![\"\"\/](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/12\/65c77166e0d49.jpg\")
\n Via Getty Images <\/p>\n
\n Via Getty Images <\/p>\n
\n One of the most extraordinary feats in the history of West Limerick GAA will make it on to national airwaves this January.\n <\/p>\n
Kilcornan GAA will take the spotlight in RT\u00c9 Radio 1\u2019s new documentary ‘The Longest Game,’ a 1986 mission that saw a small community rally together to shatter a Guinness World Record.<\/p>\n
The record-breaking attempt was the brainchild of Terry Madigan, a stalwart of Kilcornan GAA.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Seeking a unique way to raise funds for his beloved club, Terry proposed a record-breaking seven-a-side Gaelic football marathon.<\/p>\n
Speaking to Live 95 Sport, he said, “I was looking at the Guinness Book one evening, and there was nothing in it that showed that the GAA had any records. I had to write to the Guinness people, and they came back, and they said there was no record. Once it’s an official sport, we could go ahead and do it.”<\/p>\n
“The rules stated that we were allowed five minutes off per hour, or we could accumulate. So we decided to go six hours, which gave us half an hour off… We had to be fed as fast as we could eat because we had to be back out on the pitch again.”<\/p>\n
Starting at 6:00 AM on Friday, May 23, 1986, fourteen local players embarked on a test of physical and mental endurance that would last 60 hours and 5 minutes without interruption.\u00a0<\/p>\n
The match finally concluded at 6:05 PM that Sunday, forever etching the parish into the Guinness World Record books.<\/p>\n
Speaking about the endurance of those involved, Terry said, “The determination to do it was unbelievable, and each guy was saying it won’t be my fault. One guy, he hit a wall… he said, ‘I’m in the middle of a match. I got to get back out there again.’ They just wrapped him in the silver foil, the heat in his body came out, and he was back on the pitch again in two hours.”<\/p>\n
“We raised in the region of eight plus thousand. Now, in ’86, that was huge money for a small club. On the Sunday morning, maybe about three o’clock, they could see we were hitting a low patch. Anybody who was in the field just went all around the field, encouraging us to keep going. We were almost there. The sun was coming up… we knew we were laughing.”<\/p>\n
The upcoming documentary explores the reality of the three-day ordeal.\u00a0<\/p>\n
‘The Longest Game’ tells the story of that record attempt \u2013 the highs, the lows, the hallucinations, all set against the backdrop of a community of people bonded by the love of their parish and GAA.<\/p>\n
The legacy of the 1986 record was further cemented when members of the original squad, including Terry, made a special trip to Croke Park this summer.\u00a0<\/p>\n
A commemorative plaque was unveiled in the GAA Museum at headquarters, ensuring that the West Limerick men are recognised at the very heart of the association.<\/p>\n
“This is the GAA as the head guys in Croke Park wanted to be known by. Everybody gets involved. We all help each other out… There were 14 of us on the field. But there was an unbelievable number of people in the background who spent nearly as much of the 60 hours as ourselves,” Terry added.<\/p>\n
‘The Longest Game’ airs on RT\u00c9 Radio 1 on Saturday 10 January at 1pm.\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Via Getty Images One of the most extraordinary feats in the history of West Limerick GAA will make…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":213199,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[28],"tags":[146,85,46,41528,41531,41527,41530,41529,41532,409],"class_list":{"0":"post-213198","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-music","8":"tag-entertainment","9":"tag-il","10":"tag-israel","11":"tag-limerick-radio","12":"tag-limerick-today","13":"tag-limericks-live95fm","14":"tag-live-95","15":"tag-live95fm","16":"tag-live95fm-homepage","17":"tag-music"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/213198","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=213198"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/213198\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/213199"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=213198"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=213198"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=213198"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}