On Friday evening last, we were deeply saddened to hear of the untimely passing of the great John Joe Shanahan. John Joe was a club legend, a fantastic player and administrator but more importantly a true gentleman and a fantastic husband, father, grandfather, brother, uncle and friend to so many. That was evident in the thousands of people who paid their respects by calling to his house on Sunday and attending his funeral mass on Monday. A great number turned out to take part in the guard of honour on Monday and it was great to see the GAA, Camogie and wider community come together and bid farewell to John Joe. It was the least this wonderful man deserved. He will be greatly missed by all who knew him and who were lucky enough to call him a friend.

John Joe had a wonderful playing career with Kilworth GAA, beginning with a win in the U14 North Cork Football Championship in 1970, a first for the St. Martin’s Juvenile Club. Move on a few years and in 1977 he won both a junior hurling league medal and he was part of the novice hurling championship winning team in the same year. He won a junior ‘A’ hurling championship medal in 1980 and he went on to captain the junior hurlers as goalkeeper in 1983 when they won the title again defeating Charleville in the final at Doneraile. Between 1980 and 1983, he also won a junior ‘B’ football championship title playing in the full forward line defeating a gallant Ballyhooley side in a wet and windy Castletownroche. John Joe was a fantastic keeper and he saved Kilworth many times between the posts. For all those who got the chance to pay alongside John Joe, or against him, it was an honour and we are grateful he was part of our club for so many years.

On behalf of the club we send our condolences and our deepest sympathies to John Joe’s family: Kate, Pat and Emma and to all the Briens, Shanahans and extended families. Below is a poem composed by Joe Aherne Jnr about the first time he witnessed the magic of John Joe Shanahan in the pitch in Kilworth. Ar dheis Dé a raibh a anam uasail. Sleep easy John Joe, RIP.

“..The Great John Joe..”

I think ’twas league in ’96, when
I saw him first between the sticks,
I was small and he was broad,
As I stood behind the goals in awe.
A penalty for the them, he stayed calm,
As he spat, as always on each palm,
The ball was lifted and struck with pace,
Like a meteorite from outer space,
As ferocious a shot as I’d ever seen,
A goal surely or a ruptured spleen,
A thousand men would have dodged or moved,
But not this keeper, calm and smooth,
Behind me a shout, ‘what a save!’,
When I witnessed first-hand, what was ‘brave’,
He’d stuck out his chest, and his Kilworth shirt,
and the ball dropped dead, onto the dirt,
He cleared that sliotar to the crowds elation,
And humbly returned to his station,
What I saw that day just by the goals,
The bravest of men and the gentlest of souls,
Always a friend and never the foe,
God gained a keeper in ‘The Great John Joe’