RIP: Tipperary hurling legend who won four All-Ireland medals sadly passes away

There is great sadness in Tipperary GAA circles this week following the news that former hurler and Tipperary legend Sean McLoughlin passed away on Monday night.

In an outstanding career through the 50s, 60s, into the 70s, Sean won four senior All-Ireland medals with Tipperary, seven Munster championships, two National Hurling League medals, a Railway Cup medal with Munster, and ten Tipperary senior championship medals with Sarsfields.

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He first came to prominence playing with Thurles CBS and Rahealty, with whom he won two county minor hurling championships. Selected on the Tipperary minors, he won All-Ireland medals in ’52 and ’53, scoring 3-2 in an All-Ireland minor final and the following year, 4-3 at the same stage against Dublin.

He joined Sarsfields in 1955 and collected his first senior medal with the club the following year.

He was a regular on club senior sides until 1972 when he retired, having been a central figure in the club’s great winning sequence in Tipperary, which yielded ten championships in eleven years, two five-in-a-row.

He was also on the Thurles Croke football team, which won the county senior title in 1960, making it a unique eleven county senior medals in eleven years. He made his senior inter-county debut in 1960 and won his first senior All-Ireland medal in 1961 when Tipperary beat Wexford, and his others in 62, 64, and 65, and he was inducted into the Thurles Sarsfields Hall of Fame back in 2016.

Predeceased by his loving wife Eileen (née Moloney), parents Bill and Annie, adored sisters Madeline (New Zealand) and Agatha (Westport), brother Seamus (Dublin), sisters-in-law Kathleen and Maura, brothers-in-law Michael and Gar.

Sean will be deeply missed by his adorning family, daughters Lucy and Carmel, sons Liam, Brian and Jim, their partners, sisters Anne O'Donovan (Tullamore and Caroline O'Flangan (Blackrock, Dublin), wonderful grandchildren, great-grandchildren, brothers in law Seamus Moloney, Billy O'Donovan and Peter O'Flanagan, nephews, nieces, relatives, carers Joanne, Margaret and Zaville, neighbours friends and his always loved GAA community.

Reposing in Hugh Ryan's Funeral Home, Slievenamon Road, Thurles on Thursday 4th September from 5pm to 8pm.

Sean's funeral cortége will walk from his residence on Friday morning 5th September, to arrive at the Cathedral of the Assumption, Thurles at 10.30am for Requiem Mass at 11am. Burial afterwards in St Patrick's cemetery, Thurles.

Ar dheis Dé go raibh a anam.

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