Tullamore GAA Club in moving tribute to iconic Offaly footballing family

TULLAMORE GAA Club have unveiled a moving tribute to one of their and Offaly GAA's favourite footballing families.

A fantastic pictorial tribute to the Furlong family has been put up in their Social Centre and will be officially opened on Friday evening at 8pm.

The impressive mural takes up a good portion of a wall up near the stage and features images from all stages of the Furlong's long tenure in Tullamore.

The family is synonymous with Offaly football. Goalkeeping hero Martin Furlong is the most famous. He was the goalkeeper as Offaly won the All-Ireland Minor Football Championship in 1964 and All-Ireland Senior Football Championship in 1971, 1972 and 1982. A four time All-Star, his penalty save from Mikey Sheedy paved the way for the famous All-Ireland senior football final win in the 1982, when he was the national footballer of the year.

He is Offaly's most capped and decorated footballer and followed the road set down on by older brothers, Mick and Tom years earlier. Mick was the trend setter, winning a Leinster minor football medal with Offaly in 1947 and playing senior football and hurling for Offaly before emigrating to New York in the early 1950s. Tom was also a golden talent, a teenage protege, who was on the Offaly panel in 1961 as they reached the All-Ireland senior football final and he also followed Mick to America before the mid 1960s.

Another brother John didn't have an adult playing career because of a childhood illness but was one of the great characters in Tullamore for decades – a sociable, personable man with a tremendous wit, he is still remembered with great fondness by the older generations.

The talent has continued on down the generations. Ken Furlong, the oldest son of Martin and Katie, played in goals for Offaly U21 and senior footballers in the 1990s and has since managed Offaly minor and U21 footballers.

Offaly GAA had a great stroke of luck with Ken Furlong. Martin and Katie followed Mick and Tom to New York in 1988. They initially went with their four children, Ken, Joan, Tom and Mark – Ken was a fifth year student in the then Tullamore CBS at the time, Joan was in Tullamore Sacred Heart School while Tom and Mark were younger. Uprooting at that stage was too much for Ken and Joan and they soon returned home to see out their secondary school education in Tullamore with Joan marrying Rahan man Tom Minnock and setting up home in Kildare, Ken marrying a Ballydaly woman, Paula Finlay and building their house there.

Two sons of Ken and Paula have followed the great Furlong tradition of playing football for Offaly. John was sensational as Offaly won the All-Ireland U20 Football Championship in 2021 and has established himself on the Offaly senior football team. One of the most talented footballers in Offaly, his defensive excellence and ability to be in the right place at the right time is often breathtaking. Niall has played minor and U20 football and hurling for Offaly and was midfield on the team that was so unlucky to lose out to Tipperary in the All-Ireland minor hurling final in 2022.

Older brother, Tom is also a very dedicated, hard working and talented footballer. The fourth Tom Furlong to live in Tullamore, he was outstanding for Tullamore in their recent Intermediate Football Championship final win over St Brigid's and joined John and Niall on the field when coming on as a late sub in Tullamore's Senior Football Championship win over Rhode in the semi-final the following day.

The splitting of the family at that time in 1988 had to have been hugely difficult for their parents but Offaly and Tullamore GAA ended up big winners – and Martin's passion for both burns as brightly as it ever did.

Fortune had also favoured Tullamore and Offaly with the initial arrival of the Furlong's to the town. Furlong is very much a Wexford name and Tom Furlong and his wife Margaret came to Tullamore in the 1920s, amid the fallout of the War of Independence and the following Civil War. They initially lived in Puttaghaun before setting up their family home in O'Moore Street. That house was demolished in the 1990s to make way for the Tullamore Court Hotel and their story was commemorated there with the Furlong Bar named for them and a great montage of pictures on the family.

That montage was taken down after the Flanagan Group sold the Tullamore Court Hotel, initially going to Wexford. Thanks to the Flanagan family patriarch, the late John Flanagan, those invaluable pictures were subsequently delivered to Tullamore GAA Club and form the centre piece of the new display.

It has been updated to include pictures of Tom, John and Niall Furlong, their sister Liadh and mother Paula. Fittingly, a picture of a lifelong club and county team mate and friend of Martin Furlong, Paddy Fenning is included – the late Paddy Fenning was responsible for the display at the Tullamore Court Hotel and a gala function, attended by hundreds, to mark it over twenty years ago.

It is a very attractive display and blends in very well with the wide range of historical pictures on display in the Social Centre – including adult and underage championship winning teams, every club chairman and secretary and many of their county stalwarts.

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Martin and Katie Furlong have made an annual pilgrimage to Tullamore in recent years to co-incide with county final weekend – Tullamore are playing in their sixth consecutive senior football final, meeting Ferbane, next Sunday. They are uncertain if they will be able to make it this year as Katie recovers from a broken hip but even if they aren't present, Friday's function will be a very special occasion for both club and family.