Childhood heart issue sent Royals stopper Brennan into goal

Now the first-choice Meath goalkeeper, Seán Brennan regards his childhood scare as a blessing in the disguise.

BLESSING IN DISGUISE: Meath's Sean Brennan says it's positive being on a young panel. Pic: Brendan Moran/Sportsfile

In his early teenage years, Seán Brennan was diagnosed with an irregular heartbeat. He’s thinks of it as a “blessing in disguise”.

“I was probably put in goals when I was about 13 or 14,” says the 22-year-old, now established as Meath’s first choice keeper.

“I had a heart monitor put in for two years when I was younger because I had an irregular heartbeat so I suppose I wasn’t able to be running around too much out the field so I was put in goals and kind of thought, ‘Yeah, I’ll do a year or two here and be back out’ but just haven’t seemed to leave the goals since. That’s how it started in Gaelic football terms anyway.

“I had the irregular heartbeat since I was a child so they just wanted to monitor it but, no, listen, it didn’t affect me much. It probably affected my mother more because she couldn’t look at the games knowing. But, to be honest, looking back, it’s probably the best thing that could have happened to me because I don’t think I would have been too good of an outfield player.

“After two years when they monitored it, they came back and said, ‘Listen, it’s worked itself out’. I wasn’t getting irregular arrhythmias in it so, touch wood, it’s been all good to this day.” 

Brennan, whose grandfather Tony Brennan won an All-Ireland with Meath in the 1960s, made his debut for the Royals last year in a Tailteann Cup clash with Tipperary. He played all of the county’s league games this year as they stayed in Division 2.

“I didn’t see it coming at all,” he says about his bow against Tipp.

“I was more or less surprised. I think I got told maybe a week or 10 days beforehand that I was playing so it felt like the longest week or 10 days ever waiting for it to come around but I didn’t see it coming. I kind of just accepted it with open arms and just said, ‘Listen, just go at it with no regrets, they obviously have seen something in me to give me the shout’.” 

Brennan is vying for the number one jersey with brothers Billy and Harry Hogan.

“I’ve two really good goalies behind me so you’re always kind of looking over your shoulder,” says the Dunderry man.

“Harry, who’s just a year older than me and Billy who’s just a year below me so I’m kind of stuck in the middle of the two of them.

“It was a big bit of a confidence-booster playing all the League games. I didn’t play last year so it was something that I was kind of eyeing up this year because it is a great competition. You’re playing teams of equal kind of standard to yourselves so yeah, it was really enjoyable and something I’ll look forward to again next year.” 

Meath’s reward for beating Longford in the first round of the Leinster Championship last weekend is a quarter-final against Dublin at Croke Park on Sunday. Brennan, then a nine-year-old, was at Croke Park in 2010 when Meath put 5-9 past Dublin and beat them by 11 points in the Leinster semi-final. Reasons to cheer for Meath in Leinster have been few and far between since.

Brennan was one in an abundance of Meath debuts last year. This is a young panel.

“It's definitely a positive,” he says.

“Because you kind of see where we are at the minute and you see, kind of, the rough edge of everyone that's in that dressing-room and you kind of think, 'Jeez, if we can hold everyone together here for the next four or five years, you don't know where this could take you'.

“Because we know the quality is there and age is probably on our side as well. It's probably just really exciting times because you know in four or five years you'd like to think that all of us will be well established in the inter-county game and yeah, you wouldn't know where that could take you then.”