A legend at 90

To some, he"s known as 'The Man In The Cap". To others, he"s 'The Eggman". But to anybody who has even the slightest knowledge of Gaelic football, Peter McDermott is a living legend, locally and nationally. He"d dislike such a description, as he would say that he was just pursuing his major love, and happened to be good at it, but a visit to the GAA museum in Croke Park, where many of his medals are on display, would tell another story. A decade ago, when the museum at GAA headquarters opened, the Navan man"s medals were given pride of place. Last Sunday week, 27th July, the Brews Hill resident celebrated his 90th birthday in the company of family and old friends, and was at the receiving end of many letters and cards, including a poem from his old team-mate, turned poet and writer, Paddy Meegan. He has held almost every position possible within the Gaelic Athletic Association, and 55 years ago refereed the All-Ireland senior football final between Kerry and Armagh, in September 1953. Nothing strange about that, you might say. But then you realise that he played for Meath in the 1952 final against Cavan, and captained Meath to win the 1954 All-Ireland against Kerry. 'It came as a major surprise to me, to be selected as referee for the All-Ireland that year,' McDermott recalled some years back. 'I hadn"t much inter-county refereeing experience before that.' In 1951, he refereed an All-Ireland minor final. That 1953 All-Ireland included a controversial penalty, which McDermott awarded to Armagh. Penalties were rare enough in those days, and Armagh missed their chance. Kerry won the title and the missed penalty is now part of final folklore. Having played for Meath in All-Ireland finals in 1949, '51, '52 and '54, and refereeing in 1953, he went onto referee the two All-Ireland semi-finals of 1955 and the final of 1956. 'It was unique,' McDermott said. 'To be playing and refereeing in consecutive years. Other men have gone on to referee after their playing days, but nobody has done it all together. And, on top of that, I was county board secretary in 1954.' The McDermott family originated in the Cushinstown area, and his father, William, took up a position on an estate in Belgooley, near Kinsale, in Co Cork, where he was born in 1918. The family later moved back to Blanchardstown, and then home to Cushinstown, where schoolmates included a future taoiseach, whose family lived at The Riggins, near Greenpark, at the time, and went to school in Cushinstown. 'Some of the older Haugheys, Sean and Maureen, were closer to my age, and Cathal, as he was known then, was younger. They had a donkey with a saddle for going to school, which they would leave at a house next to the school during the day. The house belonged to a couple who worked on their farm, so the donkey was ready to bring them home in the evening, and they"d take it in turns to ride it,' McDermott recalled. A couple of times a week, he would cycle to his uncle"s house near the Haugheys to collect eggs, and often carried young Cathal home on the handlebars. 'I think a stop was put to it, as we would go flying down Painstown Hill, and it was very dangerous,' he laughed. Peter McDermott began playing football at juvenile level with Curraha and Ardcath, but says that his first serious football was with Rathfeigh, where he was captain in 1936 when they won the minor championship. 'It only lasted two years, and there was never a team in Rathfeigh since,' he added. But it was his years with Donaghmore that made him as a footballer, he believes. 'I was at my fittest during the war years, and playing great football then,' he recalled. 'It was only when I was older that things began to happen,' he added. Donaghmore won the intermediate championship in 1938 and went senior. 'We beat Oldcastle, which was a fairly big thing at the time.' In 1942, Donaghmore won the senior championship. There was a split in the Donaghmore camp at one stage which saw many of the players joining Skryne, and McDermott remaining with Donaghmore, and a great rivalry between the two teams developed. After a number of years playing junior football for Meath, McDermott was selected for the senior team in a NFL semi-final against Wexford in the spring of 1940. Meath had played in their first ever All-Ireland the previous September, and one of his regrets is that he wasn"t on the panel at the time. In 1939, he was playing against Dublin in the Leinster Junior Final. Meath had the match in Naas well won. 'A tragic blunder by the Meath goalie led to Dublin scoring an equalising goal in the last minute,' McDermott recalled. 'I had a good game in the first game, but didn"t play well in the replay, when we were trounced. Dublin went on to win the All-Ireland, but it had more serious consequences for me in that I wasn"t prominent in the replay so didn"t get selected for the senior team that year. Some of the others did.' However, he certainly made up for it afterwards. All-Ireland glory came in 1949, when Meath beat Cavan, and McDermott recalls it as one of his most memorable times in the Meath jersey. 'In 1954, we were a team of no-hopers,' he says. 'There was more than me over the hill!' he added. At this stage, he was almost 15 years playing county football, was county board secretary, had refereed the previous year"s final, and was in semi-retirement. 'But we kept going on in spite of ourselves.' He came on as a sub in the Leinster final against Offaly, and was immediately instrumental in two Meath goals. 'We were rank outsiders when we beat Kerry in the final - sure Louth had beaten us twice earlier that year! We were even written off by our own people.' At 36 years of age, he was one of the oldest captains to lift Sam Maguire. In 1955, McDermott was again in a unique situation - he refereed the two All-Ireland semi-finals, both of which ended in draws: Dublin and Kerry and Cavan and Mayo. Both replays were fixed for the same day, and all the teams wanted his services again. So how did he become 'The man in the cap"? 'Micheal O"Hehir came up with that,' he says. 'I had long hair at the time, split in the middle and well plastered with gel. It was always a problem keeping it down, so I wore a cap. Lots of hurlers wore caps at the time, but not as many footballers, but O"Hehir christened me 'the man with the cap". He made my name for me!' Through a friendship with Newry man Alfie Matthews, who was working in the Ashbourne area, Peter ended up coaching Newry Shamrocks for a Down senior football final, and in 1946, coached Down in their Junior All-Ireland success. This relationship was to have even more significant results 14 years later, when he was invited back as coach of the county"s senior team, winning the All-Ireland in 1960 and 1961. He became Meath coach in 1966, steering them to All-Ireland success the following year against his native Cork. Meath"s good fortune to be All-Ireland champions that year also led to another pioneering feat, a trip to Australia in 1968 to play Australian Rules football, the first ever Irish team to do so. An Australian team had played Meath in Dublin in October 1967, and Peter McDermott was one of the main organisers of the return trip in "68. It was an 'unofficial" trip, but became formal in the 1980s when Meath delegate Pat O"Neill proposed reviving the Australian link, and Peter McDermott was appointed manager of the Irish team for the games against the Australians in the GAA centenary year of 1984. On top of all this GAA activity, McDermott had a business to run. His father, William McDermott, who hurled with Dunshaughlin, was a 'higgler", buying and selling eggs. In 1939, on the same day that war broke out, new regulations came in regarding the buying and selling of eggs, and McDermotts ran their business from the old schoolhouse in Cushinstown. In 1945, with the necessity to use mechanical graders, prior to the advent of rural electrification, the business was moved to Navan. After the war, the English market opened up, and because of rationing, the eggs were being exported through a government agency, so payment was guaranteed. McDermotts also had a lot of clients in Dublin and surrounding counties, to which Peter delivered eggs with his Model T Ford. McDermotts also supplied turkeys for Christmas and later diversified into the chicken and fish business. In 1950, Peter McDermott married the late Bridie Kelly from Ashbourne, and moved to Navan. A switch to Navan O"Mahony"s added another couple of senior county championship medals to his collection. Daughter Maura, who passed away in 2002, arrived two weeks after the Sam Maguire in 1954, followed by Dermot and the late Sean. He was a Central Council delegate in 1945 and 1946, and on Leinster Council in 1946, and '48-"52. The only position he didn"t hold on Leinster Council was that of chairman, for which he was beaten by Fr Tully in a vote in 1949. A week after losing the 1951 All-Ireland final, Meath went to New York to bring home the National Football League title. He revamped the entire county championship system when he became secretary in Meath, including introducing public relations and inviting Philip Greene of Radio Eireann to preview the 1953 final. He was also a regular columnist in the Drogheda Independent, and published a memoir of the 1968 Australian trip entitled 'Gaels in the Sun". He is currently honorary president of the Meath County Board, although his failed eyesight doesn"t allow him to enjoy a match as he used to, and has been the recipient of almost every honour imaginable, including a place on the An Post football team of the millennium and in more recent years, the subject of a TG4 tribute and a civic reception from Meath County Council.