Colm O'Rourke

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Colm O'Rourke (Irish: Colm Ó Ruairc) (born 31 August 1957) is a retired inter-county Irish Gaelic footballer for County Meath in Ireland and a panellist on RTÉ's The Sunday Game. Despite becoming famous for playing for Meath, O'Rourke is not a Meathman. He is, in fact, a native of a small parish called Aughavas Co. Leitrim^[1]. His family moved from Leitrim to Meath due to the Land Commission granting land to westerners in Meath and Kildare. O'Rourke is a descendant of the great Uí Ruairc royal house of Breffni. He has, however, been accepted by the people of Skryne in Meath as one of their own forty years after arriving from Aughavas. He is a secondary school teacher in St. Patrick's Classical School in Navan where he has trained the Gaelic football to numerous successes at provincial and national level throughout the past two decades^{[citation needed]}. He has also managed his own sports shop in Navan Shopping Centre, Colm O'Rourke Sports, during this period. He started working on The Sunday Game with RTÉ in 1991, and has simultaneously been a regular contributor of sports columns in national newspapers. He is continously being linked with the Meath GAA manager's job, previously held by another man with strong Leitrim connections, Sean Boylan. It is also widely rumoured that he is being courted by political parties to run in the next General Election.^[2]

[edit] Playing career

Colm is now retired from his footballing career. He has won two All-Ireland medals with Meath, in 1987 and 1988. He also won five Leinster Championship medals and three National Football League wins. He managed the Irish team for the Compromise Rules competition for two successful outings. O'Rourke received three All-Star for Meath in 1983, 1988 and 1991. His performance, playing with a bandaged knee, in the legendary Dublin-Meath matches of the summer of 1991 are still recounted in Meath and drew admiration from GAA fans throughout Ireland.

[edit] References

^ "Colm O’Rourke Happy 51st", The Hogan Stand, Lynn Publications, 1991-09-13. Retrieved on 2006-09-16.
^ Mac Carthaigh, Sean. "Playing the by-election blues", The Post.ie, The Sunday Business Post, 2004-01-25. Retrieved on 2006-09-16.