Armagh selector Kieran Donaghy reacts after his side's victory in the GAA Football All-Ireland Senior Championship semi-final match between Armagh and Kerry at Croke Park in Dublin. Photo by Seb Daly/Sportsfile.
By John Harrington
Your eyes couldn’t but be drawn to Kieran Donaghy during the All-Ireland SFC semi-final between Armagh and Kerry.
He was a whirl of energy on the sideline throughout the game. Constantly giving instructions to Armagh players, emotionally kicking every ball himself from the other side of the white line.
There was no sign of any mixed feelings. He was fully invested in the mission of lowering the colours of his native county.
But then the final whistle blew and after a brief embrace with Kieran McGeeney it seemed as though the enormity of what had just happened hit Donaghy. He held his head in his hands and stared into the middle distance.
For the next few minutes the emotional tug-of-war he was going through was apparent as he alternated celebrating with Armagh players with consoling with their Kerry opponents.
You won’t meet a more passionate Kerry-man than Donaghy himself, so how did it feel to help mastermind the Kingdom's downfall?
“It wasn’t difficult beforehand in the weeks leading up,” says Donaghy. “I have been driving up and down that road two or three times a week for four years. Getting home at half 1 in the morning and getting up the next day to bring the kids to school. I don’t stay up here, only after games.
“I get down the road and it gives me good time to maybe link-in with a few players or get my head settled around how a session went or what can we do better or that kind of stuff.
“It was very simple in my head about what I was doing and the job I was doing for the weekend. I was emotional after the game - I was so proud of the lads and the effort they put in and the way they dug it out against a great Kerry team.
“There was a huge range of emotions. I’d my own family who were in mixed colours in the stand. My uncles would be very passionate Kerry men. My wife, my mam and my kids were in the Armagh corner. Blood is thicker than water and all that! There was good craic in the family Whatsapp in the build-up, but there was a lot of emotion going on.
“I’m working with Dylan Casey for the last number of years. He was my captain as a 21-year-old, to be captain of your club team at 21 and to go on and win a county Championship tells you how much of a special fella he is.
“I’ve been very close to him over the last number of years. I just happened to see him maybe 20 seconds after the All-Ireland semi-final and that was the first time my head flicked to that side of it.
“There was a lot going on and it wasn’t an easy day, but when you are focused on the job you have to do, that’s the way it goes.”
Armagh selector Kieran Donaghy consoles his Austin Stacks' clubmate Dylan Casey after the GAA Football All-Ireland Senior Championship semi-final match between Armagh and Kerry at Croke Park in Dublin. Photo by Daire Brennan/Sportsfile.
Donaghy is an all-in sort of character, but you still have to marvel at the commitment he has given this Armagh football team.
He’s spent a good chunk of the last four years in his car driving between Kerry, Dublin, and Armagh, and it’s hard to imagine how he balances the demands of work, family life, and inter-county football.
Passionate people always find a way, and there’s no doubting Donaghy’s passion for this Armagh project.
“People ask me ‘how are you doing it?’ and maybe in Kerry ask me how I am managing it - it is because of ‘Geezer’ and that group of players,” says Donaghy.
“If they weren’t a good group of lads or the set-up wasn’t top-class, there’s no way you could do it.
“When I leave a work appointment in Dublin on a Tuesday at 3.30pm and I’m heading to Armagh for training at 6pm, I’m every bit as excited now as I was the first year.
“That’s because of those lads. I was always interested in the culture side of things.
“When Kieran asked me to get involved, I knew the way he carried himself - he was in the International Rules team with me. I didn’t come across anybody like him before.
“I thought it would be a very interesting project. I watched him that year on Sky Sports when they nearly beat Mayo down in Castlebar. I knew there were a lot of good players there.
“It was an exciting thing for me to get involved in, but I’m still here only because of these bunch of players and Kieran - he is so enjoyable to be around. They are just such a good bunch of lads.
“The culture he has created from ’14 until now, weeding out fellas that weren’t all-in and going with fellas who wouldn’t be the best picks by some people in the county, but you knew deep down would do the gym stuff and sacrifice their life to help Armagh move up the ranks, that’s the fellas he has went with.
