LOCAL LEGEND: Determined, dazzling Devenney was born to run

Brendan Devenney is Donegal GAA rock and roll gold!
If you were to pick a backing track, it would have to be Bruce Springsteen’s“Born To Run” to do justice to Donegal’s own dark dazzler who could still rock and rap with the best.
This is the man who torqued through defences like a guy with handlebar sidelocks, Crombie Coat, in a 1950s Chevy, racing on a beach with his buddies and the wind blowing back his girl’s hair.
Devenney lived in the fast lane, the eternal maverick soul who operated on gifted natural predatory instinct, great balance and ball skills, raw power, ferocious pace and a deadly finish, and will always be one of Donegal and St Eunan’s great local legends.
His feat of scoring 0-14 in a county final for Eunan’s against Aodh Ruadh in the county final of 1999 will probably never be equalled.
Devenney kicked seven from play and seven from frees and he was fouled for most of those frees in probably the greatest ever individual display in a county final.

Magnificent
And, from 1998 to 2008 he was an eternal mercurial presence on Donegal teams and his “display” against a star-studded reigning All-Ireland champions Kerry in his own O’Donnell Park Letterkenny on a Lovely day in April in 2007 was just simply… magnificent.
Devenney retired from county football in 2009, was frequently treble marked, took loads of hits, but was often the boy who played with sheer exuberance and nearly always flat to the mat.
Yet, he freely admits he had difficulty coping with the massed defence style of football patented by Armagh, who were often Donegal’s nemesis when Devenney was in full flow.
Declan Bonner gave him his debut in 1998 and he scored 2-2 in that first NFL match against Cork - a harbinger of what was to come.
He also represented his country with distinction in the Compromise Rules series in 1998 and 2001 and was his country’s top scorer in their 2001 triumphant series.
Some of the critics would say he underachieved, and the candid Devenney agrees as he never won that elusive Ulster medal (but neither did so many of his talented colleagues) but you just could not put a price on those magic moments when he got the ball.
For he had the strength of a Pampas Bull to burst through defences like a German Panzer tank on tour, and route one was always his favourite method.
Devenney played the game with infectious joy, had a great spring to catch a ball and was a prolific goal scorer.
And while he may not have been a consistent ball winner,-when Devenney decided he wanted possession it usually happened and there was always a frisson when he got the ball, because anything could materialise.
He also showed courage in buckets when he played on for his beloved St Eunan’s with a punctured lung against Clonoe in the Ulster Club Championship, scoring four points and contributing to the decisive goal that won the match for his club and he ended up in hospital in 2008 at the age of 31.

Soccer
In between, Devenney played soccer for Finn Harps, Portadown, Limavady Utd and Gweedore Utd.
Brendan has won a NFL medal with Donegal in 2007, seven county championships medals with St Eunan’s and co-managed them to a county title in 2012, played for his county 36 times and is now a very candid and hard hitting analyst, who has worked for BBC, Newstalk, RTE. local radio and recently hosted the DL Debate on Highland Radio.
He also won three Railway Cup medals.
Mind
This is man who has always spoken his mind, will (thankfully) be never politically correct and once said he would consider signing a full time soccer contract with Finn Harps in 2002, if certain issues relating to the GPA were not sorted out by the end of the summer of that year, the same year that some of the Donegal senior squad put partying ahead of playing after their drawn match with the Dubs in August.
Devenney has never been afraid to discuss thorny matters and is a man who admits that he has always tasted life through the teeth - his honesty has always been refreshing in an age of anodyne clichés, but is entirely in keeping with his character.
He also speaks frankly about the mental pressures he suffered as a young man who was rocketed from playing Division Four football in Donegal to representing his country in the Australian Rules Series in the space of 16 months.
That took its toll as did the pressure of being Donegal’s spear head against a very defensive Armagh side who also played on the edge.
They say an ounce of breeding is worth a ton of feeding and his father Patrick “Patch” Devenney is a former top class soccer player in Donegal and is still a very hardy man, and his first cousin Mick O’Dowd was a famed senior footballer and hurler with Monaghan.

