Cormac McAnallen
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| Personal information | |||
|---|---|---|---|
| Sport | Gaelic football | ||
| Irish Name | Cormac Mac An Ailín | ||
| Date of Birth | February 11, 1980 | ||
| Date of Death | March 2, 2004 (aged 24) | ||
| Place of birth | County Tyrone, Ireland | ||
| Club information | |||
| Club | Eglish | ||
| Position | Midfield | ||
| Club(s)* | |||
| Club | Years | Apps (scores) | |
| ? -2004 | |||
| Inter County | |||
| County | Tyrone | ||
| Position | Full Back / Midfield | ||
| Inter County(ies)** | |||
| County | Years | Apps (scores) | |
| Tyrone | ?- 2004 | ||
| Inter County Titles | |||
| Ulster Titles | 2 | ||
| All-Ireland | 1 | ||
| All-Stars | 1 | ||
|
* club appearances and scores |
|||
Cormac McAnallen (1980 - 2004), or Cormac Mac An Ailín/ Cormac Mac Conalláin, was an Irish sportsman who played Gaelic football for Tyrone and Eglish from County Tyrone,Northern Ireland.
Born in Dungannon, and raised in the nearby Brantry area, Cormac McAnallen was a schoolteacher by profession. He taught at St. Benildus’s College in Dublin and later at St. Catherine's College, Armagh. He won almost every honour in the sport of Gaelic football. In 1998 Cormac captained Tyrone to an All-Ireland Minor Football Championship victory. In 2000 he won a Sigerson Cup title with Queen's University Belfast and later captained Tyrone to two All-Ireland Under-21 titles in 2000 and 2001. He also has a Dublin Senior Club Football Championship with UCD in 2002 ([1]).
In 2001, McAnallen was named national "Young Footballer of the Year" and Ulster Senior Player of the Year. He was a midfielder of the Tyrone team that won two National Football League titles in 2002 and 2003.
In 2003 he moved to the full-back position and two months later the team won the All-Ireland Senior Football Championship for the first time in the county's century-long history of participation in Gaelic Games. This led to him receiving his first All-Star award in 2003. McAnallen also played on Ireland's International rules football team in 2001, 2002 and 2003.
Cormac McAnallen had worked prior to his death as a teacher at St. Benildus College in Kilmacud, and was very popular among staff and students.
He died suddenly in his sleep on March 2, 2004, aged 24, from an undetected heart condition. His untimely death deeply affected the Tyrone team and the world of Gaelic Games as a whole. Just over week before his death, Cormac captained the Tyrone side that won the Dr. McKenna Cup after an overwhelming victory over Donegal at Ballybofey.
In 2004 the "Cormac McAnallen Cup", the cup that Ireland and Australia play for in the International Rules Series, was named in his honour. In January 2005, the Cormac McAnallen’s GAC was also founded in Sydney, Australia.
In February 2005 the Cormac Trust was launched in his memory. Its aims are to raise awareness of conditions causing Sudden Cardiac Death in the young; to promote cardiac screening to detect such conditions; to provide education and information to raise awareness at government level and among other authorities as to the value of providing facilities for the screening of young people; and to provide automated external defibrillators (AEDs) for sports clubs in the local region, and CPR training.
In September 2005, when Tyrone won their 2nd All Ireland football championship, Brian Dooher, the captain of Tyrone, dedicated the victory in Cormac's name in his acceptance speech up in the Hogan Stand. Dooher said that "Cormac should have been standing here instead of me," and went on to say, as a tearful team manager Mickey Harte had previously done only minutes before, that Cormac immediately stated after he had been appointed captain that he had not wished the success achieved in 2003 to be his last with the county. The tens of thousands of Tyrone fans who were on the pitch after Tyrone won the match then began to chant Cormac's name on what was an intensely emotional day for all those involved in Gaelic Games in Tyrone.
| Tyrone Panel: 2003 All-Ireland Final | ||
|---|---|---|
|
1 John Devine | 2 Cairan Gourley | 3 Cormac McAnallen | 4 Ryan McMenamin | 5 Conor Gormley | 6 Gavin Devlin | 7 Phillip Jordan | 8 Kevin Hughes | 9 Sean Cavanagh | 10 Brian Dooher | 11 Brian McGuigan | 12 Gerard Cavlan | 13 Enda McGinley | 14 Peter Canavan (Cap.) | 15 Eoin Mulligan | |
||
