The late Tom Mulvihill and Christy Rhatigan Two men - footballers in their earlier years - Tom Mulvihill and Christy Rhatigan, are remembered in the annals of Cashel GAA for their notable contribution to the success of the Cashel team in winning the Co Longford Junior Championship in 1948. They came to the 1948 team in different ways - Tom having been part of the 1942-43 championship and League winning panel, and now mature and experienced enough in 1948 to be captain of that year's team. Christy, on the other hand, was a newcomer, his work bringing him to live in the parish a short time before. Coincidentally it was Tom's place at centre field on the team that Christy was initially given, because of a hand injury that Tom had picked up and which rendered him unfit to play. In his fist appearance Christy made such an impact, that in Tom's recovery from injury the team was switched around to facilitate Christy remaining at centre-field and Tom captaining the side from then on as a half back. It would appear that both Tom and Christy took with them the commitment and team spirit engendered in the 1948 campaign, when in later years and for different reasons they left for Moheraveen and Athlone respectively, where they were to spend the rest of their lives, until the last call came for each of them. Each, in his own place, will be remembered by his neighbours and community as a man who could be trusted to lend a hand and give him support to every worthwhile enterprise. They are both missed by many, and will remain in the thoughts and memories, not only of the Moheraveen and Athlone communities, but by many as well, in the parish of Cashel. It was St. Paul who wrote that "the life and death of each of us has its influence on others." Nowhere can this be more true than in the case of Tom and Christy, whose paths and lives crossed for a short couple of years in the late 1940's and whose early sojourns ended within weeks of each other in May/June 2003. In the intervening years they trod many a path and completed many a job with honesty and integrity. In truth their lives were and are an example to the rest of us. Ar dheis De go raibh a n-anamacha dilse. Courtesy of the Longford Leader August 2003 Tweet

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