'Football is their life down around here'

Beara Community School face Our Lady’s College, Belmullet in Saturday's All-Ireland Post Primary Schools Senior D football final

In attendance at the Masita GAA All-Ireland Post Primary Schools Championships captain's call at Croke Park in Dublin is Brendan Conway of Our Lady's Secondary School and Fintan Fenner of Scoil Phobail Bheara, Cork. 

One of the less high-profile recommendations in the 2019 report of the fixtures calendar review taskforce was that post-primary competitions in the C and D grades be concluded at the provincial final stage.

The committee’s final report contained 32 recommendations, chief among them being three separate proposals to reshape the All-Ireland SFC, and so, unsurprisingly, there was next to no attention paid to denying a large cohort of secondary school students the opportunity to compete for All-Ireland honours.

That is not to say, however, the recommendation flew completely under the radar. 

At a Cork County Board meeting in the months after the report was published, the Castletownbere delegate criticised the unfairness of the recommendation and the message it sent out.

Dara Crowley, an Engineering and Technology teacher at Beara Community School in Castletownbere, was another who took a dim view of the proposal at the time.

The taskforce recommended that All-Ireland post-primary A and B football competitions be completed by the last weekend of January each year, but because of the “vast number” of schools involved at C and D level, meeting this deadline would be close to impossible and so they concluded that the lower grade competitions should be played to provincial final stage only.

Thankfully, says Crowley, the proposal never came to pass. For if it had, then his students would not be looking forward to an All-Ireland Senior D football final on Saturday afternoon against Our Lady’s College, Belmullet (Gurteen, 2pm).

“I remember when I heard that proposal first, I couldn’t get over it. I just thought it was unfair and elitist, you would have been squashing the smaller schools,” Crowley remarked. “I know we are always looking to improve the GAA and decisions are made to try and make things better, but that would have been a step backwards.” 

Crowley was part of the Kenmare Shamrocks team that reached an All-Ireland junior club final in 2013 and intermediate semi-final four years later. Although All-Ireland silverware was not collected on either occasion, the respective journeys are ones he and his teammates will never forget. He knows it will be the same story for the group of students he jointly-manages with Cian O’Connell. He also knows how important this All-Ireland run will be to the small pocket of clubs in the Beara peninsula and ensuring these clubs hold onto some of their brightest talents when they depart for third-level next September.

“Success breeds success. If you are working or in college in Cork city and are travelling two and a half hours down to Garnish or Urhan or wherever, it is a hard journey when results aren’t going your way. But when you are winning and you are successful, that journey shortens a lot. That is why these school competitions are so important. It gives that bit of success to the lads and they then want to taste success again, so they’ll commit to the clubs. 

"It has a knock-on effect because the club retains more players and then when they get stronger, that success will result in more players willing to make the long commute. It is just trying to stop clubs losing players and instead retain them and build on that.” 

Beara’s Munster final win over Salesian College Pallaskenry and subsequent All-Ireland semi-final victory over Ballybay Community College is the latest evidence of a reawakening down west - half the school team were part of the Beara divisional side that won last year’s Cork Premier 1 U18 crown.

Castletownbere’s Fintan Fenner, who lined out for the Cork seniors in the McGrath Cup earlier this year, has been a leading force for the school in the same way he was for the division last year. Dylan Crowley of Urhan, another member of that county championship winning divisional side and grandnephew of former Cork footballer Con Paddy O’Sullivan, has been a regular on the scoresheet in their run to the All-Ireland decider.

Just less than half the 315-school population is made up of boys, painting the clearest picture possible of the small pool Crowley and O’Connell are pulling from. “They are a serious bunch of lads, very committed. Football is their life down around here. I have heard some of them say they may never compete in an All-Ireland final again. I hope they take the opportunity with both hands.”