Newtowncunningham
So, the DNA is impressive, as was Brendan from a very young age in his native Newtowncunningham.
He was born in Northampton on December 9, 1976 and the family came back to Newtown, a big soccer area a year later.
There was no Gaelic football, so the very young Brendan played with a club called Cuchulainns in the Bogside in Derry at U-10 level.
He had a cousin in Derry which helped and he has friends from there to this day.
Brendan’s dad won a few British Gaelic Championships with Warwickshire and was also a useful centre half and this combined with his mother Imelda’s O’Dowd pedigree from Galway, made sure Brendan was always going to be something special.
He first played with Newtown at U-12 and his heroes in those days were Tony Boyle and Martin McHugh.
Brendan went to St Eunan’s College in the late 1980s - there was no team in Newtown at that time - and played in two county minor finals against Aodh Ruadh in 1993 and 1994 when they lost and won respectively against the Ballyshannon boys.
St Eunan’s went all the way to an Ulster minor final, losing out to the Loup from Derry.

Colleagues
Among his colleagues were John Haran, Kevin Winston, Damian Daly, Johnny Scanlon, Maurice McGeehin, Barney McDermott, Paul Dowd, and Adrian McClafferty - and many of them went on to play in that infamous final against Aodh Ruadh in 1997.
In the interim, Newtown reformed as Naomh Colmcille and they won a Donegal JFC with Brendan on board in 1994/ 1995.
Declan McFarland was the manager and an “unbelievable guy” and Naomh Colmcille won a few shield titles at the All-Ireland Sevens.
“They were some of the best weekend’s of my life.”
The following year Naomh Colmcille won Division Three and Devenney was their top scorer.
But there was still more interest in soccer and Devenney went to England for nine months although “there was only one place I was going back to and that was St Eunan’s”.
He was getting “serious about my Gaelic”
1997 was a very special year for the 20-year-old Devenney and Eunan’s as this was their first county final appearance since 1983 - after a 14-year famine.

Championship
Brendan was switched to full-forward for this championship and that was the start of a prolific scoring career.
He scored 1-3 in an earlier round against Sean MacCumhaills and the rest is history.
The versatile Brendan was also lining out with Finn Harps in this period and was a very busy man.
But it was the county final of 1997 that really marked Brendan’s arrival in the big time.
He scored 1-7 in that game and his forceful direct, natural power and accuracy caused Aodh Ruadh all sorts of problems.
But this match will be remembered for the fact that Aodh Ruadh subsequently successfully objected to legality of Leslie McGettigan who had come over from the US to play for his home club in Letterkenny - and the county championship was awarded to the Ballyshannon.
When asked for his thoughts, Devenney replied: “There was a technicality there, but Leslie McGettigan was a St Eunan’s man and he grew up in the town.
“He had come back and played for us when he could and everybody knew there was a technicality and Glencolmcille and Kilcar knew he was coming from the US and they did not object to him.
“It was just very sad, and I have a lot of friends in Ballyshannon and enjoyed playing against them over the years, but I wonder if those medals mean much to their players.
“I think if Leslie McGettigan had come from outside the parish, I would be saying this is not right, but even then, I still would not want any boardroom stuff.
“It was just very sad”.
But Devenney and St Eunan’s superbly made up for that defeat when he hit an awesome 0-14 in the county final of 1999 against Aodh Ruadh with a memorable display.
Devenney was simply unmarkable and scored seven points in each half - the finally tally comprising half from frees and half from play.
“Technically Aodh Ruadh were going for three-in-row, but nobody mentioned it and that is kind of significant,” he mentions.
“Yes, seven in the first half and seven in the second half and I have a massive 77 tattooed on my stomach”.
“The sevens are prominent and a few years later, I kicked 14 points for Ireland in 2001 and was top scorer, some people criticized me for going but I managed to shoot the lights out.
“There are certain things that you know that are laid out before you and even in training before that 1999 final I felt that I couldn’t miss.
“Everything was going over the bar and that is how I went into that game.
“On that day I felt at peace and it was a joy to be on the pitch, and Kevin Winston was unreal, and all the rest of the team helped out as Brendan Kilcoyne allowed me to take frees from the right- hand side and they went over as well.”
But, in those days, he felt pressure free in his quasi Lone Ranger role.

