Leona Maguire A Homecoming Queen In Ireland

Leona Maguire of Team Europe, wrapped in an Irish flag, celebrates with the Solheim Cup after beating Team USA. Photo: Maddie Meyer, Getty Images

She didn't expect a parade. But neither did anyone else. Cavan – an Irish village in Ulster, just south of the North, with a population of about 10,000 people who skew to the poor side of the economic scale – hasn’t had many heroes since William Bedell translated the Old Testament into Gaelic there in the 1630s. Like many hamlets throughout the countryside on the Northeast edge of the Republic, Cavan has a main street too narrow for the vehicles that use it, a town hall made of gray stone that looks like a pre-WWI prison, and a Catholic church in the distance, the steeple of which towers over every tree nearby. Other than an occasional dustup in the local pub, not much happens there. So, when County Cavan native Leona Maguire came home from Ohio as the conquering hero of the Solheim Cup, the town ...