The Buncrana Cup is special for so many reasons - Michael McMenamin

Michael McMenamin says the Buncrana Cup will always represent a moment for pause and reflection for the people of Inishowen. 

From the outside looking in, it’s a football tournament that attracts the very best underage sides from across the country. But for the organisers and the people of Buncrana, it’s a chance to remember the 29 people that perished back in 1998 in the single worst atrocity of the Troubles. 

Oran Doherty (8), Seán McLaughlin (12) and James Barker (12) from Buncrana were among the victims, along with young student Fernando Blasco Baselga (12) and group leader Rocio Abad Ramos (23), both from Spain.

McMenamin was Donegal GAA youth officer at the time and was also helping out Martin McHugh, who was in charge of the Donegal U-16s. There had already been some discussion that Ulster needed its own standalone U-16 tournament. 

But Omagh changed the direction of that. Now, the idea was to move the entire concept to Buncrana and undermark its staging with the single condition that it would never be moved from the Scarvey. 

“Yeah, that’s how it came about,” said McMenamin. “Martin McHugh was the U-16 county manager at the time. I would have been involved to some degree with that. John McConnell was the chairman. 

“At that stage, Donegal would have played in the Connaught/Ted Web competition. It was difficult at the time because you were often travelling down to Galway or Mayo. You’d very few home games. But it served a purpose. 

“The idea was then sprung, why don’t we organise our own U-16 competition? And the idea right away was to honour the people that lost their lives in the Omagh Bombing. That’s how it started off. 

“The number one priority was to mark it as children here from Buncrana lost their lives. There was so much sadness and we wanted to do something. And there was that aim to have our own underage intercounty competition.

“For a number of years, it was limited to Ulster teams. After that, it was widened out to include other sides like Dublin and Mayo.

“We missed a year or two due to Covid but it’s been going strong since 2000. I remember well at the time going down to Donegal Town to buy the cup. 

“And it’s still the same one being used today. Fair play to John McConnell at the time, he gave us the authority to go ahead with it”.

McMenamin is a face so recognisable on the periphery of Donegal’s 2012 All-Ireland journey. The Naomh Padraig Uisce Chaoin man was the individual Jim McGuinness personally handpicked to look after the team’s logistics.

The leaps and bounds that Gaelic Games have made in Inishowen is brought up in conversation and it brings a broad smile to McMenamin’s face.  

 “The GAA is thriving in Inishowen,” he said. “The Donegal mens and woman’s teams both have impressive representations. Even our young U-16 girls who won the All-Ireland recently, we’d a good number of girls on that squad. 

"We’d a very successful schools coaching programme here for a number of years through Leo Gill and John Gibbons. That was not just a great benefit to the schools but also to the GAA clubs in the locality. There is a super effort going in”.