Johnny Glynn Responds To Critics Of New York's Lory Meagher Inclusion

Johnny Glynn is in the unique position of being his county's Senior hurling captain whilst also being the vice-chairman on their county board executive. That position is made even more unique given that his current county is New York.

Glynn initially retired from intercounty hurling in 2020, he had had enough of commuting from New York to play for the Galway senior hurlers. However, Henry Shefflin managed to tempt him back for the 2024 season. Glynn came off the bench four times in the Leinster championship as Galway failed to make it out of the group stages following defeats to Dublin and Wexford.

He also represented New York in the Connacht football championship in their first-ever championship win against Leitrim in 2023 and in previous close shaves with Roscommon and Sligo.

The New York squad have been back in the news as they lifted the Lory Meagher trophy on Saturday last in Croke Park, defeating Cavan in the final. In the aftermath of the victory, Johnny Glynn has appeared on The GAA Social Podcast to speak on a number of different topics, both sporting and personal.

There has been widespread criticism of the decision to allow New York to join the competition at the semi-final stage and bypass the group phase the other competing teams qualified from. Glynn believes their situation is not too dissimilar to the one his native county found itself in before being admitted to the Leinster championship in 2009.

Yeah, there was a lot of slack about it, everyone was saying you're too strong for the Lory Meagher. If we were told we had to come home for ten games or one game, we just wanted to get in we weren't going to question anything.

It was funny enough last week someone down in Mullingar made a comment after the game and I just turned to the umpire and I said sure Galway were in an All-Ireland semi-final for years in the Liam MacCarthy and nobody ever said anything wrong about it so why couldn't we do it.

I heard it behind me, "sure it's a bit of a joke they just waltzed into the semi-final" and I turned around was like obviously bit of colourful words. I said nobody ever gave out about Galway for years and the umpire goes "Jaysus that's a good point".

Johnny Glynn believes that New York GAA is in a good place, and while the hurlers may have attracted a bit of criticism, that is a sign they're being taken more seriously as an entity in the GAA. This success in the Lory Meagher can be used as an opportunity for the GAA to continue to grow in New York.

It's grand when you're losing, I always say it, no-one cares when a team is losing but the fact we came home and there was a bit of word about us having a good team then they were giving out. This was voted on, it was passed and it's only when you win that people want to put it down.

Sure look for years people wanted to see Limerick win an All-Ireland now when they're after winning a few no-one wants to see them win. People are always happy when you're losing, it's when you've a chance of winning they want to give out.