In the summer of 2011, tributes were being paid across social media to the late Ger Loughnane. He'd been battling leukemia in St. James's Hospital for the previous few months and someone got wind that Loughnane had died.
Conor Mortimer and Johnny Magee were among the many paying nice tributes to the ultimate hero of Clare hurling. The only snag was that Loughnane wasn't dead at all. It was painted as the latest common or garden death hoax.
Clare PRO Syl O'Connor confirmed to John Fogarty in the Irish Examiner that Loughnane was very far from dead.
"If anything, he (Loughnane) is getting better," he said.
Ger Loughnane spoke to Joe Molloy in a wonderful and wide-ranging interview on Off the Ball tonight. Their discussion ranged across his battles with leukemia, his passion for hunting, his career as a teacher, and those glorious years as Clare manager in the mid-1990s. We might also add that Loughnane was an outstanding hurler for Clare in the 70s and 80s. Winning four All-Stars on a team that never reached an All-Ireland semi-final is a great individual achievement.
In the interview, Loughnane spoke chirpily about the premature reports of his demise and the reasons why he harbours no ill-will towards those erroneously reported it. First off, he recalled how his son Conor, working in Australia at the time, had read of his death and refused to believe he was still alive until Ger spoke to him on the phone.
Loughnane later heard how the rumour got out. A man from Feakle rang St. James's Hospital wanting to speak to him. But Loughnane had already been let out of the hospital and was staying with his sister-in-law in Dublin.
The nurse on duty chose to relay this information in a somewhat over-dramatic fashion.
I don't actually blame anyone for it because what I found out what happened was somebody rang the hospital that evening, I think they were from Feakle, just to talk to me.
And the nurse on duty said, "I'm sorry. He's gone."
So, "he's gone" quickly turned into... (laughs)
(Molloy interjects: "Ah come on...")
But actually right across the road from where we are now there's a great food shop over here, 'The Food Haven', TJ McGuinness from Feakle has it. TJ's a gas character now but he told me a great story about it.
He was in Peppers, which is the pub in Feakle that night, and they all had it that Ger Loughnane was dead. Anyway when he went home, his son was in bed and he woke up the son from bed. And they drank two bottles of his best wine at 3 or 4'o clock in the morning. And the next morning, he woke up at 11 or 12 and found that I was alive. And he said 'well, f u Loughnane, you ruined my two best bottles of wine'
Listen to the interview below:
