Georgie Keane – a true great of Westmeath football
Gerry Buckley
When I was a boy in the 1960s, George Best was the hero of most of my pals. However, George Keane was mine.
Best was the Belfast boy. Keane was the Rosemount boy. Both were gifted footballers in differing codes. Both were affectionately known as ‘Georgie’.
The Northern Ireland native wasted much of his talent and died aged 59 in 2005. The Westmeath native made the most of his, albeit an accident of birth prevented him from being involved at the very top tier of inter-county football, but his academic prowess ensured that he played a huge part in embellishing the lives of agricultural science students in UCD and elsewhere, apparently being a key man in revolutionizing maize production in Ireland.
Dr George Keane passed away at the age of 83 last week and was buried in Saggart on Thursday afternoon last, having lived most of his life with Joan, his wife of 58 years, and their family in nearby Rathcoole. Sadly, his health had deteriorated in recent years, but the enormity of the respect in which he was held as a footballer, an academic, a husband, a father, a grandfather, a neighbour – indeed, as an all-round outstanding human being – was there to be seen five days ago at an overflowing Church of the Nativity of the Blessed Virgin Mary.
George first came to prominence when he was captain of the inaugural team from Carmelite College, Moate to play in the Leinster championship in the 1957/58 season. They were beaten in the ‘B’ final by a point by Westland Row CBS. He played minor for Westmeath in both 1957 and 1958, and was on the senior team from 1959 until he emigrated to Wisconsin in the USA in 1965 to undertake post-graduate studies. After he was awarded a PhD in 1968, he returned to play for both his beloved Rosemount and Westmeath until the early 1970s. He won Sigerson Cup medals in both 1959/60 and 1961/62, sandwiched between which he top-scored in a losing final appearance in 1960/61. He was also on the losing side in the 1964/65 decider.
Also with UCD, he won two Dublin SFC medals in 1963 and 1965 (as captain for the second win). To put this in perspective, these two wins, together with the shock victory by Erin’s Hope in 1956, prevented the legendary St Vincent’s team from winning 19 successive Dublin county titles! Unfortunately, a Westmeath SFC medal eluded him, with defeat in the 1962 final to St Mary’s (featuring 17-year-old Pat Bradley) the nearest he came to achieving that particular goal. He played in the then-prestigious Railway
Cup final for Leinster in 1964, and he was an automatic choice on the Westmeath football team of millennium in 2000.
From a number of photos of the great man that I possess, I have deliberately attached this Westmeath team from 1969, which beat a full-strength Dublin outfit by 4-14 to 3-7 in Cusack Park in the O’Byrne Cup. But for a certain Paddy Cullen, the ten-point win would have been at least doubled. I have often named it as the most complete display I have witnessed in six decades supporting maroon and white-clad teams. There are 16 men pictured, and 15 of them started in the NFL semi-final that year when Brendan Quinn’s charges rattled All-Ireland champions-in-waiting Kerry.
The odd man out was the aforementioned Bradley (who was suspended) and he was one of many former colleagues of George who attended his funeral. The Rosemount maestro scored a goal late in the first half and the massive underdogs led at the interval against the mighty Kingdom. It took a full 46 years for me to outdo my jig in Croke Park that May afternoon in 1969!
Courtesy of the late Paddy Buckley’s family after the Maryland man’s death, and with the technological help of Olly Gallagher, I posted George a disc of the live RTÉ radio tape of that game after Paddy’s death in 2020.
They say you should never meet your heroes, and I was genuinely in awe of first meeting George when I was an adult in my 40s! I need not have worried.
He was a humble and unassuming gentleman to the core. My last substantial in-person dealings with him came in 2012 when he asked me to be on a small/hard-working committee tasked with organising a reunion of former Westmeath footballers.
I vividly recall saying to him after our first get-together: “There is a good bit of organising involved in this, so what part of next year will we aim for?” He immediately responded: “It will take place next month”. And he meant it! A plethora of phone calls from George Keane was enough to get a huge gathering assembled in the Annebrook House Hotel. And, yes, it took place a month later! When my boyhood hero thanked me sincerely for my small input, I felt ten foot tall!
Our last long chat by phone took place in 2016 as Westmeath got set to face Jim Gavin’s powerful charges in a second consecutive Leinster final. George could not contemplate the concept of his county ‘parking the bus’. “I never played in a game that I didn’t think my team could win,” he stated, without a trace of arrogance. I was not being a ‘lick’ when I replied: “If we had 15 Georgie Keanes, the Dubs would be parking the bus!” And I meant it!
Yours truly will be in Australia, please God, when these few thoughts appear in print. Ahead of the journey, I touched base with former St Loman’s, Mullingar star Fionn O’Hara, to arrange a meeting when my lady partner and I attend a Hawthorn Aussie Rules game in Melbourne. Fionn’s grandfather, Conor Maguire, had given me his number. A Cavan native and long-time Mullingar resident, the affable Conor was a victorious Sigerson Cup colleague of George in 1961/62. I told Fionn about George’s death and that I rated him as an equal of Dessie Dolan and John Heslin, more recent vintage Westmeath forwards familiar to him. After the funeral, a Rosemount man familiar to me and not known for hyberbole, paused when I put this sentiment to him, before opining: “We think he was better than both of them!”
May George rest in peace, ironically laid to rest less than a 21-yard free away from my hurling boyhood hero, Tommy Ring from Castlepollard.
George will be sadly missed by his beloved wife Joan, and loving family Dónal, Shane, Daragh and Siobhán; daughters-in-law Elaine, Jackie, Holly and Siobhán’s partner Paul; his adored grandchildren Orla, Eoin, Kieran, Alánagh, Finn, Molly and Shea; his brothers Hugh, Joe, Johnny and Jimmy; sisters-in-law, brothers-in-law, nieces, nephews, relatives, carers and his many friends, especially those from his sporting life and his UCD colleagues. George is predeceased by his baby son Finian, parents William and Mary, and brothers Billy, Tony, Pat and Michael.