Paddy O'Rourke (born 10 May 1989) is an Irish

Gaelic football Gaelic football (; short name '')'', commonly known as simply Gaelic, GAA, or football, is an Irish team sport. A form of football, it is played between two teams of 15 players on a rectangular grass pitch. The objective of the sport is to score ...

er who plays as a goalkeeper for his club

Skryne Skryne or Skreen ( , or originally called The Hill of Acaill) is a village in County Meath, Ireland. On and around a hill between the N2 and N3 roads, it is 10 km south-east of the centre of Navan and 35 km north-west of the centre ...

and, formerly, the Meath county team. O'Rourke is the nephew of former Skryne and Meath player

Colm Colm (; ) is a masculine given name of Irish origin. It is not an Irish version of ''Colin'', but like '' Callum'' and ''Malcolm'' derives from a Gaelic variation on ''columba'', the Latin word for " dove". The reason for the name's use for o ...

and first cousin of former Meath player Shane.

Playing career

Club

He played for the Skryne juvenile team at a young age and eventually became the Skryne senior team's first choice goalkeeper, aged 16. He subsequently moved outfield to a forward position. O'Rourke was top scorer on the 2010 SFC Skryne winning team. An outfield player at club level, O'Rourke has also played club football in Australia.

Inter-county

O'Rourke played for the Meath U21 football team up until 2010. He made his debut for the Meath senior team starting as a goalkeeper in a Leinster Quarter-finals game against Dublin on 7 June 2009. In 2010 O'Rourke was the starting goalkeeper for Meath, but was replaced by Trim's Brendan Murphy during the re-played

Leinster Senior Football Championship The Leinster Senior Football Championship, known simply as the Leinster Championship and shortened to Leinster SFC, is an annual inter-county Gaelic football competition organised by the Leinster GAA, Leinster Council of the Gaelic Athletic Asso ...

game against Laois. O'Rourke played as a forward briefly for his county until 2013 when

David Gallagher David Lee Gallagher (born February 9, 1985) is an American actor and former model. He began his career as a child actor and model at the age of two, and is known for his roles as Mikey Ubriacco in '' Look Who's Talking Now'', Simon Camden in '' ...

retired. He then abruptly retired, bemoaning his lack of silverware with Meath: Within two years Meath had qualified for the Super 8.

International rules

He played twice as goalkeeper for

Ireland Ireland (, ; ; Ulster Scots dialect, Ulster-Scots: ) is an island in the North Atlantic Ocean, in Northwestern Europe. Geopolitically, the island is divided between the Republic of Ireland (officially Names of the Irish state, named Irelan ...

against

Australia Australia, officially the Commonwealth of Australia, is a country comprising mainland Australia, the mainland of the Australia (continent), Australian continent, the island of Tasmania and list of islands of Australia, numerous smaller isl ...

in the

2013 International Rules Series The 2013 International Rules Series (officially the 2013 Irish Daily Mail International Rules Series) was the 17th International Rules Series contested between Gaelic footballers from Ireland international rules football team, Ireland and Austral ...

. He again played in goals for Ireland in the November 2014 International Rules Match played in Perth, Australia

Honours

Meath *

2010 The year saw a multitude of natural and environmental disasters such as the 2010 Haiti earthquake, the Deepwater Horizon oil spill, and the 2010 Chile earthquake. The 2009 swine flu pandemic, swine flu pandemic which began the previous year ...

Ireland *

International Rules Series The International Rules Series is a senior men's international rules football competition between the Australia international rules football team (selected by the Australian Football League) and the Ireland international rules football team ...

2013 2013 was the first year since 1987 to contain four unique digits (a span of 26 years). 2013 was designated as: *International Year of Water Cooperation *International Year of Quinoa Events January * January 5 – 2013 Craig, Alask ...

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Orourke, Patrick 1989 births Living people Gaelic football goalkeepers Irish expatriate sportspeople in Australia Irish international rules football players Meath inter-county Gaelic footballers Skryne Gaelic footballers