Patrick McBride: ‘I wasn’t enjoying it at Antrim’

Patrick McBride during the Tailteann Cup semi-final match between Antrim and Laois at Croke Park. Pic: Piaras à Mídheach/Sportsfile

EASTER Saturday afternoon on the Andersonstown Road. It feels like any other Saturday. Under slate grey skies, a parked up JCB Digger peaks over the temporary fencing from inside Casement Park.

Further up the road, multi-coloured, plastic slides jut out from Andersonstown Leisure Centre like giant, unruly snakes. Across the busy road, Arizona Espresso Company is a hive of activity.

Two Americanos and chewing the fat with Patrick McBride.

It's hard to know how to describe the 32-year-old St John's clubman and Coláiste Feirste schoolteacher in inter-county football terms: former Antrim footballer or simply Antrim footballer.

It's a label McBride doesn't think too much about after stepping away from the panel in early February where he’s been a celebrated resident as far back as 2013.

The last time this stretch of road in west Belfast was colonised by Gaels was a year ago when a rally was organised urging the Stormont Executive to rebuild the historic GAA stadium site that’s been neglected since 2013.

When Gaels dispersed, the much smaller Antrim GAA ground Corrigan Park, situated less than two miles from Casement, was bursting at the seams.

Defending All-Ireland champions Armagh were in town for an Ulster Championship match. A free hit for the Antrim footballers.

Wearing number 10, McBride found himself in a flow state – the kind of mystical place elite athletes don’t know how to reach but just arrive at on some days.

When Antrim needed someone to disrupt the early rhythm of Kieran McGeeney’s team, McBride stepped up.

Playing on his home pitch of St John’s GAC, McBride landed a treble of awesome two-pointers. Boom. Boom. Boom.

Antrim were suddenly and unexpectedly in the game.

McBride was untouchable, and the hearts of those wearing saffron in the 4,000-capacity crowd skipped a beat.

It was the kind of day where if McBride had taken aim from the majestic Black Mountain that overlooks Corrigan Park, he probably would have raised an orange flag.

McBride was Cú Chulainn in his dreams.

“I just felt that day if I got the ball I'd score,” he says. “Actually, the first ball I got I dropped and [Andy] McEntee was screaming at me. My next possession was a two-point effort, which was risky, but it went over. I knew I was in the game then.”

Despite finishing on the losing side, McBride was named man-of-the-match - just as he was in the previous year's provincial championship defeat to Down.

Sitting upright in bed over in the Mater Hospital, north of the city, Paddy McBride senior was pointing to his iPad and telling the entire ward that was his son shooting the lights out against the defending All-Ireland champions.

McBride's father died a couple of weeks later.

“My Da never missed a match. After the Armagh game, he sent me the ‘Goat’ emoji. I still have it starred on my WhatsApp. I was just happy he got to watch it on his iPad because he enjoyed it more than I did."

“Golden Balls” was how McBride’s late sister, Marie, used to call her wee brother.

Ah, Marie. She died by suicide in March 2023...

The Antrim footballers are counting down the days to their face-off with Derry at Celtic Park in the 2026 Ulster Championship.

But the county’s maverick shooter and longest-serving player (McBride made his Ulster Championship debut in 2013, the last game to be played at Casement Park) won’t be on Antrim’s team-sheet.

After completing a pre-season and playing just two Division Four games under new Antrim manager Mark Doran, McBride just wasn’t feeling it. So, he walked away.

This time 12 months ago, the flying ‘Johnnies’ man was in the zone preparing for the Armagh’s visit to his home club.

Sitting in a coffee shop on the Andersonstown Road a year on from one of his finest hours, McBride couldn’t be any further removed from the build-up to Antrim's Ulster Championship clash with Derry.

The previous evening – Good Friday – he lined out for his club in a Division One league game against city rivals Lamh Dhearg up at Hannahstown hill, where his old Antrim manager and eternal mentor Frank Fitzsimons now coaches.

During the game Fitzsimons berated one of his own players for a late tackle on McBride.

You see, Fitzsimons and McBride are forever bound by shared experiences and loyalty.

Conveniently, the league game finished all square.

McBride's Easter weekend is clear of training camps, walk-through sessions, video analysis and visualising what Celtic Park might look like come 5pm on Saturday.

After this Americano, McBride’s key task is returning to his nearby home in Springhill and building a cot for his seven-month-old son Lúca.

Asked why he decided to leave the Antrim set-up earlier this year, McBride says: “Basically, I wasn’t enjoying it. I wasn’t enjoying it for a few months.

“Leaving Maédhbh and Lúca to go to training was hard. I thought: where is my time needed here? And if I don’t believe in the project or don't enjoy the environment, I’m going to give my time to my partner and son.

“Not one part of me is thinking about the Derry match apart from wanting Antrim to win the game and wanting my team-mates to do well. But I’m not annoyed that I’m not playing.”

McBride adds: “I think I would still have been there if I didn’t have Lúca. He just gave me new perspective on time. I value my time. I’ve always valued time. If you asked me, would I prefer a higher paid job with less time, I would take having more time over the money.”

If you drill down into the affable 32-year-old, a fluent Irish speaker who has been part of TG4’s Gaelic Games coverage in recent times, maybe there just wasn’t 'another Antrim rebuild' in him.

Mark Doran was his seventh Antrim manager. McBride was at his happiest playing for Antrim under Frank Fitzsimons – affectionately known as ‘Russ’ due to his uncanny likeness to English comedian Russ Abbot – and Gearoid Adams, his brother-in-law, son of Gerry.

Fitzsimons had coached Antrim at underage level and earned his crack at the big job in the middle of the last decade.

Although the Saffrons yo-yoed between Division Three and Four, there was a talented young nucleus of players coming through at the time.

“I will always take the positives over the negatives with Antrim,” McBride says.

“But a big negative for me was just when we had a really good chance of doing something under Gearoid [Adams] and ‘Russ’ [Frank Fitzsimons], the county got rid of them.

“I've nothing against any coaching team that came in after that; it’s more having to start again, another rebuild. It was always another restart, creating a new culture, new environment, new leaders...

“We were young and if only we knew what we know now that something was building there.

“’Russ’ had me at U15, U16, minor, U21. He used to bring me to development squad training. I remember there were lads who were brought into the panel who didn’t have gear and ‘Russ’ went out and bought them Antrim t-shirts.

“People came into Antrim and took a wage but here was a guy who spent his own money and was coaching the team.” He adds: “I would run to the ends of the earth for him; the same with Pat [Hughes], Gearoid and big Joe [Quinn].”

Of course, McBride misses his father and sister - two of his biggest supporters. McBride smiles when he thinks of both of them. Nobody was spared in the McBride household where the humour was harsh and the love so evident.

“When I think of Marie, I find myself laughing,” he says. “She was full of mischief and craic. I’m just grateful that I had her as my sister. And when my Da was sick I often think, wasn’t I lucky to see him every day.

“If I go down to Milltown Cemetery, I smile at their memory. People will leave you and life is cruel.”

Gaelic football will always be Patrick McBride's passion. Nobody has embraced the big occasion in an Antrim jersey more than him. Antrim will miss him on Saturday evening. The Ulster Championship will miss him.

Maybe there's another chapter to write in his Antrim career, but McBride doesn’t sweat it.

Right now, he's got Maédhbh and Lúca.

Time, he knows, you don’t get back.

If he could somehow weigh the time he has with them, he’s a millionaire.

Saturday afternoon is pushing on. That cot won't build itself.

“My Da would have built stuff like that, but it’s up to me now. I have the key to the shed and I’m going to see what tools he’s got.”