JIM McKeever was born on December 6, 1930 and grew up on The Island Hill, his family’s farm in Ballymaguigan.
He died on April 6, 2023.
And yet even a life of 92-and-a-bit years doesn’t touch the two sides of his place in the history of the GAA in Derry.
It was in his mother Annie [O’Kane]’s home house on a family in Ballymulderg in the Loup that one of the first ever GAA meetings in the county took place, organised by Louis Smyth, a close associate of Michael Cusack.
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Just last week, Paddy Tally was appointed as the new Derry manager.
On the occasion of McKeever’s last ever visit to the Ranch, he and Tally were photographed together as the college’s Sigerson Cup winning managers.
Jim had fought for twenty years to get St Mary’s accepted into the competition. Within twelve months of finally winning the battle, they won the war in 1989.
Tally felt the hand of McKeever while he studied to become a teacher under Art McRory, who had been at the Ranch in the late 1950s.
McRory played for McKeever and learned from him, and what he learned was passed on to the next generation of Tyrone footballers and the next generation of teachers.
Tally fell into both camps, a player under McRory and Eugene McKenna when Tyrone reached the All-Ireland final in 1995, nine years after Art had taken the county to its first ever.
You’d never be done pulling at such threads of the legacy Jim McKeever wove through the modern history of Gaelic football in Ulster.
Because for 35 years, from 1957 until he retired in 1992, McKeever coached the coaches.
As head of the university’s PE department, he lectured entire generations of PE teachers, many of whom were the same people standing out on GAA pitches when they weren’t in the classroom, nurturing his ideas and his ideals.
In many ways, it was through his day job that he came to be recognised by generations that weren’t old enough to have seen him playing football.
Having captained two MacRory Cup winning teams at St Malachy’s, he went on to have a long and distinguished career with Derry, of which the high point was guiding them to an All-Ireland final in 1958.
His story, from beginning to end, is told in a new book that will be launched at his club, St Trea’s Ballymaguigan on Thursday evening.
It was only in January of this year that McKeever’s family discovered he had begun to write his memoirs in 2013.
Illness intervened but in looking through his papers, Jim’s daughter Maeve discovered an almost-completed book.
Out of that transcript has grown a book entitled ‘Only The Sky Above Me’ which tells his story seen but also of tales unheard.
Like the story of Malachy McEvoy, the Armagh midfielder from their first All-Ireland final in 1953.
The pair had played together at St Mary’s and were selected in 1955 to play for Ireland in an annual game against the Combined Universities.
McKeever, who had been selected for the Ireland team in previous years, was named at number nine with debutant McEvoy among the subs wearing 19.
Just before the book went to print, the five-person editorial committee were contacted by McEvoy’s son Eamon, who told them the story of how Jim gave up his place in the team for his father.
“Just before the game was due to commence Jim asked the selectors to replace himself with the talented Malachy. They reluctantly agreed to this surprising decision and so Malachy McEvoy came on and played superbly for Ireland.
“Jim felt, as he had had the honour of being selected for Ireland before this, Malachy deserved his place more than himself. In any sport, in the modern era, it is hard to imagine any sports person showing such respect and selflessness as to sacrifice his own place of well-earned honour in order to accommodate the ambition and selection of a fellow athlete,” the passage reads.
McKeever was the first ever Caltex Footballer of the Year in 1958, reward for guiding Derry to their first ever All-Ireland final.
The display of fielding put on by him and Mick O’Connell that afternoon is widely regarded as the pinnacle of high catching to this day.
There were two Derry championship titles with Newbridge before Ballymaguigan club was formed.
When it was, he guided them to a John McLaughlin Cup in 1962.
He managed the county to an Ulster title in 1970 and was alongside Tom Scullion when they repeated the feat in 1987.
When he was asked how it felt to soar above bodies and catch a ball when he was playing, McKeever would reply: “It was good to know that there was only the sky above me.”
That has now become the title of his book, edited by author and Derry fanatic Seamus McRory.
You could go on for days listing Jim McKeever’s achievements on a football field.
But you’d never be done unravelling what he has contributed, directly and indirectly, to the GAA in Ulster.
- Only The Sky Above Me will be launched on Thursday 21 November at 7.30pm in St Trea’s GAC, Ballymaguigan. A Belfast launch will also take place on Saturday 7 December at 12pm in St Mary’s University College, Belfast.