New Westmeath GAA stats book on sale

Mullingar man Gerry Buckley has just finished his latest labour of love, a comprehensive record of his beloved Westmeath’s inter-county activity from the GAA’s commencement right up to date.

In a nutshell, Gerry has listed on a county-by-county basis the teams and scorers for Westmeath and their opponents for almost 1,700 matches played by Lake County men’s teams in both codes in the championship, league, and senior club championship, up to and including the recent heartbreaking defeats for St Loman’s, Mullingar and Castletown Geoghegan.

Gerry is at pains to emphasise how poorly the details of Gaelic games matches were recorded in most provincial newspapers up to as relatively recently as the 1950s. Inevitably, there are a small number of blanks from games in bygone days despite a thorough trawling of newspaper archives and help from record-keepers in other counties. Also included in the book are the dates, venues and scores for all of the county’s minor, U21/20 and junior championship games.

The project is fittingly dedicated to the late Paddy Flanagan, one of Westmeath’s greatest ever administrators and an outstanding record-keeper. Gerry and Paddy became firm friends for well over two decades before the latter’s death in 2022.

Gerry has undertaken the huge project free of charge, with the invaluable backing of the Westmeath County Board to enable his findings to be printed.

He understands that it was never intended as a commercial venture, but given the fact that some Gaels may view the book as a potential Christmas stocking-filler, a small quantity will be on sale in TEG Cusack Park from Thursday for just €20. They will not be available elsewhere.