“The core group of 30 or 40 players are unbelievable and they are so invested in just helping Armagh be successful and that’s what Kieran has created. It is so interesting to be a part of that.”
Manager Kieran McGeeney, left, with selectors Kieran Donaghy and Ciarán McKeever during an Armagh Media Conference ahead of the GAA Football All-Ireland Senior Championship Final at the Carrickdale Hotel in Dundalk, Louth. Photo by Harry Murphy/Sportsfile.
Donaghy’s respect for Kieran McGeeney is palpable. What is it about the Armagh manager that makes him such magnetic character?
“It is an open-ended question - I’d need longer than 10 minutes for that!", he replies.
“I think, what I felt from him that time with the Irish (International Rules) team was that he was so Armagh in my eyes.
“Then I saw him with Ireland and the way he was able to get everyone to buy into the Ireland jersey and performing against the Aussies and the way he was able to bring the group together, which would have been fellas who were butting heads the whole year before that. The way he carried himself, how honest he was and how straight he was - there was no sugar-coating anything.
“I remember thinking he’d be brilliant to be around, if he was my captain, I’d love to play for him. I want to be pushed, I don’t want to be let off the hook, I want to be called out. His attention to detail, his focus is just solely on Armagh - never on himself.
“And how we can get Armagh to be better - that’s what he talks about non-stop. The jersey and the people of the county and what it means. He is one of a kind. When Sunday comes along, it is the fifth final they’ve been in and he has been involved in three of them - it is 140 this GAA thing has been going!
"You saw the job he did with Kildare. They were really relevant and they were knocking on the door. Whatever happened there, he was gone and they’ve gone the other way since that.
“He came into Armagh, who were on the floor in 2014. There’s no magic button to switch things around. You need to really get all the pieces in place and I think that’s when Kieran really comes into his own, to do that and they way he is able to think outside the box.
“I’d have been an outside the box call. When I took the call on day one I was like really? But he was saying ‘you can do it’ - if you work in Dublin it isn’t that far.
“I remember getting off the phone wondering if I could do it and the more I thought about it, I wanted to work with him. I knew by the way he was talking and driving the players that this was where they were going.
“He sent me a few videos and you could see the young talent coming through - the likes of Rian O’Neill.
“He said ‘I think we need something different and I think you could help’ and once I feel I can help someone - it is the reason I played with Kerry until I was 35, I was the reason I played with the Stars till I was 41.
“If I think I can help anybody, I’m all-in with that.”
Armagh selector Kieran Donaghy and Aaron McKay of Armagh after their side's victory in the GAA Football All-Ireland Senior Championship semi-final match between Armagh and Kerry at Croke Park in Dublin. Photo by Harry Murphy/Sportsfile
It was McGeeney who drew him in initially, but the various personalities in the Armagh dressing-room quickly became as big a draw for Donaghy.
Their humility, honest of endeavour, and bravery to keep coming back for more after some heart-breaking defeats in recent years has earned Donaghy’s undying respect.
It would mean a huge amount to him if they could now take the final few steps to the top of the mountain by beating Galway in Sunday’s All-Ireland SFC Final.
“Yeah it would mean a lot to me to see the Soupy Campbells, the Andrew Murnins, Rory Grugans, Aidan Forkers win it,” says Donaghy.
“You have to have the General right, which is right with Armagh which is Kieran (McGeeney), but then he has his comrades, his lieutenants are the standard-bearers and they are versions of him and what he was as a player.
“He knew the guys he needed to drive it because if you’re always hammering from the top, it is going to get old quickly and it is going to break away. If you can get a few really good leaders around the group and have them push the standards instead of you, that’s when you are starting to get somewhere - that’s one of the things that’s been lovely to see over the last four years, how these experienced players are shaping the next group.
“They are trying to make sure they left the jersey in a better place than they found it, which they clearly have at this stage. You have to go and hopefully see it out and get a win to really rubber-stamp that side of it.”
