One of the greatest club rivalries to be re-ignited next year between Naomh Columba and Kilcar

With confirmation that Naomh Columba will return to Division 1 of the Donegal All County League for the 2024 season, a local rivalry that was as fierce as anything ever in the county will be renewed for the league.

Whether the meeting between Kilcar and Naomh Columba in Division 1 is set for Towney or Pairc na nGael next year, you can rest assured that it will attract the biggest crowd at a league game for the campaign.

There is a great history between the two parishes on the football field. They met for the first time in a challenge game in Cashel, Glencolmcille in 1924. For much of the last century they played under the Kilcar banner.

Indeed, Naomh Columba won an U-14 county title in 1968 with a number of Kilcar men on the team including Michael Carr, Aodh Cannon and Paddy Doherty.

But come the 1970s, they began to flourish on their own, Kilcar winning a county junior title in 1971 and Naomh Columba making the breakthrough three years later after losing a couple of finals.

Then from 1975 until 1980, one of either Naomh Columba or Kilcar took home the Democrat Cup as Division 1 league winners on 13 of the 16 seasons. Kilcar won it seven times while Naomh Columba’s name is on the cup on six occasions.

It was a complete domination of the competition with just Bundoran, St Eunan’s and Ardara interrupting them, winning once each.

While it was 7-6 in favour of Kilcar, Padraig Carr of Naomh Columba would argue ‘til the morning that it should be 7-6 in favour of Naomh Columba.

“We were unbeaten in the league in 1979 but we were thrown out and I always argue with the Kilcar ones that they didn’t win that league.”

Kilcar 1985 - who lost league to Naomh Columba after final game in Pairc na nGael

That was how it was back then. That rivalry continued until 2002 with the last meeting of the sides taking place in Division 1, with Naomh Columba winning 2-11 to 2-10. Kilcar ended that season getting relegated after losing a play-off to St Naul’s.

When Kilcar got back up to Division 1, Naomh Columba were relegated in 2005 but after results elsewhere last weekend, they are back in the top flight and that special local derby is also back on the cards.

The history of the GAA in the two parishes was linked for the first 50 years or so but there was a clear separation towards the end of the 1960s and into the 1970s.

Padraig Carr of Naomh Columba takes up the story. “When we won the U-14s in 1968, Aodh Cannon would have been on the team, Michael Carr and God rest him, Paddy Doherty was our goalkeeper.

“Then we would have been in Falcarragh together (at secondary school), myself and Seamus with Michael Carr and Aidan O’Donnell and boys from Kilcar,” says Padraig Carr.

“Kilcar won the junior in 1971 while Glen were beaten in the ‘72 and ‘73 junior finals before winning it in 1974.”

That was the start of the rivalry which then went to senior level, especially in league football. Kilcar won the senior league in 1975 followed by Naomh Columba in 1976 . . . and that was the way things worked for the next decade and a half.

“We weren’t fit for Glen for much of the 1970s,” says Kilcar’s Michael Carr. 

There seems to have been Carrs driving both teams at the time! “Indeed, we were often told in Glen that there were too many Carrs on the road,” quips Padraig.

“They had big Michael Gallagher in the middle of the field and there were very few in the county who could compete with him. They had John McIntyre; John Tadhg (McGinley) played for Louth.  They had a lot of talent and there was a toughness in them too. We found them difficult,” says Michael.

“The league game was more than a league game against Glen in those days. It was the pride of getting beaten or winning.  We had a poor record against Glen in the mid-1970s.  I don’t think we beat them until about ‘79.  We beat them in a championship game in Towney and then there was a protest.

“Then our team changed radically the following year. We had a whole new influx like Martin McHugh and that gang came in, Maurice Carr. You had a whole new set up.”

“We had a number of heavy defeats against them. I think the first time we measured up against them was a Shield game in Fintra in 1979. Glen had the Indian sign over us for years before that.

“We had different managers. From the early 1970s from Micheal Gillespie to Dan Cunningham; I had to take it over in ‘78 myself and then Ian Hegarty with Sean McGuinness and Sean McGinley was set up by Seamus Doogan in 1980. After that Ian was always part of the management team with Barry Campbell.

“Things were moving in the right direction then with Martin (McHugh) coming on the scene,” says Michael.

While Kilcar won the league before Naomh Columba in that period, the men from Glen won the championship in  1978, two years before Kilcar made the breakthrough at championship level in 1980.

Then there was the controversial year in between when Naomh Columba met Kilcar in the championship but were thrown out after an objection to the eligibility of John McGinley, something that remains a sore point even to the present day, as Padraig Carr reveals.

“We were thrown out of everything and John Tadhg hadn’t played one (league) game in ;79. We had only two games to play and we were unbeaten and I always claim we would have won the league. We only had to win one of the two games and we had the league one.”

What made it even more sour was the fact that Kilcar ended up as league winners.

“And I always say to Sean McGinley, yous cannot claim the league in ‘79 because we were unbeaten and you boys were. We would have taken the three in-a-row at that time.”

As regards the rivalry, the Glen man says: “Aye, there were some tough battles, especially down in Towney (old field) where you didn’t have much room to move. You always got a cordial greeting especially when Sean McGinley was captain.

“Even up along the line, you could be tackled on both sides of that line,” says Padraig, who remembers one incident at half-time when there was a jersey switch with himself and twin brother, Seamus, both wearing the No 10 jersey in the second half.”

“They pulled every stunt,” says Michael Carr.

