A special event to commemorate Kilbeggan Shamrocks' winning of the 1959 Westmeath junior football and hurling championship took place recently and among those to be honoured was Larry Wyer, who is now based in Bray, Co. Wicklow where he works as a barrister.

Kilbeggan's famous 1959 junior football and hurling championship double was fondly recalled at a special commemoration event which took place in Locke's Distillery on Sunday, March 7 last.
The unique double holds a special place in the annals of Kilbeggan Shamrocks, who are one of the oldest GAA clubs in the country. Although a year later than planned, the 50th anniversary of those wonderful successes was marked in fine style when surviving and deceased members of both teams were honoured.
The well-attended event, which was organised by a committee comprising Stan McCormack, Dan Scally, Frank Keoghan, Randal Scally, Kitty Flynn, Donal Fox, Dermot Smith, Frank Ryan and Alan McCormack, also honoured the Kilbeggan Boys' National School team which won the Comortas na mBunscol football title in 1954. A number of players from that team went on to feature five years later, including a very young Larry Wyer.
Larry was just 15 when he lined out in the Kilbeggan attack for the 1959 junior football final joust with Mullingar Shamrocks. After the teams fought out a 0-3 each stalemate, Kilbeggan ran out comfortable 3-4 to 0-4 winners in the replay to complete the second leg of the double.
"I was the baby of the team," he jokingly remembers.
"I was in my second year as a boarder in Carmelite College, Moate. I didn't play on the hurling team, but my brother Peter and cousin Jack McCormack (both deceased) were on both teams. Peter captained the 1954 Kilbeggan school team which I also played on as a 10-year-old."
The junior football and hurling championships were annexed within a fortnight of each another in 1959, with 13 players figuring in both successes.
The hurling championship was the first title to come to the banks of the Brosna on September 20 when Glenidan were overwhelmed on a 7-7 to 4-4 scoreline. A brace of early goals from Paddy Gorry set the tone for the afternoon and Jack McCormack had added a third before Glenidan opened their account. When Gorry completed his hat-trick after the restart, the game was ended as a contest.
After drawing the junior football final with Mullingar Shamrocks on September 13, Kilbeggan ran out comfortable 3-4 to 0-4 winners in the replay on October 4 to complete a historic double. The dominance enjoyed by county star Ned 'Dinger' Bruer and Jim Grehan at midfield ensured a constant supply of possession to the Kilbeggan forwards with PJ Smith, Paddy Gorry and Des Kelliher all among the goals.
At the commemoration event, the guests of honour enjoyed a free tour of Locke's Distillery Museum before settling down for two hours of nostalgia. The great battles of 1959 were fondly remembered in words, poetry, music and song, while framed photographs of the winning junior teams were presented to surviving members and families of deceased members. Afterwards, the guests sampled the world-famous Kilbeggan Whiskey and refreshments were also served in front of a roaring fire in the adjoining Pantry Restaurant.
"It was a marvellous occasion and I was delighted to have been a part of it," says Bray-based barrister Larry, who was one of the speakers at the event.
"There was a great turnout and it was wonderful to see the lads I had played with again. It was hard not to get emotional, especially as so many of the team are no longer with us. When I was growing up, there was a great sense of pride and community spirit in Kilbeggan and the people who organised this commemoration clearly have that. They didn't want to let the occasion pass without marking it and those of us who played on those teams are grateful to them for that."
Larry grew up next door to what is now The Black Kettle pub in the heart of Kilbeggan. "I was born and reared in Brewery House, which actually had a brewery out the back, and my mother - who is still alive and well - lived there until recently," he says.
"Kilbeggan was a great place to grow up in the 1950s and 1960s. There were a lot of great characters in the town. The GAA was at the centre of community life and every free moment you had would be spent kicking a football or pucking a sliothar."
During Larry's youth, hurling was just as strong as football in Kilbeggan, despite there been little or no tradition of hurling in the town.
"The man who got hurling started in Kilbeggan without ever trying to promote it was Jerry O'Riordan. He was working in Locke' Distillery at the time he won an All-Ireland medal with Cork in 1954," Larry explains.
"He used to be pucking a ball around down in the GAA field and the interest grew from there. Hurling came naturally to a lot of the young lads in the town and within a couple of years, Kilbeggan won a minor championship up in the hurling heartland of Castlepollard. The junior championship followed in '59, but it's sad to say that hurling died in Kilbeggan a few years after that."
Larry, who won a second Comortas na mBunscol medal with Kilbeggan Boys' National School in 1956, played five years with the Carmelite College senior football team and was also a county minor for three years (he was a year overage when Westmeath reached the 1963 All-Ireland minor final). In 1959, he played on five different Kilbeggan teams (under 15, 16, 17, minor and junior), and finished the year with minor and junior championship medals.
Insisting that 'player burnout' was not an issue in those days, Larry trained as a primary school teacher in St. Pat's, Drumcondra on completing his Leaving Cert and played for Erin's Hope, which was the GAA club attached to the college. Sadly, Larry's promising football career was cut short when he suffered a serious knee injury when playing for Kilbeggan in a challenge match in nearby Durrow in 1963.
Larry, whose second cousin Mattie McCormack won an All-Ireland minor medal with Westmeath in 1995, remained involved in the GAA for many years after and was partly responsible for introducing football and hurling to St. Peter's National School, Little Bray, where he took up his first teaching post.
"When I arrived in Bray, soccer was the dominant sport but I helped to get both football and hurling started in the school and within three or four years, we won the Wicklow schoolboys football championship and the Miller Shield in Dublin. In hurling, we reached the semi-finals of the Dublin schoolboys championship and I also coached the Bray Emmets minors for a time," he proudly recalls.
After nearly 20 years teaching, Wyer changed careers in 1983 when he qualified as a barrister. "I had been studying law part-time before I was admitted to King's Inn. Then, in 1983, I was elected onto the Bar Council of Ireland," he explains. Larry is now a familiar face on the Dublin and Eastern Circuits and his work regularly takes him to the High Court as well.
Married to Rahugh woman Mary Slevin, Larry has two grown-up children - Sinead and Conor. Sinead is an accountant, while Conor lectures in London University.
Despite being domiciled in Bray for over 40 years, Larry has remained an avid Westmeath supporter and took immense satisfaction from their triumphs over the past decade or so.
"I still follow them very closely and travel to a lot of their matches with Fergus Keegan, who's a Dubliner but has Castletown-Geoghegan connections. I'm also a patron of the Westmeath Football Supporters' Group," he concludes.

The surviving members of the 1959 Kilbeggan junior hurling and football teams are: J Lynagh, S Craig, N Rooney, P Clavin, P Keegan, V Ryan, M Moran, J Grehan, D Kelliher, M Guilfoyle, L Wyer, JJ Sheerin, S Stokes, W Corcoran, B McCormack.

The deceased members were: J McCormack, PJ Carton, M Craig, J Ryan, T McCormack, PJ Smith, E Bruer, P Wyer, P Gorry, P Carton, C Dunne, J Quinn, P Quinn, T Dunican. Tweet

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