Eddie Madigan was born in 1928 and gave three decade of sterling service to Kildimo GAA club as a player. When his playing days were over he was mentor to the up and coming hurlers and footballers in the parish. Eddie played his first adult hurling game for Kildimo at fifteen years of age against Mungret in the Patrickswell Tournament. Mungret had won the county junior hurling title in 1945 and had eight on the county junior team that won the All-Ireland in 1946 and would have had another only Christy Touhy couldn't play. Kildimo beat this great Mungret team in the Patrickswell Tournament in 1946 played in Fosters Field in Crecora, by four points. Eddie travelled to the match by ass and car.

Kildimo played Patrickswell in a field in Breska and they won by eleven goals. The talk afterwards was there would never be a team in Patrickswell - how wrong that talk proved. Kildimo drew with Patrickswell in the 1957 City Junior Hurling Final. Patrickswell won the replay well and went on to win the county junior and never looked back as a club.
Kildimo/Pallaskenry defeated Coolcappa/Ardagh by 5-7 to 3-5 in the final of the Kildimo/Pallaskenry hurling tournament played at Pallaskenry in August 1960. A photo of this team is up in the clubhouse and also in Eddie and Mary's house.

Eddie Madigan's most memorable match was the Rathkeale Gold Watch Tournament match in 1959. Kildimo/Pallaskenry had won eleven matches in a row that year. When he was finished playing, Eddie got a minor hurling team to the West minor championship final in 1967. Tournafulla beat them 1-7 to 1-6. He was also involved when Kildimo/Pallaskenry got to a juvenile football team to a West final in 1970 when they were beaten by Fr Casey's by two points.
When Eddie was a club delegate and Kildimo were in the West Division he had to cycle to Newcastle West, Ballingarry and Rathkeale for West Board meetings. It would be often 1am before he would get back to Kildimo, sometimes drenched wet and there would often be a crowd waiting for him at Slattery's corner to see how things went at the meeting. They got to matches that time by cycling or by horse-drawn sidecar. The furthest away matches at this time were in Ballingarry as there was no pitch in Newcastle West until 1959, at which stage Kildimo/Pallaskenry were in the City Division.
Eddie was also heavily involved in the field development in the 1980s. The work was done free by local block-layers, plasterers, carpenters, plumbers and electricians.
Eddie was a steward at the 1949 Munster final involving Cork and Tipperary. This was the day Christy Ring blasted fork goal and the ball hit the back stanchion and Tony Reddin pulled on the rebound and it landed at the half way line.

It was a blistering hot day with three fatalities in the crowd. Eddie recalled: 'The hackneys were all day drawing people out to the Gaelic Grounds with sidecars." When they were finished stewarding they got tea and sandwiches at the Savoy Hotel.

On that same Sunday night Kildimo GAA ran a dance in the hall at Croagh. When they arrived there were no lights on so they had to go to the parish priest to get the lamps - and it was not an easy job to persuade him to hand them over either. Christy Keane was playing music and the biggest problem they had on the night was stopping people getting in for free.
Eddie loved working with the youth of the parish. He had great admiration for the current team, describing them as 'a great bunch of lads with great team spirit'. He is survived by his wife Mary, sisters Peg Conway and Eileen Dowling, relatives and friends.

Limerick Leader, August 27th 2011 Tweet

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