“As far as Kilcar were concerned they would always test our goals with a high ball early in the game to try and rattle our goalkeeper, Mickey Breslin, who could lose the head at times. But we knew it would be the last instruction the Kilcar boys would get leaving the dressing room and someone, Sean McGinley or someone, would be in after the high ball to try and rise Breslin,” laughs Padraig.

“In them days the spectators came in a yard or two into the field,” says Michael Carr. “The linesman didn’t take much notice and the referee didn’t bother until it became an issue for a free kick or something.

“We played a lot of our league games in Fintra too. Our new field didn’t open until ‘84. It’s no wonder that when Donegal teams went to Croke Park, that they couldn’t win important games, because the fields were small in the county, smaller than standard. Even MacCumhaill Park, I remember we played a county final against Ballyshannon in ‘89 and MacCumhaill Park had been extended; it was a different ball game altogether. It took an extra kick to get the ball up the field.”

One of the big league meetings between the rivals took place in 1985, a week after the Donegal senior county final. Kilcar defeated Four Masters to take home the Dr Maguire Cup but they had to travel to Pairc na nGael the following Sunday for the final league game with both sides level on points.

Naomh Columba turned them over by 1-10 to 1-6 to take the Democrat Cup and deprive Kilcar of the double. Such was the interest in the game that the report in Donegal Democrat reveals that there was a bigger crowd in Pairc na nGael that day than was at the county final the previous Sunday.

Padraig Carr says that game was probably his last big game as he tore ligaments the following year and was told he should give up football. “I headed to Chicago for two years and stayed for 12!

“But they were great times. The factory in Meenaneary was going well and the Kilcar factories were also. When you think of it, in fairness to Fr McDyer and the same in Kilcar (people stayed at home). Kilcar were fielding three teams and Glen were fielding three teams.

“There was plenty of slagging on the field too. You would be talking to Michael Carr and saying ‘you’re playing well today, how am I playing?’ ‘Not so good, you haven’t scored yet’ and this kind of craic.

“One day I’m wing half-forward and Michael McNelis sends me this ball along the ground and I have to bend down and I’m lifted out of it. I’m down on the ground and I hear the crowd shouting ‘off, off, off’. Next minute and Michael Carr picks up the ball and he’s coming over. He’s looking away from the crowd and he’s putting the ball down and he says ‘Carr, are you still alive?’

“And I says, who the f… was that. And he says, ‘you’re alright, you’re still alive.’ I’m not going to say who the offender was,” says Padraig, who added that there was still a good camaraderie because of the number of players from both teams who were playing for the county together.

And there was the issue of the need to be available for the club. “It was a problem, especially come the Gaeltacht with the club wanting you to play.

“There was nothing between the teams, just the bounce of a ball, with many of the big games played in Fintra. Martin (McHugh) could put the frees over; we didn’t have a freetaker not even with half the power of Martin at the time,” said Padraig, who felt it would have helped if you could have kicked the ball out of the hands from frees.

“We definitely would have won a lot more with Kevin McGinley, in particular, with the left foot and big Michael Gallagher from 60 yards out with the right foot.”

“Football was strong in the area at the time and I remember Wee Gallagher (Seamus)  telling us that he told (Brian) McEniff that we would pick a county team from Kilcar, Glen and Ardara. That’s what Wee Gallagher told me and I don’t know if it is true or not. But it never materialised.

“Wee Gallagher would be a good man to talk about the rivalry, because he went to Ardara then and he got some stick during games,” says Padraig.

The stories from the time could fill a book and they are re-lived when players from the time meet up. Padraig recalls a conversation he had only a few weeks ago with Marty Carlin about corner forwards being told to stay in their place. Marty said during Tom Conaghan’s time with Donegal, he mentioned to Tom that he might go out to the middle of the field and help the boys for a while. And Tom says, that’s fine Marty, but if the ball goes into the corner and you’re not there . . . you better be there!”

Michael Carr is happy to see Naomh Columba back in Division 1 but wonders if the rivalry will be as big as it was then.

“It is good to see them back up again and they have a new squad of players coming along now. I went in to see them against Glenswilly a few weeks ago. They weren’t good that day, I don’t know what was the story.

“We need more rivalry within clubs. I’d say other counties have it, places like Armagh. Rivalry is usually with your neighbouring clubs. That is what we are lacking now. You had Ardara and Killybegs and there was serious rivalry with Ballyshannon. And that was going back even to the 1930s; you would hear boys talking about boys like Red Jack and they were still having nightmares about them.”

Back in the 1980s, Fintra was the place where many of the big matches took place as Michael Carr recalls.

“I was even talking to Manus Boyle recently and he said they would have gone to see those big games in Fintra. They had a big impression on the next generation with the big crowds. You don’t have that now.

“There would be men that mightn’t eat their dinner for a week after a defeat. It’s something that’s missing in the county at the minute. The club thing has died and I don’t know if it could be revived, maybe having midweek games. We need county players playing for their clubs again. Having an embargo against subs on the county team from playing for their clubs, that will have to be thought about, not just for the sake of the clubs, but the players themselves.

“There were a lot of characters playing them days as well. You had the Seamus Gallagher factor, when Seamus went to Ardara.  That was a serious rivalry. We met Ardara in a county final, Seamus was on the Ardara team and Francie (his brother), was on the Kilcar team.

“You had all these characters, larger than life, Mickey Breslin and so on and that added to it.”

No doubt there will be plenty of other stories told about the rivalry over the coming weeks and especially when the fixtures are released for 2024.