All-Ireland winning manager and former Fine Gael TD John O’Mahony dies aged 71

All-Ireland winning football manager and former Fine Gael TD John O’Mahony has died at the age of 71 following a long illness.

Originally from Kilmovee, Co Mayo, but a resident of nearby Ballaghaderreen, Co Roscommon for most of his life, he was an All-Ireland minor winner in 1971 and an under-21 medallist in 1974, both with Mayo.

A graduate of University College Galway he was a teacher at St Nathy’s College Ballaghaderreen when, in 1989, he was manager of the Mayo senior football side which went on to reach their first All-Ireland final in 38 years – beginning Mayo’s ongoing road to unsuccessful All Ireland finals.

In 1998 he brought Galway its first all-Ireland senior football title in 32 years. They won their second All Ireland under his management in 2001.

However, many would say his greatest achievement in football management was in 1994 when he led Leitrim to their first All Ireland senior football semi-final since 1927, 67 years previously.

In 2000 he led the St Nathy’s College senior side to win the All-Ireland Colleges B title and in 2005/6 he led the Roscommon St Brigid’s football club to their first county title and on to being Connacht senior club champions for the first time. Just last December he stood down as manager at the Galway Salthill/Knocknacarra GAA after two years during which he led them to the Galway county final.

In the 2007 General Election he was elected as a Fine Gael TD in Mayo. A TD for nine years, in 2016, he was nominated by the then Taoiseach Enda Kenny to the Seanad where he served for four years.

Popularly known as ‘Johnno’, he was warmly remembered at the funeral in Sligo last week of his close friend journalist Tommie Gorman.

In a eulogy, Tommie’s son Joe said his father “loved that his friend John O’Mahony brought in a sports psychologist as the Leitrim manager in the early 90s, then Tommie as a video analyst, because John didn’t accept a lack of ambition. John believed.”

John O’Mahony is survived by his wife Gerardine Towey and their five daughters.