'Privileged' D’Arcy relishing capital gains with adopted club Ballyboden

The Galway native has picked up three medals this term.

Mon, 08 Dec, 2025 - 07:14

John Fogarty

Céin D’Arcy feels he is living his best life as he has got his hands on a third piece of silverware this year.

Three cups – the McCabe, Clerys and Nestor – is a tidy haul for the midfielder who has fully embraced his adopted club Ballyboden St Enda’s after a breakthrough season with Galway.

“Like how privileged am I to be where I am?” remarked the Caherlistrane man following Saturday’s Leinster final win over Athy. “How privileged are we as a group?

“This is the most meaningful thing I can do with my life, my football career. I will never complain about doing anything, whether it is the trips down to Galway. This is exactly what lads want to do and where we want to be, so they are not really sacrifices at all.”

A financial crime analyst based in Ballsbridge, D'Arcy made the switch to Ballyboden in 2023 and has a sense of obligation to his non inter-county club-mates who kept the home fires burning while others were away earlier in the season.

“We have a lot of mileage put in the legs. Obviously, I do with the year with Galway. We train hard. The (remaining) lads have 47 weeks of hard work done and that is something we always have in the tank, and I think it shows in the games we have played to date.”

D'Arcy is excited about a Christmas period that will see him juggle celebrations with preparations for an All-Ireland semi-final. “What is brilliant about this journey is that the lads have had the experience from 2015/16 season and then the 2019 when we won Leinster. There were two different approaches taken to the Christmas period in that time and 2019 was not as favourable (Ballyboden lost their semi-final to Kilcoo).

“We will be able to nail down the routine and I could not care if we have to train Christmas morning. If we do, then I will get straight down to Galway after that and we will have the dinner. How many times in your life do you get to do this?” What was so evident on Saturday was the relentlessness of Ballyboden in the second half and D'Arcy puts much of it down to fitness and conditioning. “The lads want to play and like when you're as physical as the lads are, and they have that much in the tank, you're able to play better football, you're able to move at more speed, and as the games open up there and teams tend to get leggy, we don't lose that.

“So then you can start being that bit more expansive as well. Third quarter blitz, that's the way we like to go, that's the way we like to play football.”