Armagh
However, all that was to change in the Noughties when the free- wheeling Devenney and Donegal ran into an Armagh defence that was tighter than Colditz.
“In the early years with Donegal it was still man for man, but sadly for Donegal and me things started to change as teams like Armagh began to play a certain way.
“They started to play very defensively, and they were horrible to play against.
“We needed to counteract that and that annoys me, and I am clear headed about it now.
“For years it haunted me, and I had to get my head around it that I should have been better.
“But I did not have the skills as a young man to deal with this, either mentally or from a football perspective.
“Suddenly this weight was on your shoulders to take men on and score and they were clogging up space and closing us down, and we should not have been just playing man to man backs and forwards like we were.
“We were not prepared for that type of football and then you are in Clones before a huge crowd and Armagh guys putting their knees and elbows in your head.
“There was all this build up and then the life was just sucked out of you and looking back on it now it is very different as I am very clear-headed as to how the world works”.”
He added: “Back then it was a real tough time, but we still came through the back door and had some great days especially in 2002 and 2003 when we had a really good team.
“I used to have this joke with Colm McFadden and with Adrian Sweeney about who was the best player and we would know who the best corner back would be whether it would be Sean Marty Lockhart, Paddy Christie or whoever.
“See when their best man picks you up that is when you know you are better than me.
“But Jim McGuinness came in and adopted the Armagh tactics and he also made players believe that they were going to be the best they could be.”

It was all so different in Devenney’s first game in Croke Park when he hit 2-2 against Cork in 1998 who struggled with his power, pace and nose for goals.
Devenney lined out with one of his idols Tony Boyle, and Shane Bradley, in his debut NFL clash with Longford.
He made his home debut against Derry when he darted around Anthony Tohill for a cheeky point and could always hit scores from impossible angles and “playing with Tony Boyle was amazing”.
John Duffy, Brian Roper, Jim McGuinness and John Joe Doherty, the “best captain I ever had” were still around in those days.
But Armagh were their eternal nemesis.
“We could beat Tyrone all right and despite what a lot of people think, Tyrone did not really play like Armagh.
“Tyrone would attack you higher up the pitch and they had brilliant players and that’s why they won three All-Ireland’s in 2003, 2005 and 2008.
“But Armagh always played a certain way and it never changed, but Tyrone could be up and down the field a bit.
“We did beat Armagh in the championship in 2007 but then we were well beaten by Tyrone in the next round”.
“I could say we lost Ulster finals in 2002, 2004 and 2006 and an All-Ireland semi-final in 20003 all to Armagh, and came so close and it did not happen and you can be down and doom and gloom about it, or I could say I won seven county championships with St Eunan’s, including one as a manager, a NFL with Donegal, three Railway Cup medals with Ulster and an International Rules medal with Ireland.”
Joe Brolly, Brendan Devenney and Peter Canavan was one Ulster Railway Cup full-forward line that he was proud to be part of.
He also played with James McCartan at the end of the latter’s career.
And Devenney also started for Ireland in 1998 and the full-forward line was Devenney, Dermot McCabe and Peter Canavan.
“If you rewind the clock, I was playing Division Four football in Donegal just 14 months previously.
“I never played underage for the county and that was a roller coaster and that brought other things with it.”
It brought enormous expectation and pressure that he was not mentally prepared for.
“I played for Donegal and for Ireland in 1998”.
“In 2001 the Irish team manager Brian McEniff asked me if I wanted to start.
“I never wanted to start and preferred coming on.
“I often felt lacking in energy and there were loads of times that I did not feel solid or strong.
“I have an anxious nature and we were struggling against the Aussies and McEniff put me on and Kerry’s Johnny Crowley gave me a pass and I just banged her between the posts from 35 yards out for a three pointer and Fate can happen and give you a start.
“But the experience of that in Australia and playing football with Donegal New York where I made 16-17 trips was really great.
“It depends how you look at things, there is a lot of life learning in there.”
On the club front in 2001 Devenney and a young St Eunan’s team beat Four Masters in the county final and he was injured.
“But I survived, and I was on the flight and the month out there was just magical.
“I am still friends with those lads like the captain Anthony Tohill, Michael Donnellan, Pauric Joyce, Seamus Moynihan, Graham Geraghty, Niall Buckley, Dermot Earley, Darren Fay, Ciaran McManus, Mike Frank Russell, Darragh O Se (he was some craic) and Anthony Rainbow were some really great players.
“There are some great stories out there, but you could not print any of them and referee Pat McEneaney from Monaghan was mighty craic as well.”
Also, in 2001 Brendan came under the tutelage at county level of a great combination of Mickey Moran of Derry and Armagh’s John Morrison.
“Mickey Moran was a player’s man, a football man, everything was done with the ball at pace, it was sharp all the time.
“John Morrison was a one off and the one time we really deserved to beat Armagh in 2002 in the Ulster final as we were moving the ball around Armagh and that was the late John Morrison’s training.
“It was the only time we had them on the run, but we just did not score enough, me included and they held on.”
Back in 2002 Devenney and Adrian Sweeney were a deadly double act that should have beaten Dublin in the drawn All-Ireland Quarter-Final that finished on a score of Donegal 0-14 Dublin 2-8-before 82,000 fans in Croke Park on a hot August Bank Holiday Weekend.

