Boy whose prized ball was washed out to sea on Louth beach delighted after it is recovered ... in the Isle of Man

By Gerry Hand

In the week that the FAI's 'Festival of Football' took over Co Meath, it seems one kid from the Royal County can claim to have the longest kick in the game.

Caeomhin Kirwan, 11, from Duleek, lashed a ball into the sea at Clogherhead, Co Louth, late last week, and was all set to wade in to fetch it back when an alert lifeguard stopped him as the ball had floated too far out to sea.

The youngster wasn't too distraught as his dad was co-manager of the Duleek Arrows team he played for and as a result there was a bag of balls in the backyard at home.

However little did he know he had just booted a boomerang ball, one destined to come back if he wanted it to.

A couple of days later six-year-old Isabella Quaye was playing on Ballaugh Beach on the Isle of Man with her family when she spotted a football washed up on the shoreline and duly took it in for safekeeping.

Mum Nicola had a glance and her daughter's new possession and could see that while the name of the club it belonged to had been marked on it the trip of 137 miles through sea water had all but washed the writing away.

Isabella Quaye who found the ball in the Isle of Man w

Dogged determination managed to establish the first word was Duleek and after an elongated google search Nicola eventually came up with facebook page of Duleek FC and messaged them.

Caeomhin's mum, Amy, spotted the message and contacted Nicola to say that although they owned it they were applying the 'Finder's keepers rule' and that Isabella could have it.

An astonished Amy revealed: "Caeomhin thinks it's crazy. It was late on Sunday night when I saw the post on Facebook, he was asleep but I woke him to tell him, he couldn't believe it.

"He is buzzing now that everyone is asking him about it. He's a local celebrity."

While the other side of the Irish sea, Nicola was equally amazed:

"I think it's quite exciting, I like the idea of tracing things back to where they came from because you know when you lose something and you wonder where it has ended up, we were intrigued by this mysterious ball so it was quite interesting to do the detective work on it.

"When we got it the ball was perfect it wasn't flat or anything the voyage from Ireland to the Isle of Man didn't damage it."