MacAuley on Donegal links, battles and Dubs debt owed to Jim McGuinness 

Michael Darragh MacAuley says Donegal and Jim McGuinness in particular helped shape bulletproof Dublin as they went on to claim a record-breaking ‘six-in-a-row’ All-Ireland SFC titles. 

The All-Star midfielder and 2013 Footballer of the Year’s links to the north west remain strong with his late dad, Michael Snr, a native of Leitirmacaward. 

Dessie Farrell’s side visit Ballybofey this Saturday night in the NFL and ahead of that tangle, Macaulay sat down with DonegalLive’s Frank Craig for a wide-ranging Q&A. 

FC: Tell us a little about your ties to Donegal? 

MDM: All my blood comes from up that way, really. I have four grandparents from Donegal and my dad was a Leitirmacaward man. So the MacAuleys are well-known around that area. We spent many summers in Leitir and on Dooey Beach. Dad’s parents, Margaret and Joseph, would have come from there. There's a big house just over the bridge and that's where a lot of the links are from. I was actually back up there again during COVID for a visit. Even up here in Dublin, there's always a big gang of Donegal ones around that I’d know well. When I'm out and about, people are pretty aware of my Donegal roots and stuff. So they would always come up to me and share. It’s funny as almost everyone has a story about an uncle, a cousin or something else completely random. There was a class one last year.  I was leaving Croke Park after a game that had just blown for full-time. And some fella just grabbed me by the forearm and he was like, ‘are you Michael Dara MacCauley?’ And I said, ‘I am’. And he just looked at me and he said, ‘your grandad bought a cow on his 100th birthday’ and then he just walked straight off! I was like, ‘what just happened there?!’ But I know grandad lived until 102. So there definitely could have been some truth behind it. So I actually fact-checked it as there's a fella that lives on my road called Max Cannon, who I know is a Donegal man from those same parts.  He used to be a principal up there. He knows more about my family than I do. And he reckons my grandad was still well in control of his purse strings at that age, still bartering, so the story checked out alright!

FC: What kind of impact did 2014’s All-Ireland semi-final loss to Donegal have on Dublin? 

MDA: We learned a huge amount of lessons from that. It was the game that we often referred back to as a team for the next five, six, seven years, to be honest with you. And there were hard lessons learned that day that weren’t repeated. They played better football and they were the better team, no doubt about it. 

FC: 2011’s infamous All-Ireland semi-final tangle; what was it like being in the middle of that?  

It was madness. Like, I distinctly remember carrying the ball early on and there's nobody coming towards me. I’m just looking around the stadium going on a solo run. I don’t think spooked is the right word but it was definitely a case of learning on the job because we hadn't seen anything like that before. But 2011 as well as 2014, when you go back to it, there definitely is a hat-tip to Donegal in terms of stretching the game tactically and learning how to play the system at that time.

FC: Back to 2014, after that semi-final performance, were you surprised Donegal failed to go on and win the All-Ireland? 

That was a really strong Donegal team. I know they got over the line in 2012 and fully deserved to. It was kind of a generational group of players. I'm sure they look back themselves thinking that they could have won more than one All-Ireland. But their impact on the game, they cemented their names in the history books regardless and won’t be forgotten about any time soon.  

FC: You had some real standout individual battles with certain Donegal players in those games…

MDM: Definitely, but the reality of it was we always got on so well with the Donegal boys off the pitch. But that doesn't stop a little needle on the pitch. We all wanted to win. And that's all part of the fun too. I remember marking Michael Murphy one time in that 2014 game. He was drifting out around the middle and I just happened to tag him. But so cutely, he quickly dropped into full-forward and managed to drag me in with him. And I just remember all of a sudden being completely isolated. There was just me and Michael Murphy. So all of a sudden I was essentially playing full-back. Every single other player was in the other half of the pitch. And I’m like, ‘Jesus, if the ball is turned over out there I’m a sitting duck’. Thankfully, I got away with that one. I just remember that Donegal being so smart in how they dragged lads about the place. And it does them a real injustice, still, when people talk about them being just a heavy-set defensive outfit. They were so much more than that. 

FC: Where are Dublin right now? 

Good question. Listen, no one knows where exactly Dublin are right now. We’ve gotten a sneak peek at the start of a book and the reality of it is, it is a bit of a new book for everyone to be reading. We've only read the first chapter, so we don't know how resilient they are, how much strength and depth there is. But there's an opportunity now for new players to put their hands up and grab jerseys, many of which have had the same names on the backs of them for quite a while. And that's exciting, There are plenty of opportunities all over the pitch now for lads to stake claims. But it can’t be a case of lads waiting two or three years to try to develop into those roles. We need lads to really grab their opportunity this year. Time will tell whether they can do that but it’s still an exciting time to see how that all plays out.

FC: Ballybofey on Saturday night, is that the kind of test that will reveal a little bit more about this Dublin? 

MDM: It’s exactly the type of environment that will ask big questions. I was at the Mayo match and speaking to a few Dublin supporters after, there's a huge amount of them travelling up to Donegal and they're absolutely buzzing for it. As a player, Ballybofey always felt like the supporters were just so close to the pitch. There's always a huge atmosphere down there. From memory, in the league games I played in there, I always associated it with being a very windy venue. So you have to play the conditions there as well. But I'm sure our lads will know they’re going into a real cauldron. If Dublin could lay a marker there, this early on, it would be a huge confidence booster. 

FC: Sanctuary Runners and that initiative, tell us about your role there? 

I'm the CEO of Sanctuary Runners. We're a community integration project which works at bringing people together through walking, jogging or running. We have 44 groups set up around the country. And we have groups set up in Loughanure, Letterkenny and Buncrana. We specifically support people in direct provision to come into the community through these kinds of deliberate spaces.They've been huge successes.We're linked in with the park runs in Buncrana and Letterkenny. Eamon McGee lent his support in Buncrana last September. I’ve actually spoken to Jim McGuinness as well and hopefully he can get involved somewhere along the way next time out. It's a fantastic initiative just to try and bring people together, get to know others within their communities and to integrate people along the way. It's going strong so long may that continue. 

For more information on Sanctuary Running and upcoming events, click here  .