Offaly hurling legend to take centre stage on Laochra Gael
Former Birr and Offaly hurling star Johnny Pilkington will be profiled in the Laochra Gael documentary series on TG4 next Thursday night, February 4.
One of hurling’s most colourful figures, Pilkington won All-Ireland senior medals in 1994, when Offaly staged a dramatic late comeback against Limerick, and in 1998, when the Faithful men overturned the same year’s Leinster final defeat to Kilkenny. That 1998 victory came after the storied three-match saga against Clare in the All-Ireland semi-final.
Pilkington won four All-Ireland club medals with Birr and is one of the handful of players with four such honours to his name.
Birr won their four All-Irelands in 1995 (defeating Dunloy of Antrim in the final), 1998 (Sarsfields of Galway), 2002 (Clarinbridge, Galway) and 2003 (Dunloy). During this glorious period in Birr’s history, Pilkington won eight Offaly senior hurling medals.
A winner of one All-Star award (and unlucky not to win more in the view of many observers), Pilkington won four Leinster senior medals with Offaly. He was a member of the Offaly minor team which won the 1987 All-Ireland title, defeating Tipperary in the final.
The following paragraph from the Laochra Gael programme’s promotional material neatly sums up Pilkington’s impact on hurling in the drama-filled 1990s: “The heartbeat of the mighty Offaly team of the ‘90s, and one of the game’s true characters, Johnny was at the heart of some of hurling’s great dramas: from the five-minute final (1994) and the infamous ‘98 sit-in. Tales of Johnny’s off-field excesses were many, and sometimes, but not always exaggerated, often by the man himself. The myth that he took the game and his talents for granted couldn’t be further from the truth. Hurling has, and always will, had a deep and profound meaning for Johnny P.”
When his playing days were over, Pilkington managed the Offaly minor hurlers and the Kilcormac/Killoughey senior hurlers (with whom he reached the 2009 county final, losing out to Tullamore).
The new series of Laochra Gael began earlier this month, with the profile of former Donegal football star Kevin Cassidy receiving plenty of plaudits. Tipperary native and former Dublin hurler Ryan O’Dwyer was the subject of the second programme of the acclaimed series.
Then came Galway camogie legend Thérèse Maher and the often flamboyant former Roscommon goalkeeper Shane Curran is next tonight (January 28).
Following the programme on Johnny Pilkington (which will be shown at 9.30pm next Thursday), former Kildare star Dermot Earley (son of the Roscommon football legend of the same name) will be profiled on February 11.
The series will then take a break and return in March with another six fascinating stories, featuring Eoin Larkin (Kilkenny), Pete McGrath (Down), Briege Corkery (Cork), Bernard Flynn (Meath), Seán Cavanagh (Tyrone) and Liam Griffin (Wexford).
The Laochra Gael series is produced by NemetonTV, the independent production company from An Rinn in the Waterford Gaeltacht which has produced much of TG4’s highly regarded sports coverage.