Offaly hurling legend Johnny Flaherty passes away

The Kinnitty man lit the touchpaper for Offaly hurling  in 1980 and again in the 1981 All-Ireland final against Galway

TASTY: Johnny Flaherty dances around Galway's Sylvie Linnane and Seamus Coen in the 1981 All-Ireland SHC final.

OFFALY legend Johnny Flaherty, the man who claimed the ground-breaking All-Ireland final goal that led to a first Faithful title, has passed away. The Kinnitty man hand-passed the decisive goal in the 1981 All-Ireland final against Galway to secure the county's first senior crown. He passed away early Wednesday after a reasonably short battle with illness, reported the Offaly Express. He was in his mid-70s.

Flaherty was, writes sports editor Kevin Corrigan, "a magnificently and audaciously skilful corner forward". He had returned from America late in his career but as Corrigan writes Wednesday "his contribution to Offaly's great emergence was profound."

He won six county titles with Kinnitty and at inter-county level he debuted with Offaly in 1966 and played his final game with the county all of seventeen years later. He played 66 times in all for the Faithful. He claimed a brace of goals as Offaly won a first Leinster title against Kilkenny in 1980 and there was better to come the following season.

All-Star Flaherty

He won a Hurling All-Star in 1981 and was Offaly's Hurler of the Year in 1979 and 1981. He was later inducted into the Offaly GAA Hall of Fame and was selected on the Offaly hurling team of the Millennium in 2000.

He was gregarious and talented off the pitch too. A single-handicap golfer in Tullamore, he had a rare albatross in July 2022 at Esker Hills at a 326-yard par 4 in the august company of Johnny Dooley and Michael Duignan in an Offaly GAA society president's prize. Flaherty was the president. An "unbelievable distinction" as Duignan called it.

He leaves behind daughters, Claire and Shauna, sons-in-law Andrew and Conor, grandson, Eanna and family and friends.

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