Gabriel Bradley is a former

Gaelic football Gaelic football (; short name '')'', commonly known as simply Gaelic, GAA, or football, is an Irish team sport. A form of football, it is played between two teams of 15 players on a rectangular grass pitch. The objective of the sport is to score ...

er from Glenullin,

County Londonderry County Londonderry (Ulster Scots dialects, Ulster-Scots: ''Coontie Lunnonderrie''), also known as County Derry (), is one of the six Counties of Northern Ireland, counties of Northern Ireland, one of the thirty-two Counties of Ireland, count ...

Northern Ireland Northern Ireland ( ; ) is a Countries of the United Kingdom, part of the United Kingdom in the north-east of the island of Ireland. It has been #Descriptions, variously described as a country, province or region. Northern Ireland shares Repub ...

. Bradley played for the Derry county team in the 1970s and 1980s. He won two

Ulster Senior Football Championship The Ulster Senior Football Championship is an inter-county competition for Gaelic football teams in the Irish province of Ulster. It is organised by the Ulster Council of the Gaelic Athletic Association (GAA) and begins in April. The final is ...

s with the county. Bradley played club football for John Mitchel's Glenullin and won the

Derry Senior Football Championship The Derry Senior Football Championship is an annual Gaelic football competition contested by the top sixteen Derry GAA clubs. The winners receive the John McLaughlin Cup and qualify to represent Derry in the Ulster Senior Club Football Champio ...

with the club. He was a very versatile player who could play in

defence Defense or defence may refer to: Tactical, martial, and political acts or groups * Defense (military), forces primarily intended for warfare * Civil defense, the organizing of civilians to deal with emergencies or enemy attacks * Defense indust ...

midfield In many sports, midfield is the part of a sports field that is near the line that is equally far from the end lines. That is, in American football it is the part of the field near the 50-yard line; in association football (soccer) and field hoc ...

or in the half forward line.

Background

Bradley comes from a Glenullin family with a strong footballing background. Two of his uncles, James and Paddy Rafferty had played for Derry. Bradley went to school at

St Columb's College St Columb's College is a Roman Catholic boys' grammar school in Derry, Northern Ireland. Since 2008, it has been a specialist school in mathematics. It is named after Saint Columba, the missionary monk from County Donegal who founded a monast ...

in Derry City. St Columb's at the time was the county's top football nursery and here he played under coaches such as Father Ignatius McQuillan and Raymond Gallagher. When Bradley won the Derry Championship with Glenullin in 1985, five of his brothers were also on the team. His cousin Colm Rafferty won the

All-Ireland Senior Football Championship The All-Ireland Senior Football Championship (SFC) () is the premier inter-county competition in Gaelic football. County (Gaelic games), County teams compete against each other and the winner is declared All-Ireland Champions. Organised by the ...

with Derry in

1993 The United Nations General Assembly, General Assembly of the United Nations designated 1993 as: * International Year for the World's Indigenous People The year 1993 in the Kwajalein Atoll in the Marshall Islands had only 364 days, since its ...

. Bradley's brother

Liam Liam is a short form of the Germanic name William, or its Irish variant Uilliam. Etymology The original name was a merging of two Old German elements: ''willa'' ("will" or "resolution"); and ''helma'' ("helmet"). The juxtaposition of these ...

currently manages Antrim and his sons (Gabriel's nephews)

Paddy Paddy may refer to: People *Paddy (given name), a list of people with the given name or nickname *A nickname or slur for an Irish person Birds *Paddy (pigeon), a Second World War carrier pigeon *Snowy sheathbill or paddy, a bird species *Black ...

and

Eoin Eoin () is a masculine Irish-language given name. The Scottish Gaelic equivalent is Eòin () and both are closely related to the Welsh language, Welsh . It is also cognate with the Irish and English John (given name), John. In the Irish language, ...

are important players on the current Derry team. When Glenullin won the Derry Championship in 2007, nearly half the team were related to Gabriel Bradley.

Playing career

Inter-county

Bradley played for the Derry

Minor Minor may refer to: Common meanings * Minor (law), a person not under the age of certain legal activities. * Academic minor, a secondary field of study in undergraduate education Mathematics * Minor (graph theory), a relation of one graph to an ...

and Under 21 before progressing to the

Senior Senior (shortened as Sr.) means "the elder" in Latin and is often used as a suffix for the elder of two or more people in the same family with the same given name, usually a parent or grandparent. It may also refer to: * Senior (name), a surname ...

side. He made his Senior inter-county debut against

Armagh Armagh ( ; , , " Macha's height") is a city and the county town of County Armagh, in Northern Ireland, as well as a civil parish. It is the ecclesiastical capital of Ireland – the seat of the Archbishops of Armagh, the Primates of All ...

in 1975. That year Derry won the

beating Down in the final, with Bradley playing at left corner back. Derry were beaten by

Dublin Dublin is the capital and largest city of Republic of Ireland, Ireland. Situated on Dublin Bay at the mouth of the River Liffey, it is in the Provinces of Ireland, province of Leinster, and is bordered on the south by the Dublin Mountains, pa ...

in the subsequent

All-Ireland All-Ireland (sometimes All-Island) is a term used to describe organisations and events whose interests extend over the entire island of Ireland, as opposed to the separate jurisdictions of the Republic of Ireland and Northern Ireland. "All-Irelan ...

semi-final. Derry reached the 1976

National Football League The National Football League (NFL) is a Professional gridiron football, professional American football league in the United States. Composed of 32 teams, it is divided equally between the American Football Conference (AFC) and the National ...

final, but were defeated by Dublin by a point, where Bradley was left half forward. Derry also retained their Ulster Championship title that year. They were defeated by Kerry in the

semi-final. Derry reached their third Ulster final in a row in 1977, but were beaten by Armagh. Bradley made his last appearance for Derry in 1984, against Tyrone.

Club

Bradley won a Derry Intermediate Championship medal with Glenullin in 1977. Eight years later he was an important part of the side that won the 1985

- the club's first Derry Championship in 57 years. Glenullin named Bradley Player of the Year in 1986, and he was named Clubman of the Year in 1988. In 1989 while travelling to the All-Ireland Hurling Championship final, he was involved in a serious road accident that ended his 17-year-long club career. Despite having a severely damaged leg, he went back to drag his two friends from a burning car. Bradley was also chairman of the Glenullin club in the late 1980s.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Bradley, Gabriel Year of birth missing (living people) Living people Derry inter-county Gaelic footballers Gaelic games club administrators Glenullin Gaelic footballers People educated at St Columb's College