Are Louth jinxed?
20 November 2002 Year after year, Louth appear to be dogged by bad luck in the championship. Is there a conspiracy theory in place? Or are the Wee County simply jinxed? Joe Carroll investigates. It s 45 years since Louth won the Leinster senior football championship, and during the lengthiest barren spell the county has ever endured (the win of 1912 wasn t repeated until 1943, but that was a mere 31 years) there have been quite a few hard luck stories. There were near misses before 57, of course, the All-Ireland final defeat of 1950 and three years after that the great but unsuccessful second half comeback in the semi-final with Kerry, to mention just two. But these were pushed firmly into the background when Dermot O Brien was presented with the Sam Maguire Cup, making him the first ever Louthman to be accorded that honour. Yes, of course, there s a jinx on Louth, but up until about a decade ago, that jinx, yielding defeat after defeat in the competition that matters most, could be at
