Thomas Scully

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( May 1930 – 7 April 2020) was a

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 ...

manager Management (or managing) is the administration of organizations, whether businesses, nonprofit organizations, or a government bodies through business administration, nonprofit management, or the political science sub-field of public administra ...

priest A priest is a religious leader authorized to perform the sacred rituals of a religion, especially as a mediatory agent between humans and one or more deity, deities. They also have the authority or power to administer religious rites; in parti ...

and schoolteacher. He managed the Offaly county team, where he was pivotal in establishing them as a rising side in the sport.

Biography

Scully was a native of Aharney in

Tullamore Tullamore (; ) is the county town of County Offaly in Republic of Ireland, Ireland. It is on the Grand Canal (Ireland), Grand Canal, in the middle of the county, and is the fourth most populous town in the Midland Region, Ireland, Midlands Reg ...

. He had two brothers and six sisters: Ned, Michael, Nance (Hanlon), Mary (Garry), Rose (Cleary), Margaret (Henry), Lily (Elizabeth McDonnell) and Emily (Hanlon). All bar Emily predeceased him. He studied philosophy at UCD and theology at the Oblates Scholasticate in Piltown County Kilkenny. During the 1960s, Scully trained the Belcamp College boarding school team in Dublin to three Leinster Schools' Football Championships. He led

Offaly County Offaly (; ) is a county in Ireland. It is part of the Eastern and Midland Region and the province of Leinster. It is named after the ancient Kingdom of Uí Failghe. It was formerly known as King's County, in honour of Philip II of Spain ...

to the final of the 1968–69 National Football League (their first), the

Leinster Senior Football Championship The Leinster Senior Football Championship, known simply as the Leinster Championship and shortened to Leinster SFC, is an annual inter-county Gaelic football competition organised by the Leinster GAA, Leinster Council of the Gaelic Athletic Asso ...

title (their third) and then to the 1969 All-Ireland Senior Football Championship Final (their first since

1961 Events January * January 1 – Monetary reform in the Soviet Union, 1961, Monetary reform in the Soviet Union. * January 3 ** United States President Dwight D. Eisenhower announces that the United States has severed diplomatic and cons ...

), having only taken over that year (though he would have trained any Offaly players living in Dublin). Scully departed for

South Africa South Africa, officially the Republic of South Africa (RSA), is the Southern Africa, southernmost country in Africa. Its Provinces of South Africa, nine provinces are bounded to the south by of coastline that stretches along the Atlantic O ...

in 1970 to teach mathematics in

Johannesburg Johannesburg ( , , ; Zulu language, Zulu and Xhosa language, Xhosa: eGoli ) (colloquially known as Jozi, Joburg, Jo'burg or "The City of Gold") is the most populous city in South Africa. With 5,538,596 people in the City of Johannesburg alon ...

. However,

apartheid Apartheid ( , especially South African English: , ; , ) was a system of institutionalised racial segregation that existed in South Africa and South West Africa (now Namibia) from 1948 to the early 1990s. It was characterised by an ...

did not suit him and he moved to England instead. While in England he lived in both London and

Manchester Manchester () is a city and the metropolitan borough of Greater Manchester, England. It had an estimated population of in . Greater Manchester is the third-most populous metropolitan area in the United Kingdom, with a population of 2.92&nbs ...

. He there became involved in the

Lancashire GAA The Lancashire County Board of the Gaelic Athletic Association (GAA), or Lancashire GAA, is one of the county boards outside Ireland and is responsible for the running of Gaelic games in the North West of England and on the Isle of Man. With ...

. By 1988, Scully had become Director of the Irish Centre in London. He established a day centre for the elderly and encouraged the older Irish to mix with the older English and the older Europeans living there. In May that year,

RTÉ (; ; RTÉThe É in RTÉ is pronounced as an English E () and not an Irish É ()) is an Irish public service broadcaster. It both produces and broadcasts programmes on television, radio and online. The radio service began on 1 January 1926, ...

's reporter Leo Enright was in

Camden Town Camden Town () is an area in the London Borough of Camden, around north-northwest of Charing Cross. Historically in Middlesex, it is identified in the London Plan as one of 34 major centres in Greater London. Laid out as a residential distri ...

and Scully spoke to him on camera. He was selected as Offaly Person of the Year in 1989.

Later life

By 2018, Scully's

eyesight Visual perception is the ability to detect light and use it to form an image of the surrounding environment. Photodetection without image formation is classified as ''light sensing''. In most vertebrates, visual perception can be enabled by ph ...

had deteriorated. Based in later life in the House of Retreat in the Dublin suburb of

Inchicore Inchicore () is a suburb of Dublin, Republic of Ireland, Ireland. Located approximately west of the city centre, Inchicore was originally a small village separate from Dublin. The village developed around Richmond Barracks (built 1810) and Inchi ...

, Scully heard

confession A confession is a statement – made by a person or by a group of people – acknowledging some personal fact that the person (or the group) would ostensibly prefer to keep hidden. The term presumes that the speaker is providing information that ...

s and ministered to the sick. He died in Dublin of

COVID-19 Coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) is a contagious disease caused by the coronavirus SARS-CoV-2. In January 2020, the disease spread worldwide, resulting in the COVID-19 pandemic. The symptoms of COVID‑19 can vary but often include fever ...

on the morning of 7 April. He was one month short of his 90th birthday. His death occurred at St James's Hospital. He had been in hospital for less than a week and had spoken over the phone during those final days.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Scully, Tom 1930 births 2020 deaths Deaths from the COVID-19 pandemic in the Republic of Ireland Gaelic football managers Irish expatriate sportspeople in England Irish expatriates in South Africa 20th-century Irish Roman Catholic priests Irish schoolteachers Irish mathematics educators Sportspeople from Tullamore, County Offaly 21st-century Irish Roman Catholic priests