Tommy Roche

Thomas Roche (12 October 1918 – May 1999) was an Irish rugby player, and rugby club president. Hailing from Mullingar, Roche played for Monkstown RFC, after which he played for Mullingar RFC Following his retirement from playing, he became the president of Mullingar RFC.

Early life Thomas Roche was born on 12 October 1918, in the townland of Ballagh, Mullingar, County Westmeath. His parents were Thomas Roche, a cattle dealer, and Kathleen Burns, a former school teacher; they had been married in 1916. A month before he was born, Tommy's father died from the Spanish flu, leaving his mother to raise him during his infancy as a single mother. She remarried, in 1921, to Edward Hope, with whom she had eight more children.

Rugby career Roche began his rugby career in 1938, when he joined Tullamore Rugby Club. During The Emergency (WW2), he was a despatch rider for Irish Army.

Death Tommy Roche died at the age of 80 in May 1999, in Saint Francis Private Hospital, Mullingar, after a long illness.