Guess who's back? Michael Murphy to make sensational return for Donegal in 2025

Michael Murphy will make a sensational return to the Donegal for 2025 season.

The Glenswilly native stepped aside from the inter-county scene in November 2022 and watched since, with plenty of observers believing he still had plenty to offer Donegal.

Murphy, now 35, watched on last season as Jim McGuinness’s side won Division 2 of the Allianz Football League, the Ulster SFC and reached the All-Ireland semi-final, before losing to Galway.

McGuinness, who guided Donegal to three Ulster crowns and the 2012 All-Ireland SFC in his first tenure in charge, admitted following his reappointment that he “half-tortured” his former captain to return to the set-up.

"We spoke surely to God,” McGuinness said last December. “I do speak to him all of the time and had him half-tortured there for a while."

Murphy, who is Head of Sport at ATU Donegal, spent the last two years playing club football with Glenswilly, where he also managed and coached at underage, as well as being a GAA pundit for BBC Northern Ireland, GAAGo and The Irish Times.

Murphy made his championship debut for Donegal against Leitrim in the 2007 All-Ireland qualifiers and his last appearance was against Armagh in 2022. He made 177 appearances for Donegal at senior leave, having also won Ulster crowns at U-21 and minor grade. 

In his Donegal Democrat column two weeks ago, former Donegal manager Brian McEniff said in his column  Mac's View: "The rumour mill here in Donegal over the last week or so is in overdrive with the word that Michael Murphy might have had a change of heart on his intercounty retirement. The greatest footballer Donegal has ever produced could once again be back in the green and gold for 2025?

"It is only a rumour at the minute and it would be wrong, disrespectful even, to get carried away. But what I would unequivocally say is that I still feel Michael has more to give. When he stepped away in 2022, like the rest of the county, I respected his decision because he’d given so much already to Donegal.

"But he was still a relatively young man at 33 then and two years on from that original retirement call, I still believe he has an awful lot to give at that level. And if our prayers were answered there is no doubt managers and full-back lines up and down the country would be quaking in their boots at the thought of facing a Murphy. Even more so, under the new rules, stationed on the edge of the opposition square."