2005 Tom Fitzpatrick
Tom Fitzpatrick is a member of a very old established Castlewellan family. His grandparents parents and his brothers were all well known and highly respected Gaels all steeped in the formative years of the GAA in County Down as well as a very patriotic family very much involved in local and national politics. Tom’s great uncle Thomas Fitzpatrick LLD was known to have made many important contributions to the elucidation of events surrounding the 1641 insurrection.
Tom was born and raised in a little house on Castlewellan’s Main Street were he lived with his parents and his brothers Seamus and Patrick. His father James was heavily involved with the GAA and was also county Registrar from 1928 until his death in November 1942. Tom replaced his father as County Registrar in 1943.
However it was Tom’s part in the reforming of the Club in 1940 that he is best remembered. Along with Peter King and Pat Savage, Tom was responsible for getting the Club back together again after a bitter break-up a few years earlier, and so it was with Peter King as Chairman, Tom Fitzpatrick as Secretary, and Pat Savage as Treasurer that the club got off to a shaky start during the war years. But these men laid a steady foundation upon which future generations were to build and which the modern St Malachy’s club that we all enjoy today successfully evolved. Tom also played centre half back on the first team after the Club reformed when they played against Gargory Geraldines and he continued to play for the club over the next number of years while continuing in the post of Club Secretary and County Registrar, and in 1944 he also became Club Chairman.
Tom’s name doesn’t appear in any of our records after that date and we assume that it was about that time that Tom joined his older brother Patrick on the immigration trail eventually ending up in Ontario Canada were he married and raised seven children. But like many a Gael before and after him, Tom never forgot his Irish roots and particularly his GAA roots here in Castlewellan. In all of his regular trips home down through the years he always made time to drop into the meadow to watch the town play, and in later years our Clubrooms in Circular Road were he would peruse the old photographs of former teams and friends that he played alongside.
Tom’s brother Seamus continued the family involvement in the GAA as a member of the Club Committee in the 1960’s and Seamus’s sons and grandchildren continue to proudly carry on the Fitzpatrick GAA tradition today through their involvement on and off the field with our club.
It is more than appropriate that Tom Fitzpatrick should on the year of the Club Centenary 2005 be inaugurated into our Hall of Fame closing a wonderful chapter in the first 100 years of our Club and that he should also be the first recipient of the new ‘Johnny O’Neill’ Hall of Fame Trophy bridging a connection between the old guard of GAA greats in St Malachy’s Club that can trace their family connections to the formation of the Club and the newer generations that are to follow and will hopefully continue to bring honour to the community.
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