FATHER Sean McGrath, a man who excelled in football and dedicated his life to his faith, passed away yesterday at the age of 76. A native of Ederney, county Fermanagh, Fr Sean is regarded as the best player ever to line out for the St Joseph’s club and is rated by former GAA President Peter Quinn as one of the finest from Ulster.
Playing at midfield in a team that included six of his seven brothers, Fr Sean was a Fermanagh senior championship winner with Ederney in 1968. By that stage he had won two Sigerson Cup titles (1965 and 1966) with UCC.
A regular for Fermanagh, he also represented Ulster and his nephew Marty McGrath followed suit during his long and distinguished career. Marty was raised on stories of his uncle’s deeds on the pitch: How he would leap to field a ball and how he could mix it when the occasion demanded it.
“Ederney played St Eunan’s in a tournament match in Omagh,” Marty explains.
“Of course, they fought. Sean, Tom and Colm would have been involved in a few fights. Sean and Sean Ferriter (Donegal midfielder at that time) would have been marking each other and a few days later, Sean was thumbing a lift back to Kiltegan (county Wicklow).
“He was standing at Ballygawley roundabout thumbing and who went past only Ferriter. He turned and went back to him and gave him a lift after the two of them fighting a few days earlier.”
Marty adds: “He would always have taken a keen interest in the football.
“He was a good critic and he had his comments to make when I didn’t play well but I always took it on board because I knew he had played himself.
“He was a very intelligent, passionate man who cared little about material things and he loved cycling. He was ahead of his time and cycled 50-60 mile-a-day visiting friends when he was home from the missions. He took his nephews and nieces out cycling any summer he was home and he was a very fit man up to recent years.”
Luckily, Fr Sean was home in 2004 when Fermanagh reached the All-Ireland semi-final and again when the Ernemen came agonisingly close to winning an Ulster title four years later.
Ordained to the priesthood in 1971, he joined the Kilteagan Fathers, St Patrick's Missionary Society and travelled much of the world as a missionary priest. After ordination he was appointed to St Patrick’s College, Buchlyvie, Scotland, where he taught for two years. In 1973, he was appointed to Grenada and the Caribbean island would be his home for the next six years.
In 1980, Sean was appointed to Brazil where he would remain for almost four decades. A pastoral priest who dedicated himself totally to the people whom he served, he had a special interest in the poor and in those left behind by society. In every parish he served he helped to establish crèches for the poorer children and through the generous support he received from his family he was able to erect parish centres in all the communities he served.
These buildings served as churches and also centres for social projects. One of his favourite ministries was the Pastoral da Criança – ministry to children. He was able to identify very capable and dedicated leaders in the communities who worked closely with him in delivering these social projects.
He returned to Ireland in the summer of 2018 and settled in Kiltegan. He celebrated his 76th birthday on March 27, spending time on Zoom calls with his family and died peacefully in the early hours of Monday morning.
