The Erne County's most illustrious GAA career must surely belong to Peter McGinnity, a man who excelled on literally all stages as a player and is forging a similar reputation for himself as a coach. Peter McGinnity from Roslea played for Fermanagh for the best part of twenty years. He captained Ulster to two Railway Cups and also won two others. He won three SFCs with his native Roslea as well as three (in three years!) in Antrim with St John's, Belfast. With the latter, he won an Ulster club championship and played in an All-Ireland club final. He played for his county at under 21 level for five years, winning two Ulster championships and contesting back-to-back All-Ireland finals. He also played in two Ulster minor deciders. The brilliant Fermanagh man enjoyed a successful colleges and universities playing career and, as a coach, has been instrumental in the recent emergence of St Michael's, Enniskillen as a true force to reckon with. The former Fermanagh and Leitrim boss also has a major input into the Tyrone senior county team's annual preparations and has been chosen by Ireland manager John O'Keeffe as a selector for the 2002 and 2003 International Rules series. This is a remarkable success story, dating from the '60s through to the present day and with many more chapters still to be penned. For the story thus far, read on and be impressed: October 1953: Peter McGinnity is born in Roslea, County Fermanagh. Fast-forward almost 45 years to autumn 1998: he plays his last game of football, helping his club win an intermediate championship final . . . an incredible 30 years after first donning the colours of the south county club. Peter was only 14 when he broke onto the Roslea first team in 1968. He spent virtually his entire club career with the Shamrocks, apart from three years in Belfast with St John's, 1976-79. The IFC garnered in '98 was McGinnity's second, his first adult success with Roslea arriving a quarter of a century earlier in 1973 when an intermediate league and championship double was plucked. Outside the adult team, Peter also collected two county U21 championships and a Fermanagh minor league memento. During the '80s, Roslea really came to the fore and senior championship successes were recorded in 1982, '84 and '86. Peter also played in the county finals of '83, '87 and '89 and was on the Roslea side that clinched six successive senior league titles. Nineteen-eighty-four stood out as a landmark year, as the Shamrocks marked the Association's 100th birthday in fine style. During an incredible season, Roslea won every single adult trophy available to them in the county - the senior and junior leagues and championships as well as all the subsidiary competitions and the Centenary Cup! In '82, they reached the Ulster club final only to be pipped therein by St Gall's of Belfast. All in all, it was a golden era for Roslea football, which Peter puts into context: "Roslea had won four senior championships in a row in the 'fifties and another in 1962 but had little success for the next 20 years or so and were intermediate for quite a bit of the 'sixties. "Winning the intermediate in '73 was an important step in the right direction and we subsequently became a strong senior side on the back of some very good under 14, under 16 and minor teams. A good crop of young players came through around the same time and they linked up with myself and a few other 'stragglers' from the '73 team to form the bones of our successful team of the 'eighties." Meanwhile, with Fermanagh, Peter won an Ulster minor league in 1970 and featured on the sides beaten by Derry and Tyrone respectively in the Ulster MFC finals of '70 and '71. In those same two years, however, the Erne County had more luck at under 21 level, collecting both Ulster titles en route to successive All-Ireland final appearances against mighty Cork. All in all, it was a tremendously fertile and successful period for underage football in the Erne County. Peter reflects: "St Michael's were doing well at that stage and reached McRory Cup finals in '68, '69 and '70 and a lot of the Fermanagh minor and under 21 players of 1970 and '71 came from those teams." Peter represented his county at under 21 level for an amazing FIVE years . . . he had been only 16 for the 1970 campaign! He played for the county at all levels in 1970, breaking onto the senior side for the national league in autumn. He remembers his senior intercounty debut as though it were only yesterday: "I played my first national league match a week after my 17th birthday. It was against Westmeath and one of the main reasons I remember it so vividly is because I got a serious knee in the back going down for a ball!" Sean Quinn was centre forward in that match and none other than Tommy Gallagher of SDLP fame lined out at midfield." Fermanagh had some real quality players over the next 15 years or so, but never achieved the ultimate breakthrough: "How we never managed to win an Ulster senior championship, I'll never know," Peter muses. He played his last game for the county seniors in the national league against Laois in 1991, under PJ McGowan. By all accounts, that was something of an isolated appearance in the green jersey as McGinnity had missed a couple of years prior to then with knee and hip injuries. But he had been a regular with Fermanagh right through from 1970 until 