James Skehill, goalkeeper of the Galway team who won their first Leinster Senior Hurling Title in 2012 and holder of numerous awards including twelve County, Provincial and All-Ireland winners medals, has announced his retirement from the Inter-County Game.
In a statement released this evening on Social Media, the Cappataggle clubman said "After 14 years playing with Galway I'd like to take this opportunity to announce my retirement from inter-county hurling. A huge thank you to my wife Grace, my family, friends and teammates who supported me over the years. It was a huge honour to play for my county. Thank you".
Tributes have also been paid to the retiring Skehill this evening.
“I would like to thank James for the magnificent effort this year. He has been an outstanding goalkeeper with a great career. He showed true selflessness in imparting his knowledge to the younger goalkeepers of the group whilst providing intense competition throughout,” said Shane O’Neill, Galway Senior Hurling Manager.
“We would like to thank James for his fantastic service over the years in all grades and wish him and his family the very best,” said Pat Kearney & Paul Bellew, Galway GAA.
One of the finest goalkeepers of his generation, James has been part of the Galway Senior Inter-County set up since 2007 but he also played for Galway at Minor, U21 and Intermediate and is one of a rare few who have All-Ireland Winners Medals in all grades, as a minor in 2005, an U21 in 2007 and Intermediate in 2015 when he captained Galway to a 0-23 to 0-14 win over Cork at the Gaelic Grounds.
At National League level, James won two with Galway in 2010 and 2017 and also won a Fitzgibbon Cup with LIT in 2007.
He represented Ireland in Hurling-Shinty the same year.
At club level, James has two County and Connacht Intermediate Winners Medals with Cappataggle. Winning both in 2008 and 2014.
As a senior hurler, James made his debut for the Galway Senior Team against Tipperary in the National league in 2007 with his first championship game a year later when Galway hammered Antrim by 6-21 to 1-10.
2012 will be a year never to be forgotten for James and Galway as they won their first Leinster Senior Hurling title beating Kilkenny in the final by 2-21 to 2-11 and would feature in Galway's run to the All-Ireland Final where they would be beaten by Kilkenny after a replay. He would also be nominated for an All-Star in the same year.
Following action with Galway in the following two years, James took a year out in 2014 but returned in 2015 as was sub goalkeeper in the 2015 and 2017 All-Ireland Finals, the latter Galway's first All-Ireland Senior title since 1988.
James returned to the starting line up in 2018 and played in the All-Ireland Final defeat to Limerick, replaced in the 58th minute for an injury.
The engineer with Careys has also gained a new set of fans with his appearances on the Virgin Media TV Show Gogglebox with his dry humour proving popular with viewers and while he has hung up the jersey, there is no doubt that he will still don the Cappy colours for some time to come.
