ONE of Letterkenny and Donegal’s best known GAA figures James McGettigan has died.
McGettigan (89) was inducted in the prestigious St Eunan’s GAA Club Hall of Fame in 2003 was known all over the county and further afield as ‘Gouldie’. He won three county senior championship medals with his home town club and four league medals. He was a member of the great St Eunan’s Minor team of 1948 that won their third County Minor Championship in a row.
Born on February 28, 1931, ‘Gouldie’ was a farmer and cattle dealer. He lost two of his sons, sixteen year old Peter and Philip 40, in 1986 and 2009 respectively.
“It left a void in my life that never really healed,” he recalled in an interview in the Donegal News in 2015.
Living on the New Line Road, he is survived by his wife Cora (Nee Embleton), sons Paul (Galway), Jimmy (Derry), Eric (Churchill), Leslie (New York) and David (Galway), daughters Sandra Empey (Derry), Donna Ostojic (Medjugorje), Ursula Collins (Nenagh) and Cora Kelly (Letterkenny), his surviving sister Annie O’Donnell (Glencar Road), grandchildren, great grandchildren, in-laws, extended family and friends.
Requiem Mass will be celebrated in St Eunan’s Cathedral at 11am on Tuesday morning by Fr Kevin Gillespie, Adm., with burial afterwards in the family plot in New Leck cemetery. Music will be under the direction of Anne Nicholls.
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