Replay
The replay was in a fortnight and Donegal went down the road thinking that they would win the replay but did not change the way they played.
According to Devenney, Dublin were back on the Tuesday, raging at the way they played, tore strips off each other and went at it like dogs.
It was the same on Thursday night and there was a fortnight between the two games.
And of course, some of the Donegal squad decided to stay behind in Dublin for some heavy socialising which got blanket publicity.
The “party animals” tag was beginning to gain currency and while Devenney admits that there were a few who enjoyed that type of socialising he is adamant that “none of the starting team was involved”.
“Yes, there were quite a few who stayed behind, but those were squad players and guys who were living in Dublin anyway and the starting team was the starting team at that time.
“There was a bit of bullshit about that time, as a few of the young lads skipped off, now it seems crazy in today’s terms, but it was not that big of a deal 20 years ago.
“The public perception was different, fuelled by the media.”
Dublin lifted their game “by 30 per cent for the replay and Donegal stayed the same and they blew us away”.
“If you draw matches, you should come into the replay with something different, but it was very green for all of us who were involved.
“On the Tuesday night all who were supposed to be back were back and Donegal would always have a few beers after a game and some people thought it was not a big deal.
“It was very different from today, but it was not as big an issue as it would be today, and it was the start of the ‘party boys’ tag.
“There were reasons for that, we lost finals and if we had won them people would not have cared.”
He added: “There were a few lads in the squad who maybe enjoyed a drink too much and there were other lads who did not drink at all.
“It was unfair to tar us all with the same brush and there was a type of trial by media.
“Once that stigma hits you it is hard to shake it off.
“They were very different times but the only time there was any real drinking was after a match when there might be an odd rip, but it did not affect the team and that was common in other counties too.
“Some of the publicity was warranted but most of it wasn’t,” he maintained.

Gaoth Dobhair
Devenney has a soft spot for Gaoth Dobhair and he married Treasa Campbell of that parish, has played soccer for Gweedore United and knows Eamon McGee, Neil McGee and Kevin Cassidy very well - who would be kindred free spirits.
“All the Gaoth Dobhair boys were great craic and even though they beat us in a few county finals we would go down there and have a great session with them and Devenney has taken a few coaching sessions there”.
Reflecting on that team of the Noughties, Donegal had great players like the Sweeney brothers, Brian Roper, Michael Hegarty, Niall McCready, Barry Monaghan, Damian Diver, Christy Toye, Jim McGuinness, John Gildea and Colm McFadden. Devenney insists that cadre just “lived for Donegal.”

