Rarely has deprivation felt so good at this time of year

KEVIN EGAN feels that the price St. Brigid’s and Castlerea St. Kevin’s have to pay for curtailing their festive celebrations is worth the opportunity that confronts both clubs this weekend… 

There’s quite the irony in how the footballers of Castlerea and St. Brigid’s are having a much leaner Christmas than they might otherwise have imagined, for the very same reason that their supporters have all the more reason to stay on in the pub for one more drink, just because the vibe is good and they’re loving the chats.

These are heady times around Kiltoom, Curraghboy, Tarmon and Castlerea, because they know that when everyone else is going to turn the corner into the New Year and face into a time of lean diets, leaner bank balances and long, dark nights with nothing to illuminate them, these two proud clubs have All-Ireland semi-finals looming large on the horizon next weekend, and maybe more.

When St. Brigid’s went through a run of winning four Connacht titles in seven seasons, the calendar was different, and so the Christmas experience was different for the players involved. All four of those Connacht finals were played in November, and all four All-Ireland semi-finals were played in the second half of February.

Even in 2011, when they had to play an All-Ireland quarter-final against Fulham Irish, that game was boxed off on the first week of December, so on each occasion there was plenty of time to wind down, to share in some aspects of the festive celebrations in their local communities, and still to get back up to speed for knockout football nearly two months later.

This time around is different. Thankfully, GAA culture seems to have moved past the idea of drink bans lasting for four, five or six months, but modern players are more acutely aware of their own biology, their own physiology and how to optimise their conditioning than ever before. 

They don’t need to be told that a dozen pints, and the 3,000 calories that come with them, will take a good few days to flush through the system, and while they’d be long gone by the first weekend of January, now is not the time to show up badly in a couple of training sessions.

Perhaps, even more significant, however, is that by winning Connacht titles, this current generation of players in both clubs has marked themselves out as having done something extraordinary.

Such is the infrastructure, the population, and the footballing culture in St. Brigid’s that it’s impossible to imagine that the lean years of the 1970s and 1980s in the club will ever return. Much like the Dubs on the intercounty scene, there is only so far that they can fall as long as the club is being well-managed and guided.

Of course, the late Tommy Dolan was a huge part of that and his death will leave a big hole in the club for a long time, but current St. Brigid’s Chairperson, Michael McDonnell, has surrounded himself with a very competent executive and is running a very tight ship.

As a result, it takes more than winning a county title to polish your reputation in that part of the world. But winning a provincial crown is different. And while last month’s win over Corofin secured a fifth Connacht club title, the number of players with medals in the club before that game wasn’t huge, since the panel didn’t change hugely during the three-in-a-row, and many of those figures were also there for the breakthrough in 2006.

To reach, and potentially win, an All-Ireland final would be a different level again, and would cement a meaningful legacy for these young players for a long time to come — and anyone who knows them knows that even though this isn’t a first team that tends to be packed with players who grew up in the homes of legendary St. Brigid’s names, those who do wear the club colours are acutely aware of the history and background that comes with that.

In Castlerea, the story is similar, in that even though 2023 was expected to be a year or two too soon for this young group, the club has achieved too much in its 55-year history for a Roscommon intermediate title to stand the test of time as a seminal moment for the club.

Sure, those who are active on the Roscommon GAA scene have an appreciation for how the Jamesie Murray Cup has been incredibly hard to win for the last decade or so, with high standards all around.

Those of us who have been there to witness the club’s decline from senior championship winners to relegation contenders and ultimately to a mid-table intermediate side have also seen how many players exited stage left, and how their “golden generation” — the county minor finalists of 2018 — were forced to grow up and carry the club earlier than would have been ideal.

Yet when more history unfolds, Castlerea’s intermediate football championship win in 2023 could easily be remembered in a similar vein to Strokestown winning it in 2000, or Pearses’ triumph in 2010, or even the likes of Oran, Fuerty and Michael Glaveys winning successive junior championships in 2012, 2013 and 2014. Sure, no championship is easy to win and all of those teams were down at that grade for a reason, but those clubs are just too big to stay at that level for a long time.

Adding success outside the county instantly changes that perspective. Only five Roscommon clubs went on to add Connacht titles to their domestic success, and all five proved to be good enough to hold their own at senior level for a long time after.

Moreover, just two of the five were able to win their All-Ireland semi-finals (St. Croan’s and Michael Glaveys) and both of those were unable to finish the job in Croke Park. Castlerea have a chance to break new ground this month, and if they were to do that, one could argue they would be entitled to stand alongside some of the teams that were good enough to win Roscommon senior championships in the club’s illustrious past.

In everybody, there is a tendency at Christmas to celebrate the people we have in our lives, and, as the New Year rolls around, to ask ourselves if we could be doing more to make a bigger positive imprint, both for those loved ones, and for the wider world.

Both St. Brigid’s and Castlerea St. Kevin’s represent communities where the tradition and history of these GAA clubs make those local people walk that bit taller, and hold their heads a fraction higher.

Next weekend, the current generation of jersey-holders have a glorious chance to further polish and embellish that legacy. No doubt they will feel that a small bit of self-sacrifice and deprivation over the current festive season is a small price to pay for that opportunity.