Monaghan's Mackie Moyna A winner on and off the field. The Scotstown twin was something special. His solidly carved frame compliments his gaelic football pedigree. Build like the gable wall of a bungalow, such is the physical presence of the man that one can almost imagine him holding the fort long after General Custer cushioned one arrow too many. Monaghan's legendary Mackie Moyna has still all the appearance of a man cut from rock, forty years on from bidding adieu to the best years of his football innings. The product of an amalgam of influences, backgrounds and establishments which shaped his character, imbued him with the mother of all backbones and cast him in solid gaelic steel, mercurial Moyna was a player in the forties and fifties whose deeds always spoke volumes for his innate sporting talent. A block of a man but more mobile than most, he remains part of Monaghan GAA folklore and together with his twin brother Tommy, continues to be exalted as a role model for modern day, aspiring local football talent. Hoisted up on a pedestal of greatness by contemporaries, GAA historians and present day aficionado alike, the Moyna twins were appropriately honoured for their services to the game of gaelic football at a gala reception hosted recently by county Monaghan GAA. As famous as the terrible twins of Connacht's 1950s era, Sean Purcell and Frankie Stockwell of Galway, the Scotstown duo were hugely popular recipients of the county's Hall of Fame award, a symbolic appreciation of services rendered and past heroics performed. Larger than life figures, both men lit up the night's proceedings in Castleblayney just like the way their athleticism and fearless performances on the field of play so often illuminated otherwise dour encounters. Even after sixty three years of breathing the same air as lesser footballing mortals, few outside their immediate families could be confident enough to put the deeds of their house on accurately identifying one from the other. Bosom pals and cut from the same quality cloth that would make them award winning material in later years, the youthful Moyna twins were physically indistinguishable. When it came down to battling for supremacy on the playing fields however, they were poles apart in reaching a consensus on giving one another the green light to dominate at close quarters as Mackie illustrates with one of a litany of anecdotes that trip off his tongue. "I remember on one occasion when we found ourselves on opposing teams and it needed our father's intervention to keep us apart. Tommy was playing with Monaghan Christian Brothers School and I was with Saint Mary's in Dundalk. We were both playing at midfield but by the time half time came around, our father had to have a word with us and we ended up being shifted to opposite ends of the pitch for the second half." In recalling the incident quoted above, Mackie Moyna portrays a mirror image of what drove both combatants to great heights, great feats and great solo performances throughout their careers. Fire and brimstone type footballers with feet and hands to match the best equipped, skilful players of their time, the Moyna's were worth their weight in gold to each and every team they graced their presence with. A full back of few equals in any of the four provinces in which he did battle, Mackie Moyna was a text book defender whose instinct for survival in the most claustrophobic of arenas and most demanding of competitions, made him a Prince of Stoppers for longer than most could ever aspire. Despite the handicap of suspect lungs in his formative years, a youthful Mackie soon found himself in great demand in his Marist alma mata in the border town of Dundalk, where traditionally gaelic football was the staple diet. Nephew of Corcaghan stalwart Paddy McCormick (a brother of his mother, Catherine), things gaelic were as much a part of the Moyna persona as the infinite volume of red corpuscles that sped through his very own veins. As such, the extra curricular menu served up at the Louth boarding school couldn't have been a more tasty dish for the budding Marist football maestro. In truth though, Mackie Moyna's link-up with the famed football nursery was a symbiotic relationship in which the young Scotstown pupil's mild manner and sporting excellence repaid in kind the academic blessing bestowed upon him at Saint Marys. On the football front, the Scotstown supremo was in excellent company at the Marist there being joined by 1947 Cavan All-Ireland senior medalist elect, Tony Tighe, Enda McGuill (would-be League of Ireland President), and Francesco Belotti esquire, he of Inter Milan soccer fame. Given the nature of the Marist's limited holiday allowance, (Mackie only played club football with his home club during the summer months), it was football heaped upon a diet of more football for the eager blow-in from north Monaghan. An imposing 5'10" twelve and a half stone teenager, Mackie was a veritable tour de force in successive college football outings with the Marist as Louth minor 'club' championships were regularly hauled in at nearby Glyes' Quay. Only the inspired efforts of young wizards like Iggy Jones saw to it that provincial or national college honours evaded Moyna and company. To view the magic of Jones however, was almost worth missing out on ultimate success, as Mackie explains. "Iggy was the George Best of my time and I'll never forget the exhibition of football he gave for St. Patricks, Armagh in the 1946 Hogan Cup Final. In the course of his team's 3-11 to 4-7 win over Saint Jarlaths of Tuam, a team which included Sean Purcell, he scored two goals