Westmeath county football team

1935–1995

Another generation of Westmeath players took part in the first week-night fixture in the GAA championship: on 20 June 1935 they played Meath in Kells and lost by a scoreline of 2–7 to 0–9. The footballers won the 1929 Leinster Junior Football Championship (JFC), lost to Dublin by ten points in 1960 and then defeated Dublin to reach the 1931 Leinster SFC final. The team defeated Carlow, Laois and Offaly to advance to a 1949 Leinster SFC final against Meath, but was well beaten on both occasions. Twenty years later the team reached the National Football League semi-final. Westmeath defeated Dublin again in the 1967 Leinster SFC and the 1984 Centenary Cup campaign and qualified for a second League semi-final in 1994.

2001–present

In 2001, the team went on an All-Ireland SFC run that lasted for an unprecedented nine games, including an extra-time win against Mayo in Roscommon. Prominent players in this campaign were Ger Heavin, Dessie Dolan, Rory O'Connell, Damien Healy and David Mitchell, with other players occasionally coming to prominence, including Martin Flanaghan, Fergal Wilson, Paul Conway, David O'Shaughnessy and Fergal Murray. The team's campaign ended when it lost to Meath in a 2001 All-Ireland SFC quarter-final replay. Uneventful 2002 and 2003 seasons followed and Westmeath parted terms with its then manager, Luke Dempsey.

Former Kerry player and manager Páidí Ó Sé was brought in to manage the senior team some months later, after he had been removed from his role as Kerry senior manager. The following year, under the management of Ó Sé, Westmeath progressed to the 2004 Leinster Senior Football Championship Final and won a first ever Leinster SFC title with a replayed victory over Laois (having previously beaten Wexford, Dublin and Offaly).^[4] However, the team tamely exited its second All-Ireland SFC quarter-final — losing to Derry. That campaign is covered in the documentary film Marooned.

Ó Sé quit Westmeath at the end of a poor 2005 season and his assistant Tomás Ó Flatharta replaced him. After a poor league campaign, in which the team nevertheless secured promotion from Division 2, Offaly knocked Westmeath out of the Leinster SFC in the first round. However, wins over London, Limerick, Sligo and, then, a historic defeat of Galway, at Pearse Stadium in Salthill, set up a third All-Ireland SFC quarter-final for the team in six years^[5] — against Dublin on this occasion. Westmeath did not live up to expectations in that game and sustained a ten-point defeat.

Westmeath staged a strong second half display to capture the 2008 Division 2 National Football League title for the third time, and the first since 2003 following a five-point win over Dublin at Páirc Tailteann in Navan. The scoreline in that game was Westmeath 0–15, Dublin 0–10.

Dublin defeated Westmeath by 27 points in the 2009 Leinster SFC quarter-final. Ó Flatharta resigned as Westmeath manager after the team's defeat to neighbour Meath on 11 July 2009.

The county board, searching for a manager after the resignation of Ó Flatharta, appointed Brendan Hackett as manager in September 2009, with the choice of someone who had not managed at that level for many years seen as unexpected.^[6][7] Hackett included Michael Carruth as a masseur and Eoin Rheinisch as part of "physical preparations" on his backroom team.^[8] Westmeath embarked on a second successive league campaign without winning a game and the team was relegated to Division 3 of the National Football League.^[9] Hackett resigned in April 2010.^[10] He did not contest a single championship match.^[7]

Under the management of Tom Cribbin the team reached consecutive Leinster SFC finals in 2015 and 2016. This was a first in the team's history.^[11] The team also won the 2017 NFL Division 4 title.^[11] Colin Kelly was appointed Cribbin's successor as Westmeath manager on a two-year term in late 2017 but left in mid-2018, citing family commitments.^[12][13]

Jack Cooney's appointment as Westmeath senior manager was ratified in September 2018, making him the first Westmeath native to fill the role since 1992.^[14] Under Cooney's management the team won the 2019 O'Byrne Cup, its first time to win that competition since 1988. Later that year it won the 2019 NFL Division 3 title. In 2022, Westmeath won the inaugural Tailteann Cup, defeating Cavan in the final at Croke Park.^[15] Cooney resigned unexpectedly the following month,^[16] and was succeeded by Dessie Dolan.^[17] Dolan walked in August 2024.^[18] Then it was Dermot McCabe. McCabe walked even quicker though, abandoning Westmeath after fewer than 10 months as manager.^[19][20] McCabe's exit was a shock.^[2] He was interviewed for another job on 9 August but stayed on until 11 August. Gerry Buckley – the journalist and historian – was quoted in the Westmeath Examiner as saying: "Westmeath deserved better" and that it was "outrageous" for Westmeath to have been "strung along" in this manner.^[21] Kieran Martin said it "should have been dealt with quicker; there was no point waiting to see if he got it or not. The fact that he was interested in another job was a sign: 'Right, maybe this isn't for him, we may go looking for someone else'".^[21] What would Westmeath do next? It fell to young Mark McHugh, who was hanging around as coach during the tumultuous McCabe affair. McHugh was appointed as manager.^[3] His first season speaks for itself: O'Byrne Cup winners for the first time since 2019, narrowly missing out on promotion on the last day of the league, winning the Leinster Senior Football Championship from the preliminary round (only Westmeath's second ever Leinster Title), beating the Dubs at Croker in that final, Brían Cooney scoring Westmeath's first Leinster Final goal in 95 years, a cracker from range that dropped over Evan Comerford, winning five championship games on the spin, a feat achieved against Cavan - managed by McCabe, after he abandoned Westmeath, an achievement in itself, since he would have been expected to know the Westmeath players inside and out. According to Cian Mackey: "Cavan, without a doubt, feel they should be beating Westmeath. They're Division 2. Westmeath are Division 3".^[21] According to the Irish Independent, "most observers were convinced it [the Leinster title] could never have happened without McHugh".^[21] Martin told that newspaper: "But it worked out the right way. We got Mark at the right time".^[21]

Notable players

Records

All Stars

Westmeath has 5 All Stars, as of 2008. 4 different players have won, as of 2008.

Winners

Nominations

National

• All-Ireland Senior Football Championship
  • Quarter-finalists (2): 2001, 2004
• Tailteann Cup
  • Winners (1): 2022^[15]
• National Football League Division 2
  • Winners (3): 2000–01, 2003, 2008^[51]

• National Football League Division 3
  • Winners (2): 2019^[52], 2024^[53]

• National Football League Division 4
  • Winners (1): 2017^[54]
• National Football League Cup
  • Winners (1): 1982–83^[55]
• All-Ireland Under-21 Football Championship
  • Winners (1): 1999
• All-Ireland Minor Football Championship
  • Winners (1): 1995
  • Runners-up (1): 1963

Provincial

• Leinster Senior Football Championship
  • Winners (2): 2004, 2026^[4]
  • Runners-up (4): 1931, 1949, 2015,^[56] 2016^[57][58]
• O'Byrne Cup
  • Winners (5): 1959, 1980, 1988, 2019,^[59] 2026^[60]
• Leinster Junior Football Championship
  • Winners (4): 1905, 1915, 1929, 1940
• Leinster Under-21 Football Championship
  • Winners (2): 1999, 2000
  • Runners-up (3): 1995, 1997, 2010^[61]
• Leinster Minor Football Championship
  • Winners (5): 1939, 1952, 1963, 1995, 2000
  • Runners-up (5): 1951, 1982, 1984, 1992, 2013^[62]