TOP 10: The Empire strikes back in an unforgettable year of success for West Cork GAA

It’s been a memorable year for West Cork GAA, our best in a long time, so we challenged TOM LYONS to rank his top 10 highlights 

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WHAT a year it was for sports’ followers in West Cork. While GAA is our main interest and our remit here, we watched with delight Munster’s late heroics in the URC, including so many West Cork lads, our rowers again bringing home gold, our young athlete’s building promising careers, our bowlers conquering the roads and our Cork camogie team winning a great All-Ireland title. 

It was highlight after welcome highlight, especially on the GAA pitches, and of course there were disappointments to make the successes even sweeter. 

Cork footballers and hurlers struggling, Dohenys, Bantry and Goleen losing county finals, Barryroe footballers and Clonakilty hurlers failing to make an impression in the county, our spirits sank with each defeat but were quickly raised again by the heroics of Newcestown, Castlehaven, Cork camogie, amd Skibbereen and Castlehaven ladies footballers. 

To pick ten highlights was nearly impossible as we had to exclude some really noteworthy achievements during the season, so if you feel slighted in any way by not being included here, remember it was space and not intent that caused the omission. 

1 – Ten years and many near misses should have dented Castlehaven’s hunger for success but 2023 proved the very opposite. Surviving the group of death in West Cork against Carbery Rangers, Clonakilty and Valley Rovers before lowering the colours of Ballincollig in the quarter final, the real tests lay ahead. The critics were truly silenced as they beat arch-rivals St Finbarr’s in the semi-final and then champions Nemo Rangers in the county final. Reaching a Munster final, against Dingle, was never envisaged last July for this Haven side but when you have the Hurley brothers at the peak of their scoring powers, surrounded by the talent and spirit of the Cahalanes and Maguires among others, nothing is impossible on the football field. Winning an incredible Munster final, on sudden death penalties, capped a memorable year for Haven, county and Munster champions, and also Munster GAA Club of the Year.

2 – Newcestown’s double county in senior A football and hurling was a huge highlight of the year in West Cork. Winning a county in any grade is a huge achievement, winning two within a couple of weeks is almost downright greed and nearly impossible. The split season saw Newcestown in action week after in both codes, with a limited panel of players, and amazingly, they were getting better and stronger with every game. Great credit to managers Charlie Wilson and Tim Buckley as captains Eoghan Collins and Luke Meade led their teams to unforgettable final victories over Blarney and Dohenys. They say the dual player is a dying breed in the GAA, Newcestown are the shining example of how it can be done. 

3 – Nobody would have blamed a young O’Donovan Rossa ladies football team if last season’s county junior final defeat to Naomh Abán would have set them back a few years but this is a special group of young footballers and, to their great credit, not only have they gone through 2023 unbeaten, collecting county and Munster titles along the way but they have done so playing a marvellous brand of football, showing wonderful character all the way. A derby county final win over Dohenys, a Munster final win over Clounmacon-Moyvane of Kerry, a successful trip to Glasgow and a marvellous home semi-final win over Gusserane of Wexford were the highlights, and then that incredible All-Ireland final win against Claremorris. When one considers how young this team is and the talent of players like Laura O’Mahony, Éabha O’Donovan, Fionnuala O’Driscoll, Allie Tobin, Kate O’Donovan and captain, Lisa Harte, then the sky is surely the limit. 

4 – Just because it was junior B grade doesn’t make St Oliver Plunketts’ achievement of winning a double county any less noteworthy than that of neighbours Newcestown. That they won both titles in the space of eight days was amazing considering that they were working off the same small panel of players in football and hurling, aged from 40 down to 18. This was supposed to be a club in decline but with exciting young players like Padraig Healy, Roy O’Driscoll and Seán O’Donovan supplementing the undoubted talents of veterans Michael P Keohane, Conor McCarthy, the O’Driscoll brothers and Gary McCarthy, Plunkett’s went on a roll of success. Throw in a goalkeeper Brian Walsh, who can score a last-gasp, winning point from a free in the county football final against Ballyphehane and the only female manager in West Cork, Margaret Keohane, and it was a special year indeed for the Magpies from Ahiohill as they completed the double with a comprehensive hurling final win over Ballyclough, with Cian McCarthy hitting nine points.

5 – It was history in the making in the Carbery junior A football championship when Barryroe won their first-ever title in the grade. Having been controversially ousted from the championship in 2022, it was glory time for the light Blues as they advanced to the knockout stages of the championship. It was then the real drama began as they had to go to extra time in three games in a row to win the title, the quarter-final against Castlehaven, the semi-final against Ballinascarthy and, incredibly, the final against a game Kilmacabea. It was without doubt one of the most enjoyable and entertaining finals we have ever seen, under lights in Dunmanway. When all was said and done, one star shone brightest of all among the Blues, the scoring exploits of Ryan O’Donovan rarely being equalled in the long history of the competition. 1-8 in the final capped a marvellous junior season for this gem of a forward, with his cousin, Olan, not too far behind as a bright future beckons for the club. 

6 – We’re forever beating a drum for Carbery hurling and while Newcestown and Plunkett’s struck solid blows for the cause this season, plus the good form of Luke Meade on the Cork senior team, it was the exploits of a hurler from one of our smallest clubs that delighted us all. Small in stature but huge in heart and talent, Seán Daly had a great season with Randal Óg, Carbery in football, UCC and, especially, Cork. His exploits as a midfielder on the UCC Fitzgibbon team brought him to the