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Laois men managing Laois senior county teams really is something of an outlier.
This Sunday in Croke Park, Tommy Fitzgerald will lead Laois into a national hurling final. It’s not something that too many Laois men have actually done.
Going back almost 20 years in both codes, you can count on one hand the number of Laois men that have been appointed as the senior county manager.
Of the past ten hurling managers, only three have them have been from Laois – Fitzgerald and his club-mates Seamas ‘Cheddar’ Plunkett (who did two spells – 2013-16 and 2021-22) and Niall Rigney (who came in late in 2008 and was in charge in 2009 and 2010).
There have been a number of Tipp men – Willie Maher, Eamon Kelly, Dinny Cahill, Paudie Butler, Kilkenny’s Eddie Brennan and Brendan Fennelly, Cork’s Teddy McCarthy and Damien Fox from Offaly.
Football has been somewhat similar. Though Billy Sheehan (2022-23) played with Laois and John Sugrue (2018-19) and Mick Lillis (2016) have made Laois their home, Sean Dempsey in 2009 and 2010 is the last Laois football manager who grew up in Laois and started his football days in the county.
Taking on your own county is fraught with landmines. Fitzgerald is a legend of the Laois hurling scene, widely respected and liked; but a local taking on a job in a county with a limited track record of success invariably ends in disappointment and brings the risk of a damaged reputation, rightly or wrongly. Unlike outside managers, they literally can’t skip out of town afterwards.
Fitzgerald, though he would undoubtedly have been offered the job at some stage anyway, is an accidental Laois manager this year.
The role was initially given to Darren Gleeson, the Tipp man who’d had a good innings in Antrim. But when Gleeson was diagnosed with cancer shortly after being appointed, it left Laois without a manager as the clock ticked down on a new season.
Locally, Fitzgerald was the stand-out candidate and county chairman PJ Kelly wasted little time in picking up the phone.
At the time, Fitzgerald was preparing for a third season in charge of his native Portlaoise, a side he’d enjoyed good success with in the previous two years; winning the Premier Intermediate and Division 2 of the league in his first season in 2023 and reaching a senior quarter-final in their first year back.
Indeed leaving the Portlaoise role at that stage wouldn’t have sat easily with him but he wasn’t going to leave his county in the lurch either, despite the not insignificant duties of the role and the demands of being a local school principal and a young family.
A hugely influential selector/coach during Eddie Brennan’s eventful two years in charge in 2019 and 2020, he knew the scene well and was a popular choice among the players.
He also spent a couple of years as coach with Galway side St Thomas’s, culminating in their All Ireland senior club success in January of last year. He’d been with them in 2021 and 2022 and linked back in with them in the autumn of 2023 when Portlaoise’s Leinster intermediate campaign ended. His CV stood up to scrutiny.
Going right back, Fitzgerald started out his own playing days in the early 1990s, a disciple of the famed Portlaoise underage GAA sessions in their old grounds on Fr Browne Avenue where the Centre of Excellence now stands.
His father Seamus – a Galway native but a Garda stationed in Portlaoise – hurled with Portlaoise in their senior final appearances in 1977 and 1980 that paved the way for their big breakthrough in 1981 while his mother Catherine (nee Daly) is a club diehard too.
Regulars at games of either code and any level, there aren’t too many in the county that get as much value out of their season tickets.
A dual player, Tommy represented Portlaoise all the way up along, winning underage championship in both codes and quickly playing in the age groups above himself, particularly in hurling.
Portlaoise underage hurling in the 1990s was considerably stronger than it is now and Fitzgerald was on the last team from The Town to win a minor hurling title in 2001. He also won an U-21 in 2000, a grade they’ve only won once since.
Making his senior debut as a teenager, he was a key man on the Portlaoise team that stopped Castletown doing an historic six-in-a-row in 2004. He was also on the football team that went all the way to the All Ireland senior club final that year.
Though hurling was his preferred sport, he has a collection of football medals at underage and senior. Like any proper hurling man, football was secondary but an indication of his standing was that he was able to rejoin the Portlaoise football set up after they won Leinster in 2009 and feature in the All Ireland semi-final.
For the Laois senior hurlers, he played from 2002 to 2015, making 139 appearances overall, a figure that has him second overall, behind only Matthew Whelan.
Playing most of his senior career as an inside forward, he had a great eye for goal and is just outside the top five when it comes to the county’s highest goalscorers.
As is the case with many Laois hurlers who soldier in the county colours for years, the bad days outnumbered the good ones though he did get three seasons under Cheddar, the highlight of which was the Leinster championship win over Offaly in 2015, a first in over 40 years.
With Portlaoise a second senior hurling medal never arrived and it was heartbreak in the finals of 2007, 2009, 2010 and 2011.
He did pick up two Senior ‘A’/Premier Intermediate medals in 2015 and 2018 after Portlaoise had been relegated to the second tier, captaining the side in 2018.
His last game with the club was in the 2020 Covid-delayed Premier Intermediate final in 2021. Incidentally that final loss to The Harps was also the last time that Cahir Healy played for Portlaoise. Talk about two good lads to lose at the same time.
A primary school teacher, he has had spells as principal in Ballyadams and Rath, where he is currently. It’s no coincidence that both have been hugely respectable in Cumann na mBunscol hurling under his guidance.
Alongside coaches Niall Corcoran and Andrew Kavanagh, they have steered the Laois ship in recent months.
Dedicated, driven, detailed and decent, there’s also a collective ruthless streak there. No messing is tolerated, simple as.
The season hasn’t been without its blips. They were relegated in the league and while they hit the ground running in the Joe McDonagh Cup with big wins over Westmeath, Down and Kerry, they had a considerable speed wobble against Kildare and then only scraped into the final thanks to a last-second draw in Carlow.
But they’re in the final, heading back to Croke Park for the second year running for a Joe McDonagh final showdown.
Kildare are the new kids on the block and the good news story of this championship.
Yet Laois will start once again as favourites.
Leading the way is that rarest of species in Laois. A Laois man in Croke Park wearing the Bainisteoir bib.
Our 2025 Remembered series is brought to you in association with Bloom HQ, Mountrath
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