Bundoran native Conor McDonnell reflects on first year as GAA Handball President

While there is a strong lineage with the GAA and Bundoran, most notably Donegal’s first All Ireland winning senior gaelic football manager Brian McEniff, another Bundoran native is currently leading the charge at national level for the game of Handball.

Bundoran native and retired Garda Sergeant Conor McDonnell is the current GAA Handball President, a position he took up just over a year ago. 

He retired as a guard in 2013, having served 31 years on the force and while most of it was based in the Monaghan area, he did spend about a year in the Milford district of this county, a period he recalled, that had pleasant memories.

ABOVE: Uachtarán Chumann Lúthchleas Gael Jarlath Burns, centre, with Uachtarán Cumann Peil Gael na mBan Mícheál Naughton, left, Conor McDonnell President of GAA Handball at the GAA Congress at Canal Court Hotel in Newry, Down back in February. Photo by Piaras Ó Mídheach/Sportsfile

In achieving the highest GAA accolade within Handball, Conor became only the fourth Ulster President in the association's history, and the first since 1996, one that is this year celebrating its centenary.

And there is an early connection between the two ‘Bundoran macs’ as the gasúr McDonnell was first introduced to handball while attending St Louis convent, watching and playing off the gable wall of McEniff’s house on Station Road, which was adjacent to the old school.

Having headed over St Macartan’s boy school, he admits that he was not even aware that Bundoran had its own handball facility on the back end wall of the Bradóg bridge, as by the late sixties and early seventies it had fallen out of use and the concrete floor base had been covered in.

Following in the footsteps of older brother Peter, who was two years ahead of him, he headed off to Gormanston College in Meath and that is where his love and appreciation of the game developed.

His brother was already a champion of his year and the younger McDonnell was motivated to follow in his footsteps, eventually winning all the school competitions before ultimately becoming senior champion.   

The McDonnell family were for many decades the local Bundoran pharmacists in the days before the era of the franchise and were very much embedded in the local community. 

His father Mark and mother Biddy had the shop right in the heart of the town on Main Street and he has two brothers Peter and Hugh and sisters Pauline and Jean. 

Conor was the second youngest of the family.

“We would have gone to the old convent school down Station Road at four years of age. And I suppose the first introduction to handball was hitting the ball against Brian McEniff’s gable. We all did it as there was nothing else to do down there, so I would put that down as my first steps into the game,” he recalled.

“I did not know about the handball court at the bridge, I did not even realise it was there in those years and then I went to Gormanston College in 1975, my brother Peter was there.

“That’s when I was really introduced to handball. There were quite a number of courts there, two big indoor courts and two big outdoor courts and two small ones.”

ABOVE: Conor playing at a handball tourney in Ballyshannon in 2021. Photo: Thomas Gallagher

“I just got into the game, I liked it and probably won most competitions when I was there and certainly winning the Senior ‘Sláinte’ Cup was a highlight in those days.

One of his classmates was Denis O’Leary, a brother of legendary Dublin goalkeeper, John O’Leary and ironically John was just the college number two goalkeeper to Brian Lenihan, who ended up a banker in Monaghan, at that time.

“Our P.E. teacher was the famous Down player from the sixties, Joe Lennon, who won three All Ireland’s for his county and was their winning captain in 1968. He was quite technical I recall. 

“I can still picture him showing me how to properly take a back wall, the bounce, how the footwork moves, I always remember that. That is the one thing that stands out in my head. He also recalled a multiple All Ireland and world handball champion called Joey Maher from Drogheda.

“He used to occasionally come into the college to practise and he would have shown me a trick shot that you can hit the ball behind your back and while it was a simple one, it also stands out as a memory.”

On leaving school, Conor came home to Bundoran to study at what is now the ATU in Sligo but was then called the Sligo Regional Technical College (RTC). 

There he linked up with a number of lads including Padriag McCann, Jude Cassidy and Noel Melvin.

ABOVE: GAA Handball President Conor McDonnell speaking during the official opening ceremony of the National Handball & Croke Park Community Centre at Sackville Avenue in Dublin last year. Photo by Sam Barnes/Sportsfile

“We were fortunate to win the All Ireland Colleges league and championship and I recall representing Donegal in an under 21 competition with Bundoran’s Adrian Ruane, we travelled to Kingscourt to play two Kerr brothers from Tyrone but we were well defeated”. 