at the end of amazing solo runs which even had Micheal O'Hehir in ecstasy." It was via the highly competitive, star spangled college fare that Mackie Moyna first earned plaudits on the provincial and national scene and in the company of other champion footballers such as Derry's Jim McKeever, Tyrone's Eddie Devlin and Cavan's Dessie Maguire, success on the double at inter provincial colleges level was gleaned between 1945-1948. By now a hardened senior club player with brother Tommy, Charlie Brennan and one Mick McCaffrey at Scotstown and coming under the influence of Marist football gurus Father John Monaghan, a Ballyjamesduff native, and Father Aloysius McOscar from Armagh made mercurial Mackie a magician of the school's GAA circuit. Conveniently, the hard grinding at college level formed a launching pad for young Moyna to stardom on the inter county minor arena. A conspicuous but highly inventive operative on the Louth county minor teams of 1944 (still only a juvenile) and '45 (much to the delight of his Marist mentors, the catalysts in his recruitment by the Wee County), being thwarted by Messrs Freaney, Heffernan and Lavin in Leinster merely provided the trailer to more notorious happenings nearer home for the physically imposing full back. The piece is best explained by the man himself. "Tommy had won an Ulster minor medal in 1945 but broke his wrist at Croke Park early on in the semi final against Leitrim. At half time,one of the team selectors put a jersey on me and bandages on my wrists and I went out for the second half and nobody noticed it was me and not Tommy who was playing, not even my mother and father who were at the game!" Introduced to the Clan na Gael club in Dublin by 'erstwhile Scotstown clubmate (the aforementioned Mick McCaffrey, father of ex-Dub defender Noel), the 1947-52 period would see mighty Mackie at his brilliant best. A Monaghan senior county debutant against the Metropolitans in the National League of 1946, some three months after Tommy had broken onto the same stage, the Dublin club scene formed the perfect backdrop to the battling, burgeoning talents of the Scotstown schemer. Titanic struggles with his adopted club against the best offered by the Gardai and Saint Vincents among others, conjured up a feast of football of such quality that only the cream of All-Ireland finals could fairly equate. The standard of football then isn't underestimated by Clan na Gael's Monaghan import. "While playing in Dublin, I came up against some of the best players in Ireland, players like myself who were from the country but who played their club football in Dublin. Playing in front of huge crowds wasn't uncommon. Clan na Gael itself included seven inter provincial players at one time, county men like Sean Purcell, Eamonn Keogh of Carlow, Cavan's Joe Stafford and Tom Long of Kerry were all team mates of mine then. Trying to claim the Dublin championship was harder to win than the All-Ireland itself but we (Clan na Gael) should have won it in 1950 all the same." A double McKenna Cup and Lagan Cup medal winner with his native Monaghan, the New York born publican's son and brother of John (Monaghan), Annie Smyth (Dublin), Kathleen White (America) and Josephine Devine (United States) came to national prominence principally through his meteoric displays for Ulster's Railway Cup squads of 1950 and '51. Full back on the 1950 provincial side alongside such star names as Cavan's PJ Duke, Antrim's Kevin Armstrong and Monaghan's Hughie McKearney, the now self-employed Dublin based industrialist revelled in tussles against men like Mayo's Peter Solan and Wexford's Nick Rackard. Father of Michael, a practicing dentist in the capital, Mackie may not have been as stylish a footballer as brother Tommy, may not have possessed his brother's renowned mobility but, in truth, Mackie Moyna did the business when it came to using his extraordinary stamina and supreme anticipation to keep a body scoreless. A Mick Lyons-type football who would doubtless fit comfortably into the modern scheme of things on the inter county and provincial scene, Mackie Moyna played hard and fair but still took no prisoners when the going got tough. An unrelenting tackler, as Mayo's Tom Langan had reason to acknowledge on many occasions, he drew the curtain on an immaculate career at county level in 1955, a while before Tommy skipped Scotstown to historic 1960 and '61 Monaghan senior championship victories in the company of great club players such as Oliver McCarron and the Sherry brothers. Undoubtedly short of the medals tally that his talent was richly due, Mackie Moyna has, nevertheless, no regrets no tears to cry about his football innings. Okay,losing to the oul enemy Cavan in the Ulster senior championship of 1947, '48 and '52 was understated by one scribe as being a source of special frustration but Mackie consoles himself with a categoric analysis of Monaghan's true worth in those days. "Cavan went on to win the All-Ireland in those years but apart from their second success in '48, we were definitely the better team. Monaghan were the best team in Ireland in 1947 and '52, not the so-called second best. I'm sure of that." Mackie Moyna was never a man who clung to the cobwebs of consolation and at 63 years of age, he's not in the habit of changing well established habits. A winner alright though on the football field and for a long time now an entrepreneur of great vision, the Monaghan maestro continues to be something special. A king among men, in fact! Taken from Hogan Stand magazine 19th March 1993 Tweet

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