'Planting the seed of the GAA, the belonging, what it means'

In his tenth Antrim county final, Kevin O'Boyle is seeking a seventh title. But a deeper, lasting legacy is also his aim

ONE FOR THE BOOKS: Michael Gerard Doherty, Ciaran Orchin and Kevin O'Boyle with the first copies of their new series of GAA books. 

WITH his teammate Kieran Close now having crossed into the 40-plus age bracket, Kevin O’Boyle of Erin’s Own, Cargin wouldn’t be one for worrying too much about numbers, but a few jump out at him this Sunday.

When the ball is thrown in for the county final against St Mary’s Aghagallon at 3pm in Corrigan Park, it will be O’Boyle’s 35th birthday.

It will be his tenth county final. He is hoping for a seventh success.

However that happens, he just hopes that some of the elders of the club, the men he watched deliver titles for the Toome club back in 1999 and 2000, can bear to look. We’ll come back to them in a second. But in O’Boyle’s thinking, the club and community touches everything he does.

As a teacher cooped up in his own home during lockdown, the educator in him had the space and the time to observe the development of his daughter, Alea and son Senan as he read their stories to them.

“The more and more I was reading to them, the more and more Aela was growing up and developing, you could see her roleplay into it,” he explains.

“You could see her acting out wee things, by evesdropping and watching her play. It was just amazing seeing that.

“One day a cousin was over and they were talking about, ‘When I grow up, I want to play for Man United.’ And then he reversed that and said, ‘When I grow up, I want to play for Loughgiel,’, which led her to say, ‘When I grow up, I want to play for Cargin.’ 

“And I thought that was unreal. They took a storybook and changed it to them, and to suit their needs and planted a seed in their heads of their clubs.” 

So he took these thoughts and consulted Michael Gerard Doherty, an underage coach from Sarsfields, Belfast who has experience with creating nursery resources, and an illustrator, Ciaran Orchin, who plays full-back in both codes for O’Donovan Rossa.

The result is the series of GAA books relating to children starting out on their sporting journey. The books and the website www.gaabooksforkids.com are being launched on November 3rd.

“All we are trying to do is plant the seed of the GAA, the belonging, what it means, children already involved in it,” O’Boyle says.

“We have self-published it. We went and sought our own printers, we have tidied it up with lots of different illustrations.

“It’s been a real learning journey, a journey of discovery, which has been really enjoyable.” 

At this stage of his career and with his intelligence and engagement, O’Boyle is hopelessly in thrall to the game, and the wider cultural significance of Gaelic Games.

This week, something was revealed to him during the course of a chat with Martin McAuley, who captained the winning team of 1995.

It appears that he, along with a few others such as Dermot Shivers and Matthew Gribben, who have sons on the current team are not only “the heartbeat of the club,” as described by O’Boyle, but “none of them went to the match the last day against Creggan!

“I couldn’t believe it when I heard. I jarred all three of them, but there are more than those three!

“There’s a whole load of those boys who cannot take it, they can’t watch the game now, with their children playing, (just with) the tension of it all.

“So they go off and do their own thing. They paint fences, they watch the odd scoreline on Twitter, but they cannot force themselves to go to the match.

“But they said to me, ‘when it comes to your time sitting watching, you will know what we are talking about.’” 

Toome, made famous by the tale of Roddy McCorley, is nestled into a corner of south-east Antrim, hard against Lough Neagh and as McAuley said a couple of years ago, “We live beside the water and we don’t produce any great fishermen or canoeists or that sort of stuff.” 

As O’Boyle explains, “We buried Paddy Devlin recently in our club, JC Devlin’s brother. The week was over the period of time the semi-final was on against Creggan two weeks ago. And you walked in and it was just Cargin people, Cargin conversations, Cargin jersey over the coffin.

“I am just grateful for the opportunity to keep going out to perform for those people.” 

Altogether, O’Boyle put down 14 seasons playing for Antrim footballers. His working life has been spent alongside Peter Canavan and Kieran McGeary as a teacher in Holy Trinity, Cookstown.

Has he any envy about being born the ‘wrong’ side of the sheugh for county success?

“That’s the beauty of playing GAA. I don’t wish I played for Tyrone or Derry,” he answers emphatically.

“I am so proud to have played for Antrim. I am so proud to still play for Cargin and I am fortunate that I am part of a good Cargin team.

“I wouldn’t change anything I done with Antrim. I was lucky to play for them for 14 years.” He adds, “We are very lucky in Cargin that we have a good culture, a good group and we work hard at our underage, try to bring through a couple every year and we try to set those standards at senior level too.

“It’s a crazy thing to describe, but it’s beautiful too.”