Pat Critchley

Pat Critchley

Personal information
Sport	Dual player
Born	Portlaoise, County Laois
Nickname	Zoom, GOAT
Club(s)
Years	Club
	Portlaoise
Inter-county(ies)
Years	County
	Laois
Inter-county titles
All Stars	1

Pat Critchley is a sportsman from County Laois, Ireland. He has played at senior level in hurling, football and handball. ^[1] He is a member of Portlaoise GAA club, with whom he won eight Laois Senior county championships - four each in hurling and football. He guided IT Carlow to the Sigerson cup final 2020.

Playing career

Critchley has won one Leinster and one All-Ireland club football championship with Portlaoise. Critchley also won one Limerick county Football championship.^{[ with whom? ][ citation needed ]}

He was awarded Laois's sole hurling All Stars Award in 1985 and remains the only Laois player to receive this award. ^[2]

Coaching career

Critchley has coached Scoil Chriost Ri, Portlaoise basketball teams to eleven All-Ireland finals,^{[ citation needed ]} winning five,^{[ citation needed ]} and led the school to an All-Ireland football title.^{[ citation needed ]}

Critchley occupies a full-time coaching and development role with the Laois GAA County Board and is the instigator of the successful Setanta Hurling program and the follow on Cuchulainn program. ^[3]

Personal life

Pat was a physical education and English teacher at Scoil Chriost Ri, Portlaoise. ^[2] His autobiography is called Hungry Hill. ^[2]

References

1. Hogan, Vincent (20 February 1999). "Critchley's Éire Óg march to new beat". Irish Independent. Retrieved 6 July 2011.
2. Steven Miller (29 August 2017). "Tributes paid as Pat Critchley calls time on teaching career". Laois Today. Retrieved 15 July 2019.
3. Christy O'Connor (15 July 2019). "Six-county Leinster won't fix GAA's scandalous failure of hurling". RTÉ Sport. Retrieved 15 July 2019.