Search is on to reunite Galway hurler with lost 1988 All-Ireland medal
A search is on to reunite a member of the 1988 All-Ireland Galway hurling side with their winning medal – lost less than a year after their Croke Park success.
The medal was picked up on the street outside the old Athlone Shopping Centre by a local farmer who is now anxious to return it to the player it belongs to.
Farmer Pat Keena, who has strong links to West Galway, happened to be in Athlone the year after Galway’s second-in-a-row All-Ireland success when he came across what he thought was a coin on the street.
On closer examination, he discovered that it was an actual All-Ireland hurling medal that had been presented to one of the Galway players in 1988 but so far he has been unable to reunite it to its original recipient.
Pat, who is now 88 years of age and has always had a keen interest in Galway hurling, was in Athlone in his van and was walking along the footpath close to the Athlone Shopping Centre at the time when he made the discovery.
His son Mike Keena, who works with Colm Quinn Motors which has an outlet in Galway city, said that his father couldn’t believe what he had found back in 1989.
Mike told The Connacht Tribune that since then the family have been trying to find out who the medal belongs to but have not been successful in this regard.
“He was in Athlone on the day and parked his van outside the shopping centre. He got out and noticed something on the footpath that he thought was a coin and the natural instinct was to pick it up.
“It turned out not to be a coin but an All-Ireland hurling medal and when he looked at it more closely, he discovered that it had been presented to one of the winning Galway players in 1988 but, obviously, it didn’t state who it belonged to.
“We have tried to establish the owner of the medal but no one is putting their hands up. Maybe they have forgotten about it being almost 30 years ago but it would still be nice to give it back to the original recipient,” Mike Keena added.
His father Pat Keena is a first cousin of the legendary Morgan Darcy who was both a player and a long serving official with the Moycullen GAA Club while his mother is originally Maura Faherty from Oughterard.
See full story in this week’s Connacht Tribune.