As there was no handball court in Bundoran and Ballyshannon did not have the right dimensions, “I had to travel to Ballymote and I thumbed there to practise on the big court, which is 60 foot long with sidewalls and it was getting familiar with the same type of court                

“On the other side of the season I would thumb on a Saturday to Glencolmcille as well. As a mediocre player as well, it at least showed my passion was there”.

Indeed, such was the long nature of hitching a lift, in those days “meeting more sheep on the road than cars” was then an occupational hazard, he recalled fondly.

His love of handball continued when he joined the guards in Templemore, where there was another court and where he picked up a Garda championship during training.

ABOVE: Winning the World Golden Masters single title in Calgary in 2015 against George Miller, Mayo.

In 1983 Conor found himself first stationed to Clones, where he played little even though there was an old court there and where he briefly acquainted himself with another legend of the game, Seamus McCabe.

It wasn't until he was transferred to Monaghan Town, five or six years later, that he linked with a good club there, Monaghan Harps. 

He reminisced: “I joined it and there were a couple of other guards playing and this is really where it took off then with the club and around 89/90 I started playing in county championships and you progress up the line from being a novice player, junior, intermediate and finally senior.”

The playing aspect of the game coincided with getting involved in the official side of things, initially as the Handball Club Secretary. That was later to progress to county and eventually provincial appointments.

One of the great aspects of the game, he feels, is its wide age criteria, as you can still be actively involved in the game from your teens until your pension.

He pointed out that there were not too many sports where you could win an over 70s All Ireland title in Croke Park. 

“And when you go abroad, especially to the likes of Canada, you will see many men in their eighties still playing the game as part of their weekly routine.” 

In the 1990s Conor competed in a number of Ulster Finals, but missed out but time was catching up on him and the next thing he knew he was competing at Masters level.

This opened a whole new world of opportunities and was probably his most active time on the handball courts.

One great battle in an Ulster Masters final he recalled was a 21-20 defeat in the third and final game. But the following year he defeated the reigning champion, the game coming down to the very last point of the game, but this time in his favour.

That period also saw him as a Garda, participate in the World Fire and Police Games, a huge biennial affair held on different continents.

His first participation was in the 2001 games in Indianapolis USA, when he picked up a silver medal in the singles and a double in the bronze. 

“That would have started me off in this crusade of World Police Games. It has about 60 different sports, so you see athletes from the Fire Brigade, fire services, correctional services like prisons and police around the world participating; they are spectacles in themselves with opening and closing ceremonies,” he explained.

With family in Canada, Conor also competed in a number of World Games there and even participated in the Canadian National Handball championships. 

Indeed he will again be heading out in that direction in a few week’s to compete in this year’s Master competition.

Ultimately Conor did crack the All-Ireland handball championship when he was 40 - in the big court in Collooney, Co Sligo in 2002 - , and that was very special.

Conor explained: “It was good, because it was the only time, God rest him, that my father ever saw me play and it was against a great garda colleague of mine, Frank Mackin from Mayo. It lasted for over two hours and I was finally able to win the game and the title 21-19 in the third and final game. That was very special.”   

In later years, on the small court, which is a four wall court, much like a squash court, Conor won a Doubles All Ireland championship in the over 45 years category.

It was around the same time he lost the singles title, again in the final, before exacting revenge later that same year against the same opponent in the All Ireland nationals for his third All Ireland title.

“Today, I am still active in the game and will be going out to Canada in for week’s time to play in  the Canadian nationals, in the over 60s.

“But with my role and other things, I have not been able to play as much as I would have done in the past, possibly one game a week and nurturing the occasional injury”.

On National terms, he said that the game is in great shape, with the new National Handball Centre located on the Croke Park campus a great asset for the Association.

His tenure as President is for a three year term, of which he has now just passed his first full year in office. 

“The transformation in the last 18 months and in the post Covid era has enabled us to get our governance in line, we’ve held the biggest ever handball championships in our state of the art facilities in Croke Park which opened last year that can hold 500 people with three, 4-wall courts and two 1-wall courts and one big court that has capacity seating for about 250 people.

“This August we are hosting the one-wall world handball championships in Limerick.”

And finally and very importantly, he hopes that in his native Donegal, a renewed impetus, which he envisages, will see the county handball committee breathe new life into a small but hugely talented reservoir of talent that resides in the county. 

Finally, he recommended that any Donegal GAA club interested in developing or promoting handball within the county to contact the Handball Regional Development Officer, Clare Conway on clare.conway.handball@gaa.ie or by phone on 085 8524468.