Making her mark as part of famed Westmeath football family
By Daire Walsh
In the space of a little under 24 hours earlier this summer, Westmeath’s Lara McCartan and three of her siblings found themselves enjoying memorable provincial championship successes.
Having been part of the team that won the same title the year before, Lara and Lucy McCartan were back in harness to help the Lake County overcome Wexford on a scoreline of 4-20 to 4-8 in the TG4 Leinster Intermediate Championship final in Newbridge on May 16. A day later, their brother Sam scored two points when the Westmeath men defeated Dublin to secure their first Leinster senior football crown in 22 years at Croke Park.
A fourth member of the McCartan family – Danny - was also a member of the match day panel as the Midlanders held their nerve to record an extra-time victory in GAA HQ. Interestingly, Dublin’s top scorer from play in this game was their recently-retired stalwart Ciarán Kilkenny, who is a cousin of the McCartans on their mother’s side.
“You couldn’t have written it. It was outrageous that two weeks on from our semi-final, you just happened to have the two Leinster finals on the same weekend and Westmeath on both sides. It was huge for the county. The streets filled and everything,” McCartan recalled of that eventful weekend in May.
“I’ve never seen so much support this year as well on both sides. The ladies and the men. It really was brilliant. I was beside my family there [at the Leinster men’s final]. It was unbelievable. The cheers from the crowd. Somebody said that we outnumbered Dublin four to one. Croker really was maroon and white that day.
“I think Sam and Danny found it crazy to be playing against Ciarán Kilkenny. He’s such a star in Dublin. He was obviously on the six-in-a-row team and was a pillar in their transitional period as well. There’s a picture in our house somewhere of Sam and Ciarán going up for a high ball. So the connection there is crazy as well.”
As has been well documented, the McCartans are part of a fascinating GAA family tree with their grandfather Seán Purcell being a legendary Galway footballer who won the Sam Maguire Cup with the Tribesmen back in 1956.
Whereas Purcell’s daughter Frances is the mother of Lara and her siblings, another of his daughters (Mary) is married to former Dublin footballer Tom Carr. Vicky Carr is a current Westmeath teammate of both Lara and Lucy, and played alongside the latter when the Lake County won the LGFA All-Ireland intermediate final in 2021.
Although she was a few years away from breaking into the Westmeath senior set-up herself, Lara had a front row seat during that successful campaign.
“I remember the day of the All-Ireland final, I was actually helping my dad (Pat). He was kit man that day, so I got to walk the pitch after their win. I used to go down to their training sessions the whole time.
“Dad would just get down beside me saying ‘oh now watch out for Fiona Coyle, watch out for her this session. Watch out for Fiona Claffey this session’. The likes of that. They’ve always been a bit of a drive watching all my siblings and Vicky playing for Westmeath. It’s such an honour to play with them now as well, club and county.”
A debutant against Longford at Glennon Brothers Pearse Park in the group stages of the All-Ireland intermediate championship while still an underage inter-county player in June, 2023, Lara and her Westmeath colleagues have come up short at the semi-final stage of the Mary Quinn Memorial Cup in the past two seasons.
Yet those brace of Leinster intermediate successes were welcomed and the ATU Sligo student in home economics and biology teaching has also enjoyed some memorable days with her club St Loman’s in recent times.
In October, 2024, at TEG Cusack Park, McCartan was once again joined by her sister Lucy (who has also excelled in soccer with Women’s Premier Division outfit Peamount United) and her cousin Vicky Carr as Loman’s secured top honours in the Westmeath LGFA Senior Championship decider with victory over Milltown.
Given their previous final triumph in the competition was seven years earlier, this was a maiden success in the top grade for McCartan.
“It was unbelievable really. I think I was 17 at the time and I was playing with girls that you just looked up to the whole time. Lucy, my sister, obviously just came back from an ACL coming up to that year. It was unbelievable. I think it was only my second or third season of senior club, so it was absolutely an honour. Hopefully we can do it again this year.”
The 2026 club season finds St Loman’s on a mission to reclaim their spot at the top table with Milltown having gotten the better of them when the sides renewed acquaintances in last year’s senior football showpiece in the Lake County.
Loman’s have since defeated Milltown in the 2026 top-tier group stages, which has also seen them overcoming the challenges of The Down, St Joseph’s and St Mary’s, Rochfortbridge.
However, Milltown remain in contention for the top prize this year with both themselves and Loman’s sealing automatic qualification for the semi-final phase of the Westmeath senior championship. The ultimate ambition for Loman’s is to reclaim the title they relinquished in 2025, but McCartan stressed they won’t be thinking beyond their last-four meeting with Goldsmiths next weekend.
“The mindset that our manager has been instilling in us is that we haven’t earned anything,” Lara said.
“We haven’t earned anyone’s respect just yet. We haven’t earned the right to win, we haven’t earned the right to do anything other than what is right in front of us. We’ve topped our group now, so next thing to do is just win our semi hopefully,” she added.