1988/89. The highlight was 1982 when Fermanagh got to the Ulster final for the first time since 1945. They came closer than they've ever done to winning the Anglo-Celt Cup too, losing to Armagh by a mere three points, 0-10 to 1-4. What are Peter McGinnity's recollections of that match? "It was a game that we played poorly in and still could've won. Those things become more regrettable the further away they get. At the time, we shrugged it off because we thought we'd come back and win an Ulster final with that team. We didn't realise our chance was gone. "That team had a good defence but didn't score enough. If we'd had some of the forwards on the Fermanagh team at the moment we'd have been unbeatable! We never got any big scores in that Ulster campaign but made it to the final because our defence was so solid they could restrict the opposition to even smaller returns." Peter had a 100% record in Antrim club football. In three seasons with St John's, he scooped three county senior league and championship doubles. In the 1977/78 Ulster club final, the Belfast outfit defeated Cavan Gaels by 2-10 to 2-2 at Castleblayney. At Corrigan Park in Belfast, they subsequently accounted for Kingdom (London) and Summerhill (Meath) in All-Ireland club quarter-final and semi-final meetings, winning those matches by ten and 13 points respectively. The All-Ireland final took place in Croke Park on March 26th 1978 and St John's were overpowered by a Thomond College, Limerick combination including Pat Spillane and Brian Talty in their ranks. Peter and his St John's team-mates returned to the provincial club final stage in December of that same year but this time lost out to Monaghan champions Scotstown. "It was a pity we didn't win an All-Ireland club title but we did win an All-Ireland 'Sevens' championship," reflects Peter who, for his troubles, was named on the 'Sevens Team of the Millennium'. Peter McGinnity first played for Ulster in 1973 and played right through until '87, missing only two Railway Cup campaigns in that time. Of the 13 campaigns he took part in, he won four Railway Cup medals (1979, '80, '83 and '84), captaining Ulster to glory in 1980 and '83. At various stages of his interprovincial career, Peter lined out alongside fellow countymen such as Ciaran Campbell, Phil Sheridan, Eamonn McPartland and Jimmy Cleary in the Ulster colours. He reminisces: "It was still a massive competition in those days and for me it was an unbelievable honour to play on such a stage alongside great players and against great players. It was one of the highest points of my career and I'm very disappointed to have witnessed the demise of such an excellent competition." The former Roslea/St John's/Fermanagh/Ulster midfielder/half forward also had a lengthy schools, colleges and university career. He starred for St Michael's, lining out in two McRory finals in '69 and '70 and was also on the only Michaels team to garner the Ranafast Cup, in 1970. He won a Ryan Cup and a couple of Trench Cups with St Mary's Belfast and was midfield on the Queens side that faced UCD in the 1975 Sigerson final, marking John O'Keeffe that particular day. Peter also had the distinction of representing the Combined Colleges team. On qualifying as a PE instructor in 1976, Peter taught in Belfast for three years before returning to his own alma mater of St Michael's, where he has remained since. He began his coaching career with the Michaels and also coached Roslea at different times in the eighties. He was player-manager of Fermanagh in 1986-87 and also managed Tyrone club Killyclogher - who were intermediate at the time - in the early-to-mid nineties. During that time, he took some coaching sessions with the Tyrone team that won back-to-back Ulster championships in 1995-96. After managing Leitrim for a while, he returned to Killyclogher (who had since gone senior) and led them to the 1999 Tyrone Senior Football Championship final against Carrickmore. He is still involved with Killyclogher and with the O'Neill County seniors. Any intentions of getting involved with Fermanagh again? "I think the best I can do for Fermanagh is to keep working away with the lads at St Michael's and try to keep a supply of talent coming through." He's not doing a bad job either, St Michaels' recent rise to prominence being nothing short of phenomenal. The school collected its first McRory Cup in 1973 (shortly after he'd left as a student) and he coached them to their second such success in '92. They won it again in 1999 when current county boss Dominic Corrigan was manager; reached the 2000 final; shared last year's Cup with Omagh CBS when the competition over-ran due to the Foot & Mouth crisis; and made it to the All-Ireland final this year only to lose out to St Jarlaths. "Over the past five or six years, we have aimed for the top four in every single competition we've entered," the coach notes. Peter McGinnity will forever be synonymous with Fermanagh GAA. For many long years, he was also a household name on the national stage. He'll soon return to prominence too: Ireland manager John O'Keeffe has chosen him - along with Matt Connor and Martin Carney - as a selector on the Irish team to face Australia in the International Rules series of 2002 and 2003. Taken from Hogan Stand magazine June 2002 Tweet

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