Leitrim Mourns its Sporting Hero, Packie McGarty
Tony Conboy wrote: “It was with sadness that I, a Roscommon man, heard of the passing of Leitrim’s greatest Gaelic footballer, Packie McGarty at the age of 88. I feel that it would be very difficult for young people today to understand what icons like Packie meant to a county then. His decade, in the main, was the fifties when each of the five Connacht counties had their most distinctive and arguably greatest football heroes. Galway had Purcell and Stockwell, Sligo had Naas O Dowd, eclipsed later by Mickey Kearins; Mayo had any number of great players such as Paraic Carney, ‘Big’ Tom Langan and so on; Roscommon had Gerry O’Malley and Leitrim had McGarty and Flynn.”