By John Harrington

Every landmark in the Tannaghmore area of Lurgan has been draped with the orange and white colours of Clann Eireann ahead of Sunday’s Armagh SFC Final against Crossmaglen Rangers.

It’s the first time the club has reached a County Final in 53 years and you have to go back another five years since they won one, so the place is buzzing.

This long-awaited county final appearance doesn’t make the club any more relevant to its local community than it already was, though.

Clann Eireann has always been part of the fabric of their part of Lurgan thanks to their status as a social hub as much as a sporting one.

Generation of children and teenagers grew up in Clann Eireann’s vibrant Youth Club which has been the heartbeat of the local community for almost 70 years.

“Our club-man Alf Murray, who would become GAA President, felt that the GAA should accomplish more than just produce Gaelic athletes,” explains current Clann Eireann Chairperson, Donal McCarthy.

“He was instrumental in setting up the Youth Club in Clann Eireann which has been on the go since 1953. At that time they made the very bold move of building a hall to facilitate this.

“Now we've just got a new state of the art two million pound facility funded by the Department of Education which was completed back in 2018 and has given the community a great lift.

“We have a big health and wellbeing team as well and we're constantly looking at ways of connecting with our community.”

A desire to improve themselves and find new and better ways of doing things is also behind Clann Eireann’s renaissance as a footballing force in the county.

21 years ago they decided to completely overhaul how they coached their youngest players, and now they’re being rewarded for having such foresight.

“We started a programme for four to eight year olds back in 2000 under the stewardship of the late John Morrison,” says McCarthy. “John took a group of us and actually taught us how to think like four-year-olds.

“That was in 2000, this time 21 years ago. We spent six weeks with him and then in early 2001 we implemented the four to eight programme.

“What we had been seeing was that Clann Eireann were always producing good players and they got progressively better the older they got. What we were trying to build a base so we had a stronger skill level starting off and then we could continue building on a better base.

“We started that 20 years ago now and for the first eight to ten years we didn't see any real benefit. We just continued to work at it and do it. In the last 12 years I think we've won somewhere in the region of 26 underage titles.

“And prior to that we had won three in the previous 100 years.

“Because we've won all of those underage titles in the last 12 years, a lot of people would have been saying when are Clann Eireann going to deliver in the senior grade. Hopefully it will be this Sunday.

“The vast majority of these players came through that system. They're nearly all 22/23 and they've been given an opportunity now to perform on the biggest stage in the senior level now.”

This Clann Eireann team is very young, but they’ve been coming for a while.

Eight of them were part of the St. Ronan’s Lurgan panel that won the All-Ireland Senior Schools Football Final (Hogan Cup) in 2018.

The same year, Clann Eireann, managed by Donal McCarthy, won the Armagh U-21 Football Championship for the very first time and then made it back to back titles in the grade in 2019.

Rising stars like Conor Turbitt, Tiernan Kelly, and Barry McCambridge have been drafted into the Armagh senior panel by Kieran McGeeney, which has had an other positive impact on the club.

“To have those boys playing inter-county and coming home to the club and competing with their compatriots for many years, that raises standards,” says McCarthy.

“In fairness, the boys are great players, but they're good club-men too.”

Regardless of what happens on the day itself, reaching this County Final after such a long wait has been a massive shot in the arm for everyone associated with Clann Eireann.

Huge work has gone into coaching and developing young players in the club, and everyone will redouble their efforts now that the fruits of their labour are so visible.

“That's the thing,” says McCarthy. “It's not a one-season or one-hit wonder, there's massive work that goes into this. As I've said already, it took ten years for us to turn the corner and start to win underage titles.

“Ten years later here we are in our first county senior final. It's a credit to the work that the players have put in and that their families have put in because there's a lot of commitment to ensure that these kids are brought through.

“The players, the families, and the efforts of the coaches, it's just great to be involved in it, and it's great for the community.”

Clann Eireann are rank underdogs going into Sunday’s Final against Armagh club king-pins, Crossmaglen, who have won 21 of the last 25 County Senior Football Championships.

Perhaps that might suit the Lurgan team, though. They’re not burdened by expectation, and if their talented young team rise to the occasion it’s not beyond the bounds of believability that they could pull off a shock.

“The thing about Sunday is you want to get a performance,” says McCarthy “You don't want to leave there feeling like you haven't performed. In all the games in the Championship we played we were in contention coming down the straight and got over the line. That's where we want to be on Sunday.

“We want to be in contention coming down the line. All of these players have had good days and bad days against Crossmaglen in the past. They've won and lost against them. So they won't be overawed by the Crossmaglen players, but they will respect them.

“They've played with them in school or at inter-county level so they know what to expect. Undoubtedly it will be a step up for us, a senior county final, and we just hope they perform and see what happens after that.”