Ignatius "Nace" O'Dowd (1 August 1931 – 16 May 1987) was an Irish

Gaelic football Gaelic football ( ga, Peil Ghaelach; short name '), commonly known as simply Gaelic, GAA or Football is an Irish team sport. It is played between two teams of 15 players on a rectangular grass pitch. The objective of the sport is to score by kic ...

er who played for the Sligo county team in the 1950s and was a member of a number of successful

Railway Cup The GAA Interprovincial Championship ( ga, An Corn Idir-Chúigeach) or Railway Cup (''Corn an Iarnróid'') is the name of two annual Gaelic football and hurling competitions held between the provinces of Ireland. The Connacht, Leinster, Munster ...

teams. In 1949 he captained a Sligo team to a Connacht Championship. He made his senior Inter-county debut for Sligo while a teenager and played for the county for eleven years. O’Dowd was often tasked with marking Galway forward

Seán Purcell Seán Purcell (17 December 1928– 27 August 2005), was a Gaelic footballer who played at senior level for the Galway county team. Best known as a centre half-forward, he played in most outfield positions during his career. In 2009 he was ...

. Purcell named O'Dowd as one of the players he admired most in GAA football. In 1954 O’Dowd played for Sligo in the Connacht Final, which they narrowly lost to Galway. He lined out nine times for Connacht in the Railway Cup, helping the province to victory in 1957 and 1958. O'Dowd played in teams that won four Sligo Club Championships. He won one Mayo title with Castlebar Mitchels and captained his native Mullinabreena to a Sligo Senior Title in 1958. O'Dowd emigrated to America in 1959 and played in

Gaelic Park Gaelic Park ( ga, Páirc na nGael) is a multi-purpose outdoor athletics facility, located at West 240th Street and Broadway in Riverdale, Bronx, in New York City in the U.S. state of New York. Since 1926 the grounds has been used as the venue for ...

New York City New York, often called New York City or NYC, is the List of United States cities by population, most populous city in the United States. With a 2020 population of 8,804,190 distributed over , New York City is also the L ...

. He returned to Ireland in the 1970s. The

Coolaney/Mullinabreena GAA Coolaney/Mullinabreena is a Gaelic Athletic Association club based in the parishes of Killoran/Coolaney and Achonry/Mullinabreena in County Sligo, Republic of Ireland. The club has links to Nace O'Dowd and its home ground, which opened in 199 ...

club named their pitch ''Nace O'Dowd Park'' in his honour.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Odowd, Nace 1931 births 1987 deaths Irish expatriates in the United States Sligo inter-county Gaelic footballers Tubbercurry Gaelic footballers Castlebar Mitchels Gaelic footballers Mullinabreena Gaelic footballers People from County Sligo