Mayo's number one Gabriel Irwin - The man from Glenamoy. There's certainly a different buzz about Mayo these days. As the countdown to the Summer Championship season begins, the county's football crew will come under the media's spot light with an intensity hardly equalled (1989 exempted) since the halcyon days of the 1950-'51 era when back to back All-Ireland Seniors went West. The advent of Jack O'Shea plus ingrained optimism within the mass ranks of the Red and Green clad army have combined to light the fuse for what ought to be an explosive mix in the months ahead. Making war against forty-odd years of what might have been seasons, heads the Mayo agenda and all the big guns will be expected to show their fire-power. According to one of Mayo's top guns, however Sligo (and we are presuming that Sligo will overcome the London challenge) are not to be taken for granted and are likely to be more than prepared for the hand-to-hand combat that's in the pipeline. We're expecting a tough match with Sligo especially in light of our experience against them in Castlebar. I've no doubt but that they're looking forward to playing us again this year and are sharpening their knives in anticipation of the match," offered Mayo's long-serving and most reliable of 'keepers, Gabriel Irwin. Mentally prepared to meet the challenge as is likely to be posed by the men from the Yeats County, Gabriel Irwin, the Glenamoy man, has been through it all before. His surprising caution, however, has been manufactured from the furnace of often bitter failures, suffered in the name of successive Mayo football squads who flattered to deceive or suffered the wrath of outrageous misfortune at the crucial moment. Just as in 1989. A season which was, in essence, a real mixed bag for the Glenamoy Great. A good-bad year, as such for the 27 year old netminder whose penchant for keeping clean sheets would make him a housewife's best household item. 1989 and recollections thereof rekindles a vault of memories Gabriel. "Although we lost out to Cork in the All-Ireland final that year, we looked upon our run as a stepping stone for better things in '90. That wasn't the way things worked out though. You need at least twelve out of the fifteen to play up to scratch to win out but, unfortunately, on the day against Cork, we didn't come up the with number." True to form, Gabriel fails to mention the not too insignificant matter of a suspect square ball incident which helped seal Mayo's fate. One of a breed that are last to pass the buck, but firstly to admit their frailties, Mayo's current incumbent of the position least favoured by cowards is in a reflective, philosophical frame of mind as the 1993 Connacht Championship season looms on the horizon. "This year is likely to be crossroads for me with regard to my career with the county. I honestly don't see myself as being around for very much longer but in saying that, I will leave it 'til the end of the year before weighing up things for definite," acknowledged the self-employed panel-beater from his workplace at Glenamoy, just ten miles east of Belmullet. Part of the Mayo football vanguard (on the high profile inter-county Senior stage) since joining the county panel in Autumn of 1985, Gabriel Irwin exudes a realism and a rational when discussing the finer points of life in football's fast lane that portrays a veritable well of priceless experience. Irwin, the 1989 All-Star Award winner, has travelled many's the road with no little soap-box, he can nevertheless speak with authority and first-hand experience on what it takes to reach the top of your chosen sport. The Mayo goalkeeper's achievement in making it to the top of the G.A.A. pile is all the more noteworthy given the modesty of his footballing background in emigration hit Glenamoy. Helped considerably in his formative footballing years by Pat Healy, a local, G.A.A. mentor, it was at nearby Lackencross Secondary School that Gabriel was first allowed to give vent to the competitive urge that rifled through every sinew of his 5 feet ten inch, twelve stone frame. Devoid of any Underage action at home with Glenamoy due to a scarcity of human resources, Gabriel fairly compensated this imbalance by figuring on the Lackencross Under 16 team which clinched back to back county schools titles before progressing to win a Connacht Senior title (a triumph which also highlighted the talents of one Anthony McGarry). Still, better was to come. Amazingly, Gabriel confesses that it was just by chance that he found himself in a pivotal role on the school football team. "It was by accident that I got on to the school team. I was going to collect my lunch one day and Father Michael Flynn intimated that he was short a few players for a match against Crossmolina, so I accepted his request to go along." From such an inauspicious beginning, the cat-like reflexes of the Glenamoy 'keeper helped him secure an All-Ireland Vocational Schools medal in 1983 when linking up with colleagues Sean Clarke, Michael Collins and Billy and Peter McGarry on the Mayo team which beat Kerry in Killarney. Conspicuously left out (along with the rest of his school team mates) from the county Minor management plans in 1982, Irwin did, in fact, claim a place with Mayo's Under 18 squad in '83. A first round defeat against Roscommon was counterbalanced by his promotion later the same year to the county Under 21 squad. This bunch clinched the Connacht title (Mayo 1-19, Roscommon 1-8) before going all the way to defeat a Dermot McNicholl powered Derry in the competition final (1-8 to 1-5) after a replay in which players like John Maughan, John Finn, Padraig Brogan and Noel Durkin starred. "We hit the jackpot and our confidence just snowballed from there," Gabriel recalled. A veritable building block of the Glenamoy club when formed in 1978, Gabriel Irwin's happy days continued unabated as he teamed up with players such as Wexford's Billy Dodd and Roscommon Minor Martin Daly to help steer Sligo Regional Technical College to a Fresher Cup title in 1984. Operating from the centre half forward berth at club level, Gabriel, in liaison with 1982 Mayo school's team mates Kevin Maloney, Michael Boylan and Padraig McGrath, helped consolidate Glenamoy's entry into Mayo Junior League circles but, in truth, it was on the county Under 21 circuit that the 'keeper 'cum attacker shone to best effect. Galway in successive years (1984,'85) and Leitrim thereafter fell foul of the wiles and ways of Irwin and Company as Mayo completed a quartet of Connacht Under 21 Championship title wins. A long time leading light on the G.A.A. scene in the Belmullet, Ballycastle and Killane areas of the county, Gabriel remains one of the guiding forces behind the Kilcommon parish team's quest for big-time football in Mayo. A Division Three League medal winner in 1986, (later to be added too by Junior wins in 1988/'89/'90 Gabriel Irwin, for all his success with Mayo, is very much a Glenamoy true-blue. "I've been asked several times would I have liked to have played for a high profile Senior club but my answer has always been the same. I have no regrets about staying with Glenamoy. Playing with the county team at various grades had more than compensated me for any honours I might have missed out on in the Mayo Senior grade." A one-time flirting romance with local Junior soccer club Barcastle, back in 1988, was, ironically, the forerunner to Gabriel's call up for his first Senior Championship match when the 1989 Connacht final (Roscommon were beaten after a replay) marked his dream debut and entrance on to the biggest sporting stage west of the river Shannon. Gabriel explains the background to his coming of age and his feeling then. "Eugene (Lavin) received a leg injury in the run up to the game, but I didn't know until the Saturday before the match that I had been picked to play in the final. Even though it could be said that I was thrown in at the deep end, I think it was better that way because I couldn't have been any more relaxed and I was delighted things worked out." All told, a Connacht Championship Senior football medallist on four different occasions (1985, '88, '89, '92) and a cousin of Galway starlet Francis McWalter, Gabriel Irwin has installed himself as a role model for all would-be goalkeepers of whatever code. Bringing to life the sometimes overused sporting clinches of mobility and agility, the prospect of facing what he himself considers to be Mayo's bogey Championship side is what now concentrates his mind. "Galway have always been our stumbling block and I always know I've my work cut-out when facing players like Val Daly and Fergal O'Neill. It won't be easy in Connacht this year either, that's guaranteed." Taken from Hogan Stand magazine 9th April 1993 Tweet

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