Back door
“The times were changing, and an older freer culture was meeting a more organized focused culture and the back door had just come in and that is why you had a few incidents of indiscipline off the field.
“That team was good enough to win an Ulster title, but we lost three finals to Armagh in 2002, 2004 and 2006 and lost an All-Ireland semi-final to them in 2003 and that was hard to take.
“But we needed a plan to beat Armagh and we kept changing managers too, but we still refused to do what Armagh were going to do and Armagh were the demons.
‘We thought wrongly that we could beat them by pure football, which was our natural game, but that game was changing.
“We needed to do what they were doing.
“Donegal won the All-Ireland in 2012, but what happened in 2014 was that Kerry changed their style three weeks before that final and did a “Donegal” on us.
“That was the difference between us and Armagh and that is a big regret of mine from those years.
“A team with tactics is always going to beat a team without tactics.
“We needed to close down space, we needed to hit the gym, we needed to be ignorant bollixes and get in Armagh’s face but that never happened.
“And in those years if we won an Ulster title, we could have won an All-Ireland title.”
McGuinness
Donegal came very close in the All-Ireland semi-final in 2003 but Armagh had the winning mindset which Jim McGuinness successfully adopted.
“It took Jim McGuinness to change things and he is a powerful personality.
“He was 100 per cent influenced by Armagh and Tyrone who were different”.
“Mickey always played attacking football and the reason Donegal kept beating Tyrone under McGuinness was that Harte would not change his tactics.
“When he finally changed his tactics in that awful game in the Ulster final against Donegal in Clones, two points deep in injury time won it for Tyrone.
“That was the first year that Tyrone really mirrored Donegal and it was almost the death of football and Tyrone won the game.
“2016 was a low in the game but more counties are now committing men forward and it is getting more exciting.”
But, Devenney rejects the well-worn theory that Tyrone adapted Armagh’s blanket defence causing Pat Spillane to accuse them of “puke football”.
“Enda McGinley was at the heart of all this and he told me that Mickey Harte never talked much about defence, it was all about attack and a high work rate.
“And that famous swarm tackle on Darragh O’Sé in the All-Ireland semi-final was on the Kerry 45 metre line, Tyrone were on the attack and a lot of people forget this.
“It was always about getting the ball up front quickly and Tyrone could have been out of sight in that 2011 Ulster semi-final against Donegal if they had taken their chances.
“That victory was the making of Donegal”.
Devenney did win an NFL title with Donegal in 2007, but a hip injury was to signal the end of his county career and a chance for future glory.
And he gave a truly magnificent display on a soft April day against the then All-Ireland champions Kerry in the NFL in the re-opened O’Donnell Park when he scored 0-7 on Marc O’Se who was Footballer Of The Year.
“Of that Donegal team in 2011, there were about ten players who had been around in 2007, so they were an experienced outfit”.
“They said Donegal were down and out, but the players were there.”
Devenney was by now increasingly concentrating on St Eunans who won three in a row from 2007-2009 and he was captain in one of those memorable years.
“It takes a while to realise when you are playing with the county that the club is far more important.
“It took me a few years to realise that, when things went wrong at county level there was usually flak, but in St Eunans who are a small club in a big town, everyone was behind you.
“I had a great sense of freedom, there was no pressure and I was playing with a great bunch of lads too.
“It is club first and that has stayed with me and I was involved in 11 county finals.
“There was a lot of pressure playing for Donegal and when things went bad, you would be lost for a few days.
“We lost three Ulster finals and one year I was just not able to play as I just could not handle the situation in 2005.”

Portadown
Devenney played soccer for Portadown and was earning “good money” which was handy as he was building a house.
“That was a great experience too”.
In latter days he has been a very frank voice in the media, having featured with the BBC, Gaelic Life, Newstalk and Highland Radio ton name but a few.
“When I stopped playing, I became a fan and I am so proud of all those lads I played and those lads who won that All-Ireland for Donegal.
“I love watching the lads playing and I love being positive about Donegal.”
And then the interview comes to an end, and you are left a little dazed at the machine gun delivery, full of colour and insight,in the fast lane from one of Donegal’s greatest legends.
That’s Devenney, flat to the mat, for he was “Born To Run”.