Ned Durnin - the talented footballer who escaped Dublin's clutches

Anybody who pays a visit to Donaghmore/Ashbourne's home ground and takes a stroll through the fine, spacious clubhouse will see, safely sealed up in a glass-covered cabinet are two jerseys. Both belonged to Ned Durnin. The great Ned Durnin.

One is a green jersey with white colour and cuffs. It's a jersey that Ned wore while playing for Meath in the 1954 All-Ireland final. The Royals County - who won 1-13 to 1-7 - were facing Kerry on the last Sunday in September that year. So, to avoid a colour clash, Meath wore the colours of Leinster while Kerry sported the blue of Munster.

The other jersey in the glass-covered cabinet is one with green and white hoops. It's an example of the kind of jerseys worn by the Donaghmore footballers back in the day when Ned was showing why he was regarded as one of the shining stars of the Gaelic football firmament - not only in Meath but in the country. Also tucked in neatly beside the jerseys are photographs, including one of the Meath panel from that '54 final.

All the players in the squad are included in the photograph; young men with slick, byrlcreamed hair, full of life and anticipation before the start of the biggest occasion in Irish sport. Behind them can be seen a section of the Cusack Stand jam-packed with spectators. A crowd of 75,275 showed up for the big game and paid a handsome sum of £8,613, seven shillings and zero pence. A king and queen's ransom at the time although it wasn't a record attendance.

That had been set the previous year for the Dublin v Armagh All-Ireland which attracted an attendance of 85,155 that yielded receipts of £10,904. 9s. 1d. Still, the Meath v Kerry game attracted a hell of a crowd in days when it wasn't all that easy to get from A to B. It was particularly difficult for people in Kerry. Many of their supporters would have taken the 'ghost train' which travelled up from the Kingdom during the course of the previous night. At least Meath followers didn't have to deal with that.

Ned was the only Donaghmore man to feature against Kerry that day. A great honour indeed for the player, and the club, which in 1996 became known as Donaghmore/Ashbourne. The Meath team was captained by Peter McDermott, who had helped Meath to their first Sam Maguire triumph in 1949 and who had a spell with Donaghmore but by '54 he had moved to Navan O'Mahonys.

This is the 70th anniversary, of course, of Meath's '54 All-Ireland success and it's poignant and relevant that Ned Durnin's feats on the football front should be commemorated - particularly this year of all years. One man who certainly feels the life of Ned Durnin, the great Ned Durnin, should be marked and celebrated is Frank Reidy. The retired teacher is a real Donaghmore/Ashbourne clubman and he has carried out a lot of research on Ned's life and times.

Frank points out that Ned's upbringing was far from conventional. He was born in Dublin the late 1920s. His mother unfortunately passed away at a young age leaving Ned, and his brother Morgan, without their great ally. The young lads were sent to live with an aunt in Ashbourne.

Football was in the family DNA. Ned had an uncle, Paddy Durnin, who played for Donaghmore and was part of the first Meath team that won the National Football League in 1933. He was joined in that victory by three other Donaghmore players - Pat Browne (a goalkeeper who minded the nets for Meath from 1925 to '37), Terry Smith and Packie Mooney, the grandfather of one Trevor Giles who became a fairly useful footballer in the 1990s!

Ned Durnin was in time called up by Meath too and had established himself on the inter-county front. By 1954 he was a regular. Not only that he was arguably one of the finest players in the country.

"I remember Fr Tully (a Meath selector and much else besides) told me that by '54 there wasn't a better a player in Ireland than Ned Durnin. If there were All-Stars at the time he would have been a certainty; at wing-back," recalls Frank Reidy.

Ned was also involved in an extraordinary series of events in 1951. Donaghmore players were involved in a row with Skryne. Ned, and team-mate Joe Morgan (both of whom were on the Meath panel that year that won the NFL) were suspended for six months. Meath were due to go to New York but, because they were suspended, Joe and Ned couldn't fly there with the rest of the team - but they could travel by boat! The 'yellow pack travellers' they called themselves!"

Ned, who worked for the ESB, wore his fame lightly. He enjoyed a pint and the craic. His last appearance for the Meath seniors was in 1957 when the Royals lost to Wicklow in the Leinster SFC, although he did have a run out with the county junior team in the 1960s. He had some success with Donaghmore winning two IFC crowns in 1950 and 1959.

By the time he enjoyed the latter success his best days as a footballer were well behind him. Ned, who never married, shipped some heavy blows in the 1980s. His brother Morgan, who he shared a house with, passed away in 1985. Ned was also involved in a traffic accident that he struggled to bounce back from. He eventually passed away in December, 2006. He was in his seventies.

He witnessed the amalgamation of Donaghmore and Ashbourne in 1996. Not everybody found the joining of forces easy to swallow but Ned was all for it. The great Ned Durnin certainly left his mark in the GAA - the jerseys on display in the cabinet at the Donaghmore/Ashbourne clubhouse a testament to that reality.