Donoughmore men following the trail blazed by their women

This upward curve currently being travelled by Donoughmore football is a journey the groundbreaking ladies of the locality - and beyond - set out on 20 years ago.

Donoughmore players Kevin O'Connell and Rory Honohan surround Seán Nagle, Nemo Rangers in the Junior A Football Championship semi-final match at Glenville, Co Cork. Picture Dan Linehan

Mossie Barrett spotted the telltale signs a mile off. Before a parish ever knew it was reigniting and reawakening, Barrett noticed the giveaway clues.

This upward curve currently being travelled by Donoughmore football and its following is a journey Barrett and the groundbreaking ladies of the locality - and beyond - set out on 20 years ago.

Where Donoughmore’s young men are attempting to go this Sunday, their young women - mere girls, in most instances - succeeded and started off in 1995.

Under Barrett’s watch, the Donoughmore ladies captured the intermediate county that year. Promotion was their opening sentence and nothing more. Their story sustained a parish for well over a decade.

An unmatched 11-in-a-row of Cork senior titles. 13 in total from 1996 to 2011 Eight Munsters. Two All-Irelands. They went around the world. And around the world they were followed.

Before Juliet Murphy, Rena Buckley, and Mary O’Connor ever came to all-conquering prominence in red, their winning mentality and unflinching standards were forged in black and white.

“It’s a well-worn phrase, but they really were the best of times,” Barrett begins. “When you think back, the support was phenomenal. We played two All-Ireland semi-finals up north, we played another in London, but the crowds just followed them and followed them and followed them.

“It was a rollercoaster ride that united the parish, and you know, you’re getting glimpses of it again now. The Donoughmore people, they were just waiting to cheer on some crowd.

“What the lads are doing is after igniting something again in the parish. It really is. People were waiting for something - they have got it.” 

As the conversation weaves back and forth between the journey of his ladies team and the journey of a junior football team he was at the head of for the 2024 season, Barrett sees one outstanding similarity.

Player profiles for their 2004 All-Ireland club final defeat to Ballyboden St Enda’s - Donoughmore’s third final appearance in four years - show that six of the starting team were teenagers.

Six was also the number of teenagers - Rory Honohan, Seán O’Hanlon (son of current junior boss, Liam), Daniel Holland, David McDonnell, Scott Barrett (Mossie’s son), and Liam O’Sullivan - that featured in the recent county junior semi-final win over Nemo.

The six kids are pulled from the club's back-to-back Premier 2 county minor championship winning teams. There’s also been a Mid-Cork U21B crown to go with the second of those minor triumphs this year. The number of U21s to feature in the aforementioned Nemo game was heading for double-digits.

“You have to give ferocious credit to all the underage, but I think the minors over the last two years, there was people who had stopped going to games, people who'd be hard-core Donoughmore followers had stopped going to games, but they started following the minors, it has escalated from there, and they haven’t missed a junior game this year. A few games we'd have felt the result was slipping from us, but there's a mental steel among those young lads, they are used to winning.” 

No culture of winning followed the Mid-Cork junior success of 2011 (only their second in 28 years). A false dawn. That is where the underage push emanated from. They wanted to know were they capable of more than just a one-off divisional final victory every 15 or so years.

“I suppose we'd have to hold our hands up and say that we'd have been very, very disappointed because for a number of years, we felt we were stagnant really, we were going nowhere, but there was a huge emphasis put into the underage for the last 10-plus years.

“Added to that then over the last three or four years, there has been a huge emphasis from the top table in providing the necessary resources to our players, such as the gym which is now in place down at the club.” 

In stark contrast to the haul of their women, Donoughmore possess just one adult county football title on the men’s side. That was the junior victory of 1983. Mossie was midfield. 1983 also stands as their sole county football final appearance at adult level. Tomorrow will finally correct that very naked statistic.

“We have a 100% record in county finals, we hope to keep that going,” continued the former Cork junior boss.

“Ever since the mid-Cork win, people are talking about nothing only football. The buzz is phenomenal.

“If you want to meet anyone from Donoughmore on Sunday, stand at the gates of Páirc Uí Chaoimh before 3.30pm. Everyone and anyone from Donoughmore will be walking through those gates.”