before.

The final was unique because we used 14 substitutes that evening. In total, 29 players played in the final and we still won it.

It might make a good sports quiz question in years to come: name the team that won a county final playing 29 players and legally used 14 substitutes in the same game?

You’ve gone through a tough time health-wise - how hard has this been?

Yes, I was unfortunate with a few health issues, but thankfully doing well now. I greatly appreciated the support and reassurance that I got from past and present players and friends from club and county.

I am in good form presently and looking forward to getting out to see a live hurling or football match again. My involvement with the club at the present time is Playing Bingo on Friday Nights at the kitchen table, always looking for a win!

What does Portlaoise GAA mean to you?

The club is like a very large extended family. When you go out to Rathleague to a match you meet club members, spectators, players or mentors and you always get a friendly greeting and you can have a chat or a few words with somebody and it’s always nice.

Not to forget the grounds men out there as they always look after me and I am very grateful that they were there on the 13th of July 2020 when I needed them.

What are your hopes for the future of the club?

I think the future of the club looks really bright and promising. There is so much going on as regards the development of facilities that it is very exciting times.

On the playing side, some teams are going through a transition period at the moment and they will be back as a major force in Laois and Leinster. It’s great to see the ladies side of the club making the breakthrough in senior football and the camogie is soon going to be a major force in the county.

With the effort being made at juvenile level they will be back winning titles soon, so I think the future looks really bright.