Of the 10 counties involved in finals at Croke Park this weekend, it’s the diaspora of the smallest that has been mobilised the most.
Seamus Clarke estimates that in excess of 200 Leitrim people have left New York alone for today’s Division Four League final against Derry at Croke Park, while he knows of others coming from Boston, Connecticut and Chicago.
Many more will come from the UK and beyond.
Clarke has been in New York for 35 years and in 1996 opened his bar, JP Clarke’s Saloon on McLean Avenue in Yonkers, with his wife Caitriona.
They’re both steeped in the GAA with three of Seamus’s uncles playing for Leitrim and another for Louth, while Caitriona’s brother Padraig was on 1994 Connacht title-winning side and her father, the late Leo, was vice-chairman of the Connacht Council.
They’ve been generous supporters of the GAA scene in New York and when the Leitrim county board wondered if they’d be interested in sponsoring the county team a few months back, they jumped at the chance.
With Leitrim having played New York in the Connacht Championship only last year and not due out again until 2023, there’s no obvious kickback for them, but that’s not the point.
“It’s not about business as such,” says Seamus.
“When the opportunity came we were just delighted to be in a position that we could make a contribution to our county and give a little bit back.”
Fifty people from JP Clarke’s alone left New York on Thursday night for today’s game.
“All the staff wanted to come over,” Seamus explains. “I said, ‘Well, we’re going to have to close the bar down if nobody stays’ so basically the decision was made that all the staff with Leitrim connections came with us.
“It grew from there. Our customers and Irish-Americans, people with Leitrim roots, are coming with us as well.”
Leitrim senior footballers have never won a game in Croke Park and if that duck were to be broken, allowing captain Michael McWeeney to climb the steps of the Hogan Stand, an emotional dam would burst.
“There’d be tears running down my face,” says Clarke. “It would be the same for my family.
“This Leitrim team, we hung around with their fathers. It’s a huge occasion, it’s emotionally taxing.
“Each generation seems to get a day out in Croke Park and that’s about the height of it in Leitrim.”
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