Desmond Foley (12 September 1940 – 5 February 1995) was an Irish

Gaelic football Gaelic football ( ga, Peil Ghaelach; short name '), commonly known as simply Gaelic, GAA or Football is an Irish team sport. It is played between two teams of 15 players on a rectangular grass pitch. The objective of the sport is to score by ki ...

er and hurler of the 1950s and 1960s. He was also a politician and represented

Fianna Fáil Fianna Fáil (, ; meaning 'Soldiers of Destiny' or 'Warriors of Fál'), officially Fianna Fáil – The Republican Party ( ga, audio=ga-Fianna Fáil.ogg, Fianna Fáil – An Páirtí Poblachtánach), is a conservative and Christia ...

Dáil Éireann Dáil Éireann ( , ; ) is the lower house, and principal chamber, of the Oireachtas (Irish legislature), which also includes the President of Ireland and Seanad Éireann (the upper house).Article 15.1.2º of the Constitution of Ireland rea ...

Sports

Desmond Foley was born into a farming family at

Kinsealy Kinsealy (officially Kinsaley; ) is an outer suburb of Dublin in Fingal, Ireland. Kinsealy is on the northside of the city, about 7 km from the centre city, on the Malahide Road, in the former green belt between the suburbs of Balgriffin, ...

County Dublin "Action to match our speech" , image_map = Island_of_Ireland_location_map_Dublin.svg , map_alt = map showing County Dublin as a small area of darker green on the east coast within the lighter green background of ...

in 1940. As a young man he showed particular skill at

Gaelic games Gaelic games ( ga, Cluichí Gaelacha) are a set of sports played worldwide, though they are particularly popular in Ireland, where they originated. They include Gaelic football, hurling, Gaelic handball and rounders. Football and hurling ...

, winning four Dublin County Senior

Hurling Hurling ( ga, iománaíocht, ') is an outdoor team game of ancient Gaelic Irish origin, played by men. One of Ireland's native Gaelic games, it shares a number of features with Gaelic football, such as the field and goals, the number of p ...

Championships with the St Vincents GAA club, having earlier captained the school team of

St Joseph's, Fairview St Joseph's Fairview, sometimes St Joseph's C.B.S., and previously St Joseph's Secondary Christian Brothers' School, is a boys' secondary school in Fairview, Dublin, Ireland. The school was in the patronage of the Irish Christian Brothers an ...

which brought the All-Ireland Colleges football title to

Dublin Dublin (; , or ) is the capital and largest city of Ireland. On a bay at the mouth of the River Liffey, it is in the province of Leinster, bordered on the south by the Dublin Mountains, a part of the Wicklow Mountains range. At the 2016 ...

for the first time. Foley captained the Dublin minor football team which won the All-Ireland Final in 1958. In 1962 he became the only player in history to play in two provincial

Railway Cup The GAA Interprovincial Championship ( ga, An Corn Idir-Chúigeach) or Railway Cup (''Corn an Iarnróid'') is the name of two annual Gaelic football and hurling competitions held between the provinces of Ireland. The Connacht, Leinster, Munster ...

finals, in hurling and

football Football is a family of team sports that involve, to varying degrees, kicking a ball to score a goal. Unqualified, the word ''football'' normally means the form of football that is the most popular where the word is used. Sports commonly ...

, on the same day, winning medals in both codes for

Leinster Leinster ( ; ga, Laighin or ) is one of the provinces of Ireland, situated in the southeast and east of Ireland. The province comprises the ancient Kingdoms of Meath, Leinster and Osraige. Following the 12th-century Norman invasion of ...

. He won further Railway Cup medals again in 1964 and 1965. Foley was a prominent member of the

Dublin county hurling team The Dublin county hurling team represents Dublin in hurling and is governed by Dublin GAA, the county board of the Gaelic Athletic Association. The team competes in the three major annual inter-county competitions; the All-Ireland Senior Hurling ...

from 1958 until 1969, playing on the losing side in the 1961 All-Ireland Senior Hurling Championship Final. In 1963 he captained the

Dublin county football team The Dublin county football team represents Dublin in men's Gaelic football and is governed by Dublin GAA, the county board of the Gaelic Athletic Association. The team competes in the three major annual inter-county competitions; the All-Irela ...

which defeated

Galway Galway ( ; ga, Gaillimh, ) is a City status in Ireland, city in the West Region, Ireland, West of Ireland, in the Provinces of Ireland, province of Connacht, which is the county town of County Galway. It lies on the River Corrib between Lo ...

to win the All-Ireland title. He won three All-Star awards, two for football and one for hurling, but never a senior All-Ireland hurling medal. He was a mid-fielder of the highest ranking, particularly noted for his outstanding sportsmanship. His brother

Lar Foley Liam 'Lar' Foley (23 November 1938 – 4 March 2003) was a hurling and Gaelic football player from Dublin, Ireland, who played inter-county for Dublin and for the Dublin-based club St Vincents. He won two All-Ireland medals for Dublin in 1958 ...

was a team colleague, both in hurling and football, through most of his campaigns in the 1950s and 60s and who was also an All-Ireland medal winner for Gaelic football in 1958 and 1963.

Politics

Towards the end of his playing career, Foley became interested in politics and was elected to

as a

Teachta Dála A Teachta Dála ( , ; plural ), abbreviated as TD (plural ''TDanna'' in Irish, TDs in English), is a member of Dáil Éireann, the lower house of the Oireachtas (the Irish Parliament). It is the equivalent of terms such as ''Member of Parl ...

(TD) for the Dublin County constituency at the 1965 general election, and in the Dublin County North constituency at the 1969 general election. He resigned from the Fianna Fáil parliamentary party on 4 November 1971, in advance of a confidence motion in Jim Gibbons, whose role in the

Arms Crisis The Arms Crisis was a political scandal in the Republic of Ireland in 1970 in which Charles Haughey and Neil Blaney were dismissed as cabinet ministers for alleged involvement in a conspiracy to smuggle arms to the Irish Republican Army in Nor ...

he disagreed with. He unsuccessfully contested the 1973 general election in Dublin County North as an

Independent Independent or Independents may refer to: Arts, entertainment, and media Artist groups * Independents (artist group), a group of modernist painters based in the New Hope, Pennsylvania, area of the United States during the early 1930s * Independe ...

candidate. Des Foley died in

in 1995.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Foley, Desmond 1940 births 1995 deaths All-Ireland-winning captains (football) Dual players Dublin inter-county Gaelic footballers Dublin inter-county hurlers Fianna Fáil TDs Irish sportsperson-politicians Members of the 18th Dáil Members of the 19th Dáil Politicians from County Dublin Politicians from Fingal Sportspeople from Fingal St Vincents (Dublin) Gaelic footballers St Vincents (Dublin) hurlers People educated at St. Joseph's CBS, Fairview