‘When anyone asks we always say we’re from Donegal’

When Jamie Boyle joined a Monday afternoon zoom to talk about all things New York GAA, he was walking through the city, headphones in, with skyscrapers high overhead making up the backdrop.

A project manager for Nucor Construction Corp, the 31-year-old’s job takes him to sites in the Big Apple, where there were a few things to tie up before he travelled with New York’s footballers as far as Bundoran.

As optics go, New York and Bundoran couldn’t be more different. This week, the travelling party are basing themselves in the seaside town in south Donegal not far from that little strip of Leitrim, looking over the bay towards Classiebawn Castle in Mullaghmore and, to the east, the towering presence of Benbulben.

Come Saturday lunchtime, New York’s footballers will make their way between those distinctive features of north county Sligo towards Markievicz Park for the latest chapter of a journey that has garnered the bulk of the headlines in the opening weeks of a championship that gives plenty of second chances. The winner will compete in the Connacht final and secure a place in the new round-robin, 16-team race for Sam Maguire.

New York, though, doesn't always get a second bite, so it’s about seizing the opportunity when it comes. Last year they almost did, running Sligo close. New York lost 1-16 to 0-15 at Gaelic Park, with Sean Carrabine's first half goal proving vital before making it to Croke Park to the All-Ireland JFC final, where they went down 3-12 to 1-9 to Kilkenny.

Corner-back Boyle, who captained the team, is one of the few involved who has spent considerable time in Ireland’s north-west. His grandfather Michael (Mike) on his mother’s side is from Barnesmore, with his grandmother Margaret (Peg) Meehan not too far away in Drimarone. On the other side of the family, Jamie’s father hails from Wexford town. His folks first met in New York city.

“My parents - Marty and Kathleen - took us over a few times and I would’ve visited family in both Donegal and Wexford,” Jamie Boyle tells DonegalLive. “I was over too once with the Féile team and stopped off in Donegal as well. Dad always reminds me of the Wexford thing, as when anyone asks we always say we’re from Donegal!”

Living now in Woodlawn on Webster Avenue - a hotbed of the Irish community - having been brought up an hour or so north of there on the other side of the Hudson in Munroe, Jamie Boyle stayed eight years at Inwood on Manhattan’s northern tip, after college.

Having playing Gaelic football as a child, Boyle is playing inter-county football for two years and took part in New York’s groundbreaking success in the Connacht earlier this month when they posted a first ever SFC win, defeating Leitrim 2-0 on penalties following a 0-15 apiece draw amid scenes of tension and jubilation in the Bronx.

“We sensed there was an opportunity,” Boyle adds. “That week is always something else. You can see it building up. On the train back to Woodlawn, the amount of people with suitcases and Leitrim jerseys gets more and more with each passing day. Driving to training down McLean Avenue, you can see the streets getting busier.

“Last year there was a whole new panel. The base of the team and management was put together then, whilst we got to know one another. This year, with Leitrim on the schedule we were able to add to what we had.

“Gaelic Park is awesome. It’s an unbelievable place. I was looking at our team picture the last day, with the subway and huge buildings. I call it a stadium. I know it’s only supposed to hold maybe 3,000 people. We grew up going there to watch my dad and my uncles play. Against Leitrim, on the backstop - it’s our own version of the Hill - there were people crammed in. It was special.

“Our ‘keeper, Mick Cunningham, some of the saves he made were unreal. He managed to just get a hand on things and in years gone New York were sometimes beaten by little things that went against us. Shane Carthy scored an equalising point on his left foot in the last play of the game. Things just worked for us.

“Johnny Glynn - a former Galway hurler - is our captain and he kept painting the picture beforehand of what the 30 seconds right afterwards, had we won, might bring. After that last penalty, it was absolute euphoria running on that field with a sea of people. It was 20 minutes, at least, of absolute madness.”

Boyle now plays for St Barnabas, who, in 2020, won the New York SFC with a team made up entirely of American-born players, doing their things out of ‘Paddy’s Field’ in Woodlawn.

“I played Gaelic football upstate and there was no team so my dad and a few others set up a team called St Brendan’s, where I played from U-8 to U-16,” Boyle said. “I put my focus into American Football then through college but came back to line out of Donegal New York for two seasons, where the likes of Laurence McGrath (from Pettigo) and Pat McGill (Ardara) are involved. They’re rivals now but we all get along!”

In-between times, Boyle, a lifelong fan of the New York Giants, was a college footballer of some note, with the University of Central Florida, as a kicker and punter.

“At 16 you have to focus on college and I got more serious about American Football, getting a scholarship and that took up every waking moment until I was 21 or so,” he adds. “I played Division 1, which is the highest level, against the likes of Texas and Ohio State. College football in the States is huge, with crowds of upwards of 110,000, which can be nervous as you feel every second. You have to develop a thick skin so as to not think about how many people are watching.

“As for getting drafted, there’s only 32 guys in the world who get to kick in the NFL and some of those last 10, maybe 12 years, so the job opportunities there are pretty slim. There’s no regret.”

In two weeks’ time, Michael Murphy will be at Antun's in Queens Village for the 73rd Annual Dinner Dance of the Donegal Football Club of New York. Donegal’s 2012 All-Ireland winning captain will be receiving the Damien Meehan Memorial Award, which is named after Jamie Boyle’s uncle, who sadly lost his life on 09/11 when working as a firefighter.

“I played for Donegal for a couple of years, then took time out, before going back with St Barnabas and then hooked up with New York,” Jamie Boyle adds. My uncle Damien played with New York in the late 1990s and I went a lot to watch New York as a teen.”

Sligo welcome New York in the visitors’ first SFC encounter since the 2001 Connacht semi-final against Roscommon. Boyle’s cousins Seog and Cathal Campbell, and Michael Kelly from Donegal Town should be interested onlookers.

“We’ll be in Bundoran for the next few days,” Boyle adds. “We’ve heard that win, lose or draw, there’s always the Tailteann Cup and another trip to Ireland but we’ve not even looked at that. Either way, once again, there’s an amazing opportunity and we’re not even talking about anything after this game against Sligo.

“When I was finished with American Football I probably thought I was done with sport at that level. But after beating Leitrim that feeling was just amazing and we’d love to get that feeling again.”