The Kerry islander and an Inishowen Donegal club: ‘We wouldn’t be heading for Croke Park if it wasn’t Sean’

Kyle Kellher, Kilmurray and Naomh Padraig Uisce Chaoin's Rory Hirrel in action during the AIB All Ireland Junior Football Semi-Final at Parnell Park, Dublin. Pic: Moya Nolan

He arrived with a purpose and a passion.

From Valentia Island to the Donegal village of Muff to Croke Park, Sean Lynch set the course. Every visionary starts out with a dream. On Saturday, Naomh Padraig will realise theirs.

They will become the first-ever Donegal club to play in HQ as they take on An Cheathru Rua in the All-Ireland junior football final. The club was formed in 1989 after Lynch found his anchor.

He had moved to the area when extra officers were required for the Irish Customs Service along the border during the foot-and-mouth outbreak.

He settled when he fell in love with a Derry woman who had disembarked her bus for the disinfection process.

This was a new home. It needed a GAA club. Lynch approached a colleague, Michael McMenamin, and they went to work.

“This area at that stage was soccer,” McMenamin explains.

“Down the years, there were sporadic games played. Would you believe there was a camogie team here in the 1930s that won the Donegal championship three years running? There was a junior team in 1948 and in the 1960s there was another team formed that played locally. But there never was a club.

“Sean decided to pull young lads together and give them some training. The following year, 1989, the club was formed. Sean entered a team in the Inishowen championship and they won it. They actually got to the county U12A final. That was how it started.”

There was no pitch. They had no jerseys. None of it mattered. Making the most of what they had was all they knew.

“We could use a small soccer pitch behind the school at first, so we tied pieces of wood onto the posts for point scoring. We played there with two footballs and no jerseys. The local soccer club gave us a lend of theirs. It was incredible.”

In 1997, local businessman Jim McLaughlin offered 12 acres for a club ground. They jumped at the opportunity to acquire a site and built their remarkable empire, brick by brick.

“There was a country pub nearby and the lady in the pub allowed us to get changed in her storeroom. Since then, we have added dressing rooms, an upstairs function room, two full-size pitches. We built a ball wall last year.

“It wasn’t always easy. Money wasn’t as plentiful as it is nowadays. We were repaying loans and trying to run teams at the same time. It was on a knife edge. But we had great local backing from the community.

"If we were running short, we organised a draw and we had fantastic support from other clubs in Inishowen. This is a peninsula.

"Donegal is regarded as the 33rd county and then there is us - we are almost the forgotten part of it. So, it is that island mentality.”

The challenges of forming a club in such circumstances were extraordinary. Lynch was one of a select few with an acute sense of it. He grew up cycling to school in Cahersiveen, via the Renard Pint motorboat ferry, and dreaming of green and gold.

He was a member of the famed Valentia Young Islanders side that triumphed in the 1964 final. Mick O’Connell was on that team too.

His brothers Diarmuid, Joseph and Ger all won South Kerry championships. Ger amassed three All-Ireland medals during his Kerry career.

“He grew up with it. He was steeped in it,” says Liam Lynch, his cousin and Valentia Island local.

“There was nothing else to do here only play football. You were brought up beside the field in Valentia. His brothers all played with Valentia.

"Joseph went on to teach in Rathangan, Kildare coaching teams at all levels. He had such an impact that last year some of the Rathangan community came down here to specially commemorate him for what he did.

“Sean did it in Muff; Joseph did it in Rathdangan. Mick Lynch, a cousin, went to Glenmore in south Kilkenny. At that time, it was nearly pure football.

"He decided, ironically coming from Kerry, to start hurling. The likes of All-Ireland winners Christy Heffernan, Willie and Eddie O’Connor came from there. Eddie mentioned what he did for them in his speech.”

Sean was many things. The first chairman, a manager, coach, referee, club delegate, administrator and fundraiser.

He died at the age of 62 in 2008 due to terminal illness. His two sons are still involved as coaches. His grandchildren are players. A stand at the ground is named in his honour.

“Sean did every role in the club,” says McMenamin. “He died not long after his retirement. I remember when he was chairman for the first year, then he told me he wasn’t going for it.

"I tried to convince him, ‘we need you.’ But he said no. ‘Unless we get locals involved, the club will not survive.’ A shrewd Kerryman.”

This was his cause. It is still theirs. From Kerry and Donegal, they will come with unending enthusiasm. It pours out of McMenamin and Lynch as they talk on the phone. It is the reason the club was needed in the first place. They keep going.

Now there are almost 60 camogie players in the club. Three clubwomen have been included on the Donegal ladies’ squad for 2025. Saturday’s decider could bring anything, but they already have sufficient reason for celebration.

“Not alone is our club excited about it, the whole community is excited about it,” explains McMenamin.

“We have had huge buy-in. There are guys out painting derelict buildings, putting up flags, it is brilliant. It is coming from across Inishowen and Donegal. Local businesses in the county and even Derry have risen to the occasion.

“We wouldn’t be heading for Croke Park if it wasn’t Sean. He planted the seed and it grew from there. It is still growing now.”