HALL OF FAME INDUCTEE: Terry O’Dowd

Westmeath Examiner Community & Sports Awards

Terry O’Dowd’s contribution to the GAA is without equal. He has served with distinction as a player, referee, administrator, coach and delegate. Terry’s playing career in hurling extended over 20 years. Terry first attracted attention as a player in 1957 as a young goalkeeper on the Springfield Club team that won the Westmeath Under 15 hurling league title; Collinstown deprived the young boys of the double by beating Springfield in the county final.

Twenty years later Terry was still hurling, finishing his career with the newly formed Oliver Plunkett’s Club. The major part of Terry’s hurling career was spent with the Pearse’s Club and he was a member of the team that won the 1962 senior hurling title, the last occasion a team from Mullingar won the senior hurling title. Terry was a member of the now endangered species the dual player.

He was one of the band of players who represented the Mullingar clubs, Pearses and Mullingar Shamrocks in all their successes in the 1960s, and is a member of a small group of Mullingar players to have won senior county medals in hurling and football.

In addition to his senior hurling medal, Terry also won two senior football titles with Mullingar Shamrocks in 1964 and 1966 and was also a member of the Mullingar Shamrocks team that made the breakthrough to senior level by winning the county junior football title in 1962.

Terry’s refereeing career partly overlapped with his playing career and it is not an exaggeration to suggest that as a dual referee he has controlled at least 2,000 matches at all levels including inter-county in this distinguished part of his GAA career. He refereed 13 county senior hurling finals including the draw and replay of 1997.

The success of Mullingar Shamrocks limited his opportunity to officiate on the big day in Gaelic football to just the 1981 final between St Malachy’s and Athlone. Terry was regularly appointed to officiate at games where the potential for trouble existed in more militant times as his reputation for excelling at what was the primary duty of any referee, the protection of the players, was well established.

In addition, he possessed a wonderful ability to remain oblivious to the verbal abuse that is part and parcel of a referee’s lifestyle. He was twice honoured as the county’s Referee of the Year. In this year of celebration for the Ladies Gaelic Football Association, it is interesting to note that Terry took charge of the 1976 All-Ireland LGF final between Kerry and Offaly. Terry O’Dowd with his umpires Tommy Lennon and Tommy Gilhooley made the journey to Littleton.

The 1970s was the great decade of the Street Leagues in Mullingar and Terry O’Dowd was centrally involved as an administrator, team manager and referee, which ultimately led to his great interest in coaching. Perhaps it is a coach that Terry has had the greatest input in hurling, football, camogie and ladies Gaelic football. Numerous underage teams and players have benefitted, and still do so, from his coaching ability. This input has bridged the generations.

In 1973, Terry coached Shamrocks to win the Under 14 football championship with a team that included Ned Moore who captained Mullingar to three successive county titles in the 1990s. In 2000, he repeated the feat with a team that included Ned’s son, Keith. In 2000, Shamrocks won the senior and junior ‘b’ football titles and every player involved in both teams had experienced the coaching of Terry O’Dowd.

And in recent years he has coached Ned’s grandchildren. At adult level, Cullion Hurling Club and the Oliver Plunkett’s Club have benefitted from Terry’s talent as a hurling coach. And his coaching skills are still having an impact: St Colmcille's National School in Gainstown coached by Terry were the winners of the Div 1 Cumann na mBunscol LGF title in 2024. His remarkable ability to interact with young people remain as strong as ever.

As might be expected Terry O’Dowd also found time to become involved in club administration and he has been chairperson or secretary at the clubs that he served so well in so many other ways.

He held the secretary’s post in the Pearse’s Club, for example, was both chairperson and secretary of Mullingar Shamrocks underage committee at different stages. He also held similar posts on the Minor Board of Westmeath GAA.

He was a fearless Mullingar Shamrocks County Committee delegate for decades as he spoke truth when the occasion demanded and superbly represented Mullingar Shamrocks interests at board level and also as the club’s delegate to the County Committee of the Westmeath LGF. In the decade before Covid, Terry was a sort of minster without portfolio for Mullingar Shamrocks as he kept an experienced eye on those responsible for the managing the club’s affairs. Lectures were delivered if required.

Lotto tickets were sold and collectors organised; gates were locked; footballs that were lost were found and returned to their proper place; the bingo was supported; sideline flags put down and gate money collected as he rolled up his sleeves to perform the menial tasks when the occasion demanded.

By any standards, Terry O’Dowd is an extraordinary GAA man: Mullingar Shamrocks, Westmeath GAA and indeed the GAA nationally has seldom had a greater servant.

And, it goes without saying, it was all done on a voluntary basis.