The Carndonagh U-17 team that will contest the Táin Óg Division 2 Final on Sunday.
By John Harrington
There has always been a strong tradition of hurling on the Inishowen peninsula in Donegal.
When Carndonagh GAA club was founded in 1921 by schoolteacher James Reid, it was initially a hurling only club and that remained the case until the 1930s.
The sport has waxed and waned at various stages since then, but it’s very much on the up again now.
After a hiatus of 13 years, they fielded again at senior level in 2019 and have been growing stronger year on year, culminating with an appearance in the Donegal Intermediate Final this year.
Encouragingly, their underage teams have never been better. Last year their minor team reached the county ‘A’ Final, and this year they won the Donegal Minor ‘A’ League for the very first time.
That same minor team will contest the Táin Óg League U-17 Division 2 Final on Sunday, while their U-13 team, managed by Ray Walsh and Una Lafferty, inked their own bit of history earlier this year by winning the club’s first ever ‘A’ Championship title.
No family has done more to put hurling back on the map in Carndonagh than the Doherty family.
Former Donegal football captain, John Joe Doherty, has put countless hours into coaching the youth of Carndonagh, and his sons have followed in his footsteps.
Padraig, a key player for the Donegal hurlers, coaches the U-17 team that plays in Sunday’s Táin Óg Final and as well as playing for the club’s senior footballers and hurlers also manages the footballers.
Donegal and Carndonagh hurler, Padraig Doherty, pictured at Croke Park with the Nickey Rackard Cup in 2018.
His younger brother Cathal is heavily involved in underage coaching too and also manages the club’s senior hurling team as well as plays for them.
You couldn’t find more committed club people, but Padraig is keen to spread the credit around when you highlight effort the Doherty family have made for Carndonagh over the years.
"There's a big core group of people there who are doing things in the background to keep it going,” he says.
“I don’t want to name them all in case I leave anyone out, but it’s a real collective effort.
“Without that, the whole thing could nearly fall apart. It's part and parcel of what's required.
“From my point of view, I just think it’s a lot easier if you're 17 and you know your coach is playing at senior level. So if you go up you already know boys before you go into the seniors.
“And if I’m playing with the senior team I’m going to be there anyway, that's my way of looking at it, so I don't mind investing a bit of extra time into it and managing them as well. It helps too when you're teaching, you have a bit more time.
“It's just part and parcel of it. You have to really invest in something if you want to get something out of it.”
Doherty is passionate about Carndonagh hurling because he keenly felt the loss of it himself when there was no senior team to graduate onto when he finished hurling minor.
To fill the void, he hurled at senior level with Burt instead. As soon as Carndonagh were in a position to field a senior team again in 2019, he immediately transferred his allegiance back to his home club again.
“It’s special because it's all the boys that you've grown up with,” he says. “I would have coached a lot of the boys that are playing on the senior team too. It's very hard to sell somebody something unless you can give them something to aim for.
“Now we have a senior team, boys are actually going, right, there's a pathway here for me. If I stick at it I can play at senior level. Whereas prior to 2019 if you finished playing minor and you weren't completely invested in hurling, you weren't going to make the effort to play for another club. Now boys have something to aim for.”
The Cardonagh U-13 hurlers won the club's first ever 'A' County title this year.
Doherty views Sunday’s Táin Óg Final against Longford Slashers as another opportunity to put a foundation block in place the club can build on in the coming years.
Some silverware would be nice, but his priority is to create something lasting rather than focus on short-term success.
"The more you win, the more people will think this is actually a viable thing I want my son or daughter to play,” he says.
“Success brings more people in, but, at the same time, success is a by-product of just keeping people at it. The more players you have, the more chance you have of getting some success.
“This U-17 team was the first team from the club to win something at Féile. They were the first team to win a County 'A' League. They're a good core group we can add now to the senior team. If you could even bring through six or seven players then you're slowly building a squad for seniors and, as a result, you'll slowly progress because you have a squad.
“So, if someone gets injured, someone emigrates, or someone has to move down the country, the whole thing doesn't just fall apart because two or three boys aren't available.
“Most of the boys who play on our senior team at the minute haven't won that much at underage. Our whole thing is basically, if you win something at underage then great, but our main goal is to bring players through to play senior.
“Because if we could have a bigger depth at seniors it means its going to last for longer. You could win everything at underage but if you've no senior team it doesn't matter.
“Our whole mentality is to make sure boys stick at it and to make sure we have a senior team in 10 or 15 years time and it doesn't fall away like it did before.”
Lessons have been learned from the past. A bright future for hurling on the Inishowen peninsula beckons.
