How hurling made its way to Rosses Park in Dungloe

Hurling, the game of the gods, the game of the Gael, is taking firm root in the previously rocky soil of Dungloe, the Rosses and Gaoth Dobhair.

And while dedicated hurling men from Cork like Cormac Hartnett and Padraig Lawlor have been very active in the early stages, it is clear that the wider community in the area is gradually embracing the fastest field game in the world.

That can only be good news for Dungloe who have been fielding teams, starting off with U-8 in the mid-noughties, and the rest is very encouraging history.

A few weeks ago Dungloe had their first ever senior hurling victory, a well-earned one against Aodh Ruadh in Ballyshannon. Hartnett’s two sons Thomas and James played key roles in that victory in a team that was mainly U-21 and more significantly they had all come through the ranks at underage level with Dungloe. Hartnett himself, at 52, came on and scored a point.

Last year, in their first competitive year at adult level, they reached the Donegal JHC final only to lose out narrowly to Carndonagh, so the aim is to make amends and bring a badly needed county title back to the Rosses. So where has all of this promise stemmed from?

Hartnett and Cleary both agree that it has taken a load of hard work, perseverance, faith and at times the diplomatic skills of Henry Kissinger to grow a game in an area that is famed for the big ball game. But the growth has been remarkable by any standards since 2008 when Dungloe tentatively entered U-8’s in a five-a-side indoor hurling competition.

Fast-forward 13 years, and Dungloe GAA club now have hurling teams playing at U-8, U-10, U-12, U-14, U-16, Minor, U-21 and Senior level, as well as a recently established U-16 camogie team. Hartnett, a Mallow native and Dungloe-based solicitor, takes up the story.

“I am from Mallow and I came to Donegal in 1995 and played Reserve football for Dungloe and we won a county title that year,” he said. “In 1998 I was asked to help out in some coaching in a school which included hurling.

“There was a small group there and they seemed keen on hurling which gave me a spark to try and move it on further. So, we went from there to trying to put an U-8 team together around 2008 and my sons James and Thomas were part of it”.

“For the first time ever, we did not field at minors but the numbers at the other grades are correct and that is very encouraging”.

But he stresses that this is not a one or two-man band: “From the very start, the parents of the youth who wanted to play hurling have been really great and their support was vital.

“And that made all the difference and as the club developed and grew, more people came on board and that is how it progressed.

He added: “We had to tread very carefully, and you have to respect the fact that you are a minority sport and the fact that you are entering who has a proud long- established tradition of football.

“And you have to respect the fact that you are coming in looking for a share of their facilities, more pitch time and more shared resources. It was the case that there was a bit of a suspicion of it at the start as it was brand new and there is always a bit of a fear of the unknown.

“But you just have to persevere, and most people were supportive, and people are realising that this is very good overall for the children and it is bringing new families into the club which can only be good”.

“We have been working on this for the past 13 years, but there is still a small element who are against it but generally people recognize that hurling is of benefit. If you have a player playing both codes there is more likelihood of him staying with the club.

“If a player prefers one code or falls out with a manager in one sport, he will be well anchored and he will probably come around again. But if you have a player playing just one sport and he leaves he is not as rooted in the club”.

“We have brought quite a few new families into the club which gives it more energy and they are supporting the club. So the club has its own committee now and a hurling officer on the main club executive who have been very supportive of hurling”.

“Jimmy Sharkey is the hurling officer and we would have up to nine coaches working with the various teams. I suppose I would spend 4-5 evenings at the hurling as Thomas, James and Sara Jane play camogie and ladies football. You are taking up a lot of family time, but the children are benefiting from it”.

Other people who are heavily involved with the hurling are Kenneth Campbell, Tommy Grenall, Brian O’Hagan, Rob Ryan, while Marian Boyle and Jenny Sweeney are involved in camogie

Meanwhile hard-working PRO Padraig Lawlor, who is also a Cork native from Kanturk, plays in goals. He explains how the nuts and bolts of the club operate.

“We have two academies,” he said “Academy One is from U-11 to U-7. “Academy Two is U-13 and U-15 and then we train our minors and seniors together. The reason is resources as we don’t have enough coaches to coach all of those teams individually, so we rotate the coaches with different groups.

“Tom Hennessey is helping, and Paul McNally was a great help and John Gorman, principal the Rosses Community School has been an enormous help and we would not be where we are today without their help and the help of the associated national schools”.

But it is not just Dungloe that is catered for in this remarkable hurling revival in the Rosses.

“Essentially we are picking from Dungloe, Na Rossa, Naomh Muire and Gaoth Dobhair clubs, but we also have players from as far away as Ardara and Cloughaneely in some of our underage teams,” Layler added. “Dungloe provides 85 per cent of the players.

“Gaoth Dobhair is a little bit different as it has its own underage club, but when needed we amalgamate or regularise players into the Dungloe club if they can’t field on their own.

“Daithi Roberts and Damien O’Sullivan are very involved down there, and they are an independent group and they go up as far as U-13. And success has come to the burgeoning Dungloe club since its inception.

“We won three-in-a-row U-14 B titles from 2014-2016 and that was a great boost and that was the U-8 team and friends, so we have good continuity. Six years later they had expanded, and we got to the U-16 A county final in 2017 and 2018 and lost on both occasions to St Eunan’s.

“And then in 2017 and 2018 we got to two county minor A finals on the trot and lost again to St Eunan’s and Setanta. And in 2019 we also lost the U-21 county final”.

And those teams were the basis of the historic decision last year to field a first ever Dungloe adult hurling team.

“We made a decision as we had a good U-21 team, some of whom were underage for a few years, and we had four or five lads who would be over age. We reckoned that if we set up and adult team it would bolster the rest of the lads”.
Dungloe’s first junior championship match was against Setanta B in Dungloe and they had an easy win last year.

“That was a great start, and we had the next match against St Eunan’s which we won but it was a much tougher affair and then we narrowly beat Setanta in the semi-final.”

And so Dungloe junior hurlers had reached a county final in their first- ever year of competition-a remarkable feat in itself.
But the fairy tale ended there as a physically powerful Carndonagh side proved too much for them in the final-Carn were well motivated having lost to Aodh Ruadh the previous year. Dungloe had a poor start and came back but lost by two points.

“We were six or seven points down after six or seven minutes and we came back, but Carndonagh just had that bit extra,” Lawlor added.

“We were absolutely gutted to lose as we knew we were good enough to win it, but we were a little bit below what we thought was our best on the day and Carn were the better team on the day”.

“Ritchie Ryan and Damien O’Sullivan our captain are both very experienced players for us, but we also have a load of promising U-21’s as well.

“We have John Boyle, Sean O’Donnell, Martin Mannion, Joseph and Michael Greene, Odhran Duffy (the latter four are from Naomh Muire), David Hanlon, Matthew O’Donnell, Sean McGee, Odhrnn McGonagle (a county player) Brendan Boyle and Harry Noble and then older players like Rob Ryan and Lochlann O’Dea from Gaoth Dobhair and Mark Timoney of Na Rossa and Conor Diver and we have a good squad that are still U-21.

“The only things we have won is an U-14 B final and an U-16 B final and we later lost five A finals. But it is all about bringing players through as opposed to bringing teams through and you need to bring at least a handful of players through and ultimately to senior level and that is what it is all about.

“The day you have nobody coming through to your senior team is the day to watch out, but we have quite a few coming through thankfully”.

Meanwhile Dungloe’s big target is going to be this year’s JHC. “It will be tough as a number of teams have improved and you have Aodh Ruadh and Setanta have improved all round so their juniors will be even stronger”, Laylor said. “And St Eunan’s have a strong team too who will be tough opposition also.

Dungloe had a very good win over Ballyshannon a few weeks ago which was their first ever victory at senior level.
“Many clubs have had trouble fielding full teams due to the knock- on effect of the pandemic and this was very apparent in football as well,” Hartnett said. “We had a fairly bruising experience with Setanta who showed us what the standard is really like, and we were well beaten by Burt but we were really decimated that evening.

Dungloe opened their JHC with a 3-12 to 0-7 win at Letterkenny Gaels, where Conor Diver, Ritchie Ryan and Sean McGee scored the goals. Next up is St Eunan’s on Friday.

“To be fair to everybody involved and the county board who have jumped through hoops to be able to get all games fitted in during the pandemic and the rising Covid figures, it has been a difficult task,” Hartnett added. “It is a very unusual season and things are bursting at the scenes with so many unplayed matches and it is very difficult for everyone concerned.

One thing is certain. Messrs Lawlor, Hartnett and Co are doing a really good job in growing our national game in what had been relatively barren soil in the Rosses and Gaoth Dobhair.

And then/ Hartnett makes a telling final point that will resonate with anyone who has ever held a hurl and struck a sliothar.
“You know and I know that most people who try hurling and stick with hurling for even a small amount of time until they can catch and strike a ball,” Hartnett said.

“The pleasure of striking a ball with a hurley and getting that connection and feeling it on the hurley up into your arm, that sort of sweet spot being connected with and the sliotar flying towards the goals, it is a brilliant feeling. It is the fastest field game in the world, the most skilful sport we have and people love it when they get over the initial fear of trying it.

“If we can get more people trying it, I have no doubt that we will have more people playing this great game.”
Beir bua d’achan duine!