78 year old Offaly GAA referee officiates at ladies football final with twin grandsons as umpires

HISTORY of some sort was surely made when veteran Offaly GAA referee Noel Cooney officiated at a ladies football final on Saturday with two of his grandchildren as umpires.

78 year old Noel Cooney took charge of an Offaly U14 ladies football final between Na Fianna and St Broughan’s in Clara on Saturday with his twin 17 year old grandsons, Donncha and Micheal Cooney among his four umpires – Na Fianna won by 1-9 to 3-2..

Donncha and Micheal are sons of Noel’s son, Patrick Cooney, a former Tullamore footballer and live near Killeigh – the two lads currently play minor with Na Fianna and are students at Colaiste Choilm in Tullamore.

A long time Tullamore resident, Noel Cooney, a native of Turraun in the Erin Rovers GAA Club catchment area, has been a remarkable force of nature since taking up refereeing back in the 1970s.

He was wing back on the Erin Rovers team that suffered an agonising loss to Rhode in a replayed Senior Football Championship final in 1969. Older brother Sean, one of the greats of Offaly football, was the star man of that excellent team and an All-Ireland senior football medal winning hero with Offaly in 1971 and 1972, a two time All-Star in 1972 and 1973.

Noel Cooney was one of the best football referees in Offaly in the 1980s, ‘90s and 2000s, and has continued refereeing well into old age. He still officiates at Offaly GAA underage football games, some adult fixtures and regularly does linesman at big games.

An excellent, common sense official, he is one of Offaly’s great characters, with a great passion for Irish dancing and ceile, along with his wife Pauline, and he is a very entertaining raconteur, who has wrote some very inventive poems and songs.

He has refereed several Offaly senior football finals, finals in all grades and was very close to reaching the top at inter-county level refereeing in the 1990s. A couple of controversies, especially a point that was awarded but later proven to be wide at an Leinster senior football game between Carlow and Laois in 1995, put the brakes on his advance to the top – that point was “scored” by Mick Turley, a son of a former footballer, Martin Turley, Gracefield, who played minor for three years in a row for Offaly from 1958 to 1960, winning a Leinster medal in 1960. Laois subsequently offered a replay, which they won.

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Noel has also refereed senior hurling games in Offaly and has been an integral, much loved part of the Offaly GAA scene for several decades.