.Peter Nolan, who is considered one of the greatest footballers ever to play for Offaly and who left Ireland for the U.S. at age 25 in 1960, has died. He was 91.
His family will have a wake for him today, Monday, Nov. 2, at Weigand Brothers Funeral Home in Williston Park, L.I., from 5-8 p.m. and Mass at St. Aidan’s on Tuesday morning 11:15 a.m. on Nov. 3. They will bring him home to Clara for his final resting place later this month with details to be announced.
The Offaly Express said, his emigration ”deprived Offaly and Clara of one of its star footballers, a teak tough, renowned center-half back, who also excelled at midfield and center-half forward. His last game for Offaly was at center-half forward in the Leinster Senior Football Championship win over Carlow in 1960.”
His son, Peter Jr., an Echo columnist and a former GAA correspondent, began a 2021 essay for this newspaper thus: “From growing up to grown, from childhood to young adulthood and even now, in what I will euphemistically call middle age, I have been asked this question over and over. At Gaelic grounds, in bars, at Irish events, and in recent years online; usually on Facebook, where I am sometimes mistaken for the man himself.
“The question empowers those asking to somehow be transported back into their childhood. Men who played the game with or against him. People far too young to have seen him play but who have heard the name across the years in the stories told by their fathers, or more likely grandfathers.
“His name, my name. And always, I have been proud to answer: ‘Yes, I am his son.’”
His obituary states: “Peter will be deeply missed by his devoted wife, Patsy; his son Peter, daughter in law Ann, his daughter Carrie; and his grandchildren, Rory, Jack, Ronan and Rachel, His brothers Paddy and Willie and his many treasured nieces, nephews and friends both here and abroad.”
“We love him dearly and will miss him forever. God bless his gentle soul.
“May he rest in peace.”
