Time to celebrate for Pearse Óg

Shaun Casey looks back on two landmark championship wins for Pearse Óg

THE Pearse Óg club havsan awful lot to celebrate this year. 2025 marks not only the 75th anniversary of its existence, but also landmark achievements from two teams that changed the course of their history.

Forty years ago, the first-ever Pearse Óg team to win the Armagh Senior Championship emerged, in their very first final appearance. They went on to back that up and win a second title in 1988 and again in 1992.

Then in 2000, their minor team captured an Ulster title for the first time ever, backboned by a couple of notable household names, and in 2009, that same crop added a fourth county title to the club’s roll of honour.

Club stalwart Tommy Martin was a member of that ’85 championship winning success. He played corner-back in the decider as the Ógs defeated their city rivals Armagh Harps by four points in a low-scoring affair.

From winning a junior title in 1952 and intermediate successes in ’67 and ’73, the Ógs were ready to make the breakthrough at the highest level by the time ’85 arrived. Martin and his teammates were ready to make history.

“The Ógs instigated a streets’ league in 1971 and that got all the kids out playing and they reaped the benefits of that because, myself included as a 12-year-old, we all got involved in Pearse Óg,” Martin recalled.

“The Harps were the main team at underage at that stage and through the streets’ league, we gathered a bunch of guys together and from that we won an u-21 championship in 1976 and out of that we had seven or eight players that backboned the ’85 championship success.

“We won the u-21 championship again in 1980 and won it every year until 1986 bar being beat in the final by Maghery in 1982 so that’s how strong we were. We had a three-in-a-row minor championship winning team too in ’81, ’82 and ’83.

“The main catalyst was getting a manager of the calibre of Brother Ennis. He came in as the manager in 1984 and we were starting to realise our potential. We strolled through the Centenary Cup that year and won the Division One league title.

“We got a wee bit cocky in the championship semi-final against Keady. We were 7-2 up, thinking about playing the Harps in the final, and we got sucker-punched by a couple of goals and we got knocked out.

“We learnt the hard way. That defeat meant we were really focused in ’85 on winning the championship and with Brother Ennis at the helm, he was able to marshal us together and we succeeded.”

It’s fair to say that come county final day, both sides were understandably nervous. The Harps held the upper hand in terms of championship pedigree, having won 18 titles before that, while the Ógs were entering that stage for the very first time.

“I played with the Harps boys in the (Armagh) CBS Grammar School, so we knew each other inside out,” Martin continued. “Johnny Corvan was the main man for the Harps and a fantastic footballer, and I played in a county minor team with him in ’77 and he was exceptional.

“He was the standout player, but they had Sean Devlin, who was an Armagh and Ulster player at the time, they had the twin Grimleys (Mark and John) who were young at the time, and they had a good defence with Malachy McCoy the captain.

“They were a really good team and even though they were in Division Two, they were beat in the final the year before in a tough game when everyone expected them to win and they had a hell of a good team.

“The two sides knew each other but there was going to be no quarter asked for in the game and that’s the way it turned out. It wasn’t a great spectacle because we were apprehensive about playing them and they were apprehensive about playing us.

“We had played over the years in derby matches, there would have been thousands coming out to watch it in the late ‘70s, it was like a county final every time the two teams played so both were well up for it and both had real quality.”

There were family ties on the field of play as well. Ógs legend Paul Grimley lined up against his younger twin brothers Mark and John at midfield and as Martin remembers, the older sibling came out on top that day.

“The two boys were young, but you could see how good they were going to be, they were big, strong lads. Paul went up against his brother Mark in that final and big Paul was man of the match and it was a tight battle around the middle of the field.

“The two Grimleys were standout players for the Harps, but Paul got the better of his younger brother that day, it didn’t always go that way, but it did that day.”

Coming back to the Ógs club, with the McKillop Cup in tow, will live long in the memory for Martin and all the men that created history. Winning the championship was one thing; beating the Harps into the bargain, was a dream come true.

“At our end of the town, the place was just buzzing. It was a long-cherished dream, to be up there and at the same level of the Harps because we our team formed in the ‘50s, it was to give fellas football that couldn’t get on for the Harps. The euphoria was fantastic.

“Being in the Ógs social club and seeing the joy on everyone’s faces, our supporters, club members, former players that were good footballers but maybe didn’t win a championship and they’d suffered defeats against the Harps all down through the years.

“The joy and happiness that it brought to our support base and membership and all of our families, that’s what stands out in winning the club’s first county championship. Everybody should be fit to experience that.”

The Ógs lost their crown in ’86 to Crossmaglen but returned to the throne in ’88. This time they were looking beyond the Orchard County. When they reclaimed the county title, the Ógs set their sights on Ulster, but an injury to a key man hindered their ambitions.

“We were more mature and more experienced in ’88,” Martin explained as his side went all the way to the provincial final. “We knew we were good enough to win Armagh, and we set the goal that we wanted to win Ulster that year.

“Ger Houlahan was great against Lavey and Killybegs, but he played for Armagh against Monaghan the Sunday before the Ulster final and he broke his leg, so he was out, and we had a couple of other injuries too.

“We were really down after that and we were up against it but we put up a good showing against Burren, they beat us up in Ballybay and went on to win their second All-Ireland, so it was one that got away.

“The next year, we went out in the first round of the championship. In 1990 we won the league title but then the Harps beat us and by ’91, it looked all over for us, the team was getting old and one thing or another.”

But there was one last push, and a third county title came to the club.

“In ’92, Jimmy McKee was the manager and me and Paul Grimley were his coaches and assistant managers, we’d just retired, and we were able to get a last hurrah out of the team.

“For a number of years after we were really struggling, we went down to Division Two, but then this young team came onto the scene and the talent that came through was even better than the early ‘80s.

“They won five juvenile championships in a row, four minor championships in a row, that team had two future All-Stars in Andy Mallon and Ronan Clarke and other county players like Paul Duffy, who is still playing, the array of talent was unbelievable.

“Ronan Clarke and Robbie McCague won four minor championships which is very rare and that was the talent that was there. Pauric Duffy was on the Armagh panel in 2002, he was the captain of that team and was man of the match in that Ulster Club final in 2000.

“In the Ulster final against Cavan Gaels, Ronan was playing full-forward and Nicolas Walsh, who was an Australian Rules player and played for Cavan, was midfield. Ronan had to go out to midfield and he got to grips with Walsh who was causing a bit of bother.”

History has a funny way of repeating itself. When that team rose to the senior ranks they experienced plenty of heartache against the mighty Crossmaglen that dominated the club scene in Armagh during the noughties.

The Ógs finally got one over them in 2009, at the quarter-final stage, ending their target of an unprecedented 14th consecutive county title. Once again, the Harps were the challenge on county final day, and like ’85, the Ógs came out on top.

“Those boys were as apprehensive as we were in ’85 having to play the Harps,” Martin said of the class of ’09. “The whole club was apprehensive. We beat Cross and I remember the euphoria after that, but we hadn’t won anything.

“We beat Clann Éireann in the semi and just did enough and the final, it was a really wet day, and anything could happen, a spill of the ball could decide the game but thankfully we got over the line that day as well.”

Saturday is the start of the celebrations and with so much going on, the club have had to split the nights up. This weekend, at the Ógs social club, located beside the BOX-IT Athletic Grounds, both groundbreaking teams will be honoured.

“We have a big gala dinner with over 600 seats booked in the Armagh City Hotel on the 8th of November, that’s the main one but Saturday has been kept separate because you just couldn’t do everything in one night. We’re going to honour both teams and there’s a brilliant buzz.

“I remember when I was on the committee back in ’92 and we honoured the 1952 Junior Championship winning team on their 40th anniversary and the 1967 Intermediate Championship winning team on their 25th anniversary.

“I was about 33 and I remember thinking those players are ancient so the younger boys will be saying the same about us now on Saturday evening.”