Garda Colm Horkan revealed how his mother's death spurred him and his brother on to win a Mayo Senior Football Championship with Charlestown Sarsfields in a recently released podcast.
The brave Garda was sadly killed since the podcast was recorded after being shot in Castlerea, Co Roscommon in June.
Speaking on the Charlestown Sarsfields GAA podcast, which was recorded in May, Garda Horkan looked back on the club's 2001 Championship success.
His mother and the father of two other players at the club had both died shortly before the Championship began.
The achievement was all the more incredible as Charlestown hadn't won a senior Championship game in nine years prior to 2001.
They went all the way to win their second county title and their first in 99 years. They were crowned champions again in 2009.
Garda Horkan said in the podcast: “I remember the evening before my mother died, we were above in Aghamore, I think I was playing a Canon Henry cup game on the Saturday evening and she was at that and she was fine.
“And then the following morning at 12 o’clock she had dropped dead you know.
“Look, it’s one of those things and in fairness we always felt that they were looking down on us that year, that they were our lucky charms up there and d’ya know what maybe they were.
“There was just a sense there that when we were doing it we’d keep on going and doing it for them as much as we could.”
Garda Horkan is to be honoured with a new GAA memorial pitch and walkway in his hometown, with works to begin later this year on the €300,000 project.
The facilities, expected to be finished by 2023, will be constructed and named after the detective at the Charlestown Sarsfields club in the Co Mayo town.
