Tipperary hurling mourns four-time All-Ireland winner Seán McLoughlin

McLoughlin also won nine county titles with a great Thurles Sarsfields team

Seán McLoughlin, former Tipperary hurler, pictured in 2010. Picture Dylan Vaughan.

Tipperary hurling great Seán McLoughlin, who won four All-Ireland senior medals, has died. 

The Thurles Sarsfields player was part of the Tipperary panel from 1958 to 1969, usually featuring in the full-forward line, making his debut in the 1960 Munster semi-final win over then champions Waterford.

He was part of the renowned Tipp All-Ireland-winning sides in 1961, 1962, 1964 and 1965. 

He also won seven Munster medals, two National Hurling League medals, a Railway Cup medal with Munster, and nine Tipperary senior championship medals with Sarsfields.

1/4: Seán McLoughlin RIP
Having played his early hurling with Rahealty with whom he won a county minor championship medal, he joined Thurles Sarsfields in 1955, winning county junior honours before going on to collect the first of his county senior medals the following year. pic.twitter.com/FA0Tjq6k3T

— Thurles Sarsfields (@thurlessars) September 2, 2025

In an Irish Examiner interview in 2010, he spoke to Diarmuid O'Flynn, recalling that first title win over Dublin in '61, when he replaced Tony Wall in the second half. 

"Winning your first All-Ireland, that’s special. It’s a great thrill, going out on All-Ireland final day in Croke Park, the first time especially – you get the butterflies. After that you get used to it, but it’s always a great honour. 

"When we won that first final, the first man in on the field to me was my own father. I wouldn’t like to see the tradition of allowing fans onto the field going."

Of the 1963 shock defeat to Waterford, which interrupted a potential Tipp five in a row, he recalled: "I was captain, Waterford beat us by a point but I got a goal in the last few minutes that was disallowed. 

"If we’d won it, I’d say we’d have done the five-in-a-row, but we had a good innings anyway – counties go through that, they have their period of dominance, and that was ours. That Kilkenny team we beat in ‘64 was a great team.

"There were those we won that we could have lost too – everything balances out. You win some, you lose some."

Noted for supplying the forwards around him and for his tough presence close to goal, he recalled different times when part of the forward's brief was to 'rattle' goalkeepers under dropping balls.

"It was to see if you could get him to take his eye off the ball. It wasn’t just being rough for the sake of it, there was a method in it."

Seán played his early hurling with the Rahealty club, winning a county minor championship medal. He joined Thurles Sarsfields in 1955, first winning a county junior medal before claiming the first of his nine senior club medals in 1956. 

He remained an ever-present through Sars' glorious era until 1972 and in 2016, he was inducted into the club's Hall of Fame.

McLoughlin played further out the field as an exciting minor and with Thurles CBS, but suffered a badly broke leg in a club game which kept him out of action for two years. Across the 1952 and 1953 minor finals, he scored seven goals.

"I played mostly at corner-forward and full-forward a small bit. I played wing-forward in a couple of minor All-Ireland finals, in '52 and '53, then I broke my leg badly.

"I was out for a couple of years, and after that it was into the full-forward line, but I preferred the corner – I’d slowed up a bit with the broken leg."

He fondly recalled an upbringing just outside Thurles. 

"I was brought up in the country, in Killinin, the same parish as John Maher who captained the 1945 Tipperary team that won the All-Ireland. Padraic Maher is his grandson.

"Just past the Racecourse, on the Nenagh road. We went to school in Thurles and walked in. Pat Stakelum (a late former Tipp great) lived further out than us, in Ballycahill, and they used to pass in a horse-and-trap – we often got a lift with him. Later on we got well off and had a bike."