Donal McKenny of St Mary’s Ardee celebrates with a supporter after the AIB Leinster GAA Senior Club Football Championship semi-final match between St Lomans and St Mary’s Ardee at Lakepoint Park in Mullingar, Westmeath. Photo by Michael P Ryan/Sportsfile.
By John Harrington
Ardee St. Mary’s have filled four buses with supporters for Saturday’s AIB All-Ireland Club SFC Final against Cuala and there’s not likely to be too many cars left in driveways either.
The north Louth town has been buzzing since their Leinster semi-final win over St. Loman’s and that nervous excitement will register some serious decibels in Croke Park tomorrow.
St. Mary’s are the first club from the Wee County to contest a Leinster senior final in 22 years and none has ever won it.
Gaelic football in Louth has been very much on an upward curve for the last three years but opportunities like this still generate a giddy excitement because they tend not to come around too often.
“It would be a special piece of history,” says Ardee St. Mary’s club secretary, Sean Carroll, when you ask him what it would mean to win the county’s first ever senior provincial club title.
“We've made history already this year with the three-in-a-row and this would be an even bigger boost for the club and the county.
“We haven't been very successful as a county. I was involved with Louth many years ago and even getting guys to wear the Louth jersey could be challenging.
“It was difficult to see guys on the other side of the fence looking at you and you'd be thinking to yourself, 'why aren't they playing for us?’
“I remember being slagged because I worked most of my life in Dublin and you couldn't even buy a Louth jersey in the shops. One of my friends would be ribbing me saying 'you can get a Meath jersey, but you can't get a Louth jersey'.
“That's where we've come from over the years. It was at a low ebb not that long back. It's only a few years since Louth were down in Division 4.”
St. Mary's Ardee manager Cathal Murray speaks to his team after their victory in the AIB Leinster GAA Senior Club Football Championship quarter-final match between St Mary's Ardee and Rathvilly at DEFY Pairc Mhuire in Ardee, Louth. Photo by Stephen Marken/Sportsfile.
St. Mary’s are riding high as three-in-a-row county champions but it’s not so long either since were at a relatively low ebb.
Team veterans like joint-captain Robert Leavy would remember when the limit of the team’s ambition was survival in senior football and a couple of seasons ended in relegation play-offs.
And even when their stock started rising again it took them longer than they would have hoped to cash in on their potential.
“A lot of it is getting the monkey off your back by making the breakthrough with our first county senior title in 27 years in 2022,” says Carroll.
“We always thought over the years that we had some good players but it can be very hard to get over the line.
“We lost a few players over the years between immigration and transfers to other clubs. Even though we might have had a good panel at different times it is hard in Louth to make the breakthrough.
“Even this year, there's probably four teams in the county with not a lot between them, ourselves, St. Mochta's, Newtown Blues, and Naomh Mairtin
“Winning three-in-a-row is a great achievement, and this year we won the double of League and Championship for the first time since 1975 which isn’t easily done in Louth.
“The League was a tough one because we have a lot of players involved with the county at senior or U20 and then some went to America when Louth finished up so we played a lot of players who would not have gotten much football had we not had so many players absent but they all did really well and it was quite an achievement to win both.”
The club’s renaissance has been no happy accident but rather the product of a lot of hard work at underage level.
Four county minor titles have won in the last eight years and this senior team is largely the product of those successes.
“The bulk of this team has been winning all the way up from U-13 Féile,” says Carroll. “A lot of those current senior players would have won Féiles, some of them would have won two.
“A talented generation of players came together and they would have won Féile, U-14, U-16, and then two minor championships in 2017 and 2018.
“We won another two minors in 2022 and 2023 and even this year we were only beaten in the semi-final by a point by the eventual winners.
“We've put a lot of work into our underage structures. It starts with a little academy we have on Saturdays on the all-weather with the U-7s and U-8s, both girls and boys. We have a lot of volunteers doing great work with the underage teams.”
Ardee St. Mary's footballer, Tom Jackson, in action with the Louth senior team.
The talent in this St. Mary’s team has been hot housed by exposure to inter-county football. Six of them were part of the Louth senior panel this and another six made the Louth U20 panel.
Carroll believes the good habits they’ve learned in those environments has pushed the club to new heights.
“When you're playing at a different level it does improve the standard of the conditioning of the players in particular,” he says. "Nowadays a lot of time in football it comes down to physical conditioning and how prepared you are mentally as well.
“It's not just about ability, nowadays you have to be focused and you have to have that mental toughness as well. From being involved with people like Mickey Harte and Ger Brennan, our lads have learned a lot about different aspects of the game.
“They know now they can compete at a high level. There's a certain level of confidence there now.”
They go into Saturday’s Final against Dublin champions Cuala as underdogs, but based on their semi-final win over a very good St. Loman’s team they certainly have the wherewithal to produce an upset.
“Our guys will be up for it and I think Croke Park will suit us because it has a good surface and it's a good, big pitch,” says Carroll.
“Our guys have a bit of pace and hopefully they'll use it to good effect and go at them. At the end of the day it's all about a performance. It's no good coming home with ifs or buts. Leaving it all on the pitch on the day its what it's all about whether you win, lose or draw.
“You have to give it everything you have and I think our guys will do that.”
