1986. Limerick. 14 players. 60 hours of football.

GAA is at the heart of rural villages across the country, and it's the community that keeps it alive.

In 1986, Terry Madigan, a native of Kilcornan, Co. Limerick and stalwart of the GAA game, came up with an idea on how to raise much needed funds for his beloved club – a raffle wouldn’t do, door to door donations were too predictable. He wanted to go BIG.

A chance reading of the Guinness Book of records sparked an idea that was anything but predictable. Terry noted there was no world record associated with a GAA game, so he decided to attempt one. And that’s where the BIG part comes in.

His aim - to play 60 hours of football without stopping! Three days,14 players and no substitutes. ( Health and safety was far from a priority in the 1980s!). But it wasn’t just down to the 14 players… the whole community would have to come together to pull this off…

On the morning of May 26th 1986 the residents of Kilcornan abandoned their regular Friday and descended on the local pitch. The whistle blew and the world record attempt, fondly known as " the marathon", kicked off.

However, it’s one thing to set a goal - quite another to achieve it.

As Terry remarks, "It was against nature what we were doing," and as the hours went by the body really "started giving out". It was clear this wasn’t going to be easy.

The Longest Game tells the story of that record attempt - 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.

The Longest Game is narrated and produced by Shauna McGreevy.

Production supervision is by Nicoline Greer.

Archive recorded in 1986 is by John Nash.

First broadcast on Saturday 10th January 2026, 1pm, RTÉ Radio 1.