‘Jack Griffin was first in to start a job, and the last out’, says Army comrade

At Jack Griffin’s funeral last week, former colleagues of his from the Defence Forces ended up chatting with his Thurles Sarsfields clubmates, naturally enough. Gradually it sank in with the former group that perhaps his friends in Thurles didn’t know how far he’d gone in the Army.

“That would have been Jack’s way,” says one of those Army comrades, Niall Twomey. “They knew him as a player and as a trainer, but he was on his way to the very top in the Army.

“If it came as a surprise to some of them how much he’d achieved in the Army, that was because he’d never made a big deal about it in the club. There was always a total lack of ego on Jack’s part.”