'Even in death, he is still a good role model' - Trillick seek to honour Jody Gormley
Declan Bogue
AT THE FUNERAL Mass of Jody Gormley last December, his one-time Bredagh team mate, the former Irish News sports writer Paddy Heaney, had been asked by Gormley to deliver the eulogy.
The previous weeks were soaked in context. Gormley had been the manager of Trillick St Macartan’s and they were in the Tyrone county final against Errigal Ciaran. They lost by a point.
The sting of defeat would soon subside as all the Trillick players went back to their clubrooms and Gormley told them the news. He had cancer. There was no cure. It was terminal. He had weeks to live.
The news travelled around the county rapidly to the enormous shock and despair of everyone, except Gormley.
Instead, he was busy arranging a get-together of all his family and friends. A ‘living wake’, held in his local pub, The Parador, in south Belfast. Full fancy dress. He himself went as Captain Hook.
Heaney wasn’t in the country for it but made arrangements to visit him the week after. He told the story in his eulogy.
Anxious about his visit and having never met a friend who was facing his own death, Heaney consulted his father, Charlie.
“After a while he said to me, ‘Men tend to die, the way they live,’” Heaney said.
Gormley’s attitude to his final weeks were courageous, brave, sad and highly unusual. They were devoid of self-pity and they were all about celebrating what was close to him; family, life, and Trillick St Macartan’s.
Talking to Heaney, Gormley told him of the first training session when he went back to help out Trillick under Nigel Seaney, before taking over as manager himself.
He hadn’t been involved in many years. As a young man, he went to study in London and ended up playing with Tir Chonaill Gaels and the county team.
While his brothers Damian and Eoin played until they simply could not give any more, Jody played out his final years as Heaney’s midfield partner with Bredagh in the Down leagues, winning a Junior championship.
Despite that, at his first session back, one of the elder statesmen of the Trillick team came up and gave him a hug, saying, “Welcome home, big man.”
Gormley had to fight back tears.
**
James Gormley didn’t grow up in Trillick, but he was of Trillick. His father Jody and his uncles played there. He played a bit of underage football with Bredagh himself but drifted off after his friends did likewise once their minor days were over.
Since he was a mere four years old, Jody had taken James to wherever he was training. At that time, it was Antrim senior footballers. Later it would be Longstone and Loughinisland in Down. Galbally in Tyrone. Bredagh for a pile of years.
So when he started to go back to Trillick, the pattern continued. Soon, the suggestion was made; why wouldn’t James start training with Trillick and play a bit with the reserves?
It’s a four-hour round trip. That time and space needed to be filled.
“He had a playlist called ‘Thunder.’ I have it on my phone here,” James tells The 42 this week.
“Let’s see… The Killers… Bruce Springsteen… Lynyrd Skynrd. Pink Floyd… Foo Fighters… Liam Gallagher, AC/DC, Bell X1, Dropkick Murphys… The Waterboys…
“There’s a fair variety. Don’t get me wrong, some of it is absolutely brutal!
“He loved Bowie. ‘Let’s Dance’, that one comes to me straight away. There’s a bit of a jump here, from Motorhead ‘God Was Never On Your Side’ to Fleetwood Mac, ‘Songbird.’ Johnny Cash next…”
When asked about his travelling to and from Trillick, Gormley once said there was nothing like haring back up the road after training, Angus Young blaring out through the speakers, the prospect of getting into some of the local pubs for last orders.
When Trillick won the 2023 Tyrone championship, his grin split his face when he told reporters that there was nothing in Trillick; “Other than Gaelic football and Rock ‘n’ Roll.”
James Gormley was 20 when his father died. Jody was 20 when his own father, Eugene, died.
He was devoted to his wife Deirdre, from nearby Dromore, and daughters Áine and Niamh. But when the boys were away to football, the son had his father all to himself.
“That’s the way I frame it in my mind. It’s devastating that he died. But from experiencing grief at a young age, you realise from your friends that the relationship I was able to have with him was rare,” says James.
“A lot of men don’t get that with their fathers. That one to one time. I was getting it. Longstone, to Galbally, to Cullyhanna, Loughinisland. I followed him everywhere.
“Thank God I did. Thank God he would take me. I was a poorly behaved child but it was quality time with your dad, three or four times a week. Because you’re in a car, you have to talk.”
He’s been down the road for their two championship games which were nerve-shredding tight wins over Pomeroy and Dungannon. A couple of league games too.
But it’s painful.
It’s not the same.
How could it be?
**
This Sunday, Trillick meet Errigal Ciaran in the Tyrone senior championship semi-final. Nobody dominates Tyrone, but this pairing have become the ‘Big Two.’
They have met in three of the last six county finals, Trillick winning two. Both have featured in four in six years, Trillick losing the other to Dungannon on penalties, Errigal beating Carrickmore in 2023.
Coming back to Trillick was Gormley’s midlife homecoming. While they won seven county titles from 1974 to 1986, Jody and his brother Damian, 18 months his junior, didn’t have the same supporting cast in the next wave.
It didn’t stop either making county teams. During Tyrone’s run to the 1995 All-Ireland final, Jody Gormley kicked the winner in that seismic Ulster semi-final win over Derry. He was the only other Tyrone player other than Peter Canavan to score in the final they lost against Dublin.
Coming back to Trillick though was a huge project.
“Anything Jody did, it was with 100% commitment. Once he made that decision and became part of the Trillick set-up, you are either 100% in, or you are not in,” says his brother Damian.
“And that mentality would have followed through with his players. That’s the standards he would have set. And he led by example in that respect.
“If that required him to be up and down the road three, four times a week, then that’s what it was, it was part of his commitment.
“It was a bit like his training. Jody was a phenomenon. His physical fitness was amazing at 53 years of age.”
In the gym, he could bench press 100 kilos five times. Heaney told that story in his eulogy, mentioning that Jody was too modest to have said, but would also smile that Heaney told the people of Trillick.
But then, the Gormleys are like that. Damian is a veteran of a few Ironman events, but that same modesty forbids him to put a number on it.
Their younger brother Eoin was still performing his classy, unhurried, languid midfield play by the time they won their next county title in 2015, at the age of 37. He only stopped because he ruptured his cruciate.
“Maybe we’re fucking mental!” suggests Damian.
“I’ve done a few (Ironmen) but it’s whatever floats your boat. You have to have something. Maybe when you are so committed to playing football, the level that you were at took some commitment. So you maybe need something to fill that void.
“Jody led and we followed his example. That’s how you do it.”
When the time came for goodbye, everything continued as normal. The extended family went to see Errigal play the first round of the Ulster club against Cargin in Corrigan Park.
When people called to see him, he made sure he was fully dressed and got to the door to greet them, before seeing them off. Until it was physically impossible to do so, he did it.
“As much as he could do, he was doing and living life to the best of his ability at that time,” says Damian.
“And that manifested itself in having a gig in the Parador and meeting all the people, friends and family.
“I’d say, in a weird way, that they enjoyed seeing him and he was up and about the whole night. For someone to have the news he had, the health issues he had, to be able to do that showed immense physical strength and strength of character.”
His long goodbye came at a time when he had never felt closer to his roots, to the people and the area that had shaped him in west Tyrone.
“He was very central to Trillick GAA at the time. He brought a new impetus. A fresh thinking and put a lot of trust in the senior players while bringing through the younger players,” says Damian.
“They had serious success. Once you bring success, it’s a two-way thing. The players are going to link in with you. You put trust in each other and that builds a very strong relationship.”
**
When Gormley knew he hadn’t long left, he made arrangements and helped to bring in Richard Thornton as his successor, to help with former Fermanagh All-Star Peter McGinnity who had been there already.
Football went on in Trillick. It always does. Damian Gormley remembers a conversation with former Trillick player and winner of five championships, Gerry Donnelly, who earned his ‘Shep’ nickname as the dog warden for the local council and was an uncle of Mattie and Richie Donnelly.
They were talking about someone who had died before their time when Donnelly remarked, “You never know when you might get knocked out in the first round of the championship.”
When Trillick won the 2023 county final against Errigal, team captain Rory Brennan spoke long and affectionately about what ‘Shep’ – who passed away only a couple of weeks previous – had done for the club.
Trillick are the Connollys of Moy Senior Football Champions 🏆
Ger Treacy was joined by Jody Gormley and Rory Brennan on Tyrone TV to reflect on today's historic victory. #RefuseToLose pic.twitter.com/OqOL7ClPfY
— Tyrone GAA (@TyroneGAALive) October 29, 2023
So when they face each other on Sunday, the emotions will be raw. Memories of Jody will churn up for so many. No matter what, it will be a very sad day.
“It also brings back memories of the 2023 final which went our way,” remarks his son James, using some incredibly positive logic.
“I remember talking to the lads about 2023 and how good it was to celebrate to the fullest. I don’t know if we would have had that if we lost in 2023, and then won in 2024.”
The grief goes on. But the memory endures.
“It’s almost eerie, but my father’s father passed away when my Dad was the same age as me. Even in death, he is still a good role model,” says James.
“It’s become a large part of me. The way Trillick have embraced me and the family. Even prior to Dad being sick but since then it’s been unbelievable and shows the strength of the community and what the GAA is all about.”
The 42
