New York captain Boyle eager to prove American-born talent can thrive too

With almost a dozen native New Yorkers in panel, the Empire State travel to Tullamore with more than mere hope and wonder

For the flag: Jamie Boyle of New York during the Tailteann Cup launch at 34th and 5th Avenue in New York City, USA. Pic: Sharon Redigan/Sportsfile

Jamie Boyle will stride on to the field at O'Connor Park on Saturday afternoon as an outsider leading a team of them. 

The New York captain is American-born but very much Irish-bred. And when the Empire State take on Offaly for a place in the semi-finals of the Tailteann Cup it will mark the first time the exiles from across the Atlantic have competed outside of Connacht. 

Pushing in from the outside is nothing new to Boyle who skippers a modern generation of New York footballers with almost a dozen American-born players in the panel. Boyle plays for St. Barnabus GAA Club, a raging success story in the city who made history in 2020 by lining up for the New York Senior Football Final with a starting 15 of all native-born players. 

The ex-pats, led by the likes of former Galway hurler Johnny Glynn and Sligo goalkeeper Vinny Cadden, are not yet in the minority but it's trending that way. Manager Johnny McGeeney's success in blending the camps has helped make this arguably the most competitive New York team yet.

"We don't like the rest of the guys, those Irish guys," laughed Boyle in an interview with The Long Hall Podcast. "A lot of the American guys would be Barnabus guys so the bond there is already extremely strong. A lot of them are younger. I feel like an old man with them, everybody is in their early 20s. A lot of these guys would be our rivals — Johnny Glynn and Vinny Cadden, these guys would be Sligo and we hate them. 

"But then coming together in December and January and just being with them three or four days a week and putting in the hard work with them. On the weekends we get together and do some stuff so the bond continues to get strong and stronger."

Boyle, a supremely gifted athlete who also played American football at college level, just wishes the blow-ins could put some work into their accents. 

"Over here the Irish would be the minority in most circles, right?" he added. "You'd have more Americans and they'd make fun of the Irish accents. Then when I find when we're here on this team, the Americans are the minority. Hearing some of them do the American accent is so funny. It's like a country accent, putting it on like they're from Texas."

In the thick of it: New York’s Jamie Boyle with Paddy O’Connor of Sligo in this year's Connacht Championship clash. 

Fresh from giving Sligo a significant scare in the Connacht championship, New York have flown in not as a mere novelty attraction in Tullamore. Boyle, whose grandparents left Donegal in the 1960s, is coming back the other direction looking for a slice of history.

"It's huge, the experience all of us, but especially the young guys, are going to get. I don't want to say eye-opennig but once you've done something [for the first time], you've done it. That's huge," Boyle added. "If you look at the expectation, there's almost a timeline: early 2010's it was 'I hope they give them a game, I hope New York stay in it'. Then towards the Leitrim games it was 'we're looking to push not to make it a close game but to win'. Now it's beyond the belief that we can win, it's a matter of when. So going over it's not that we want to keep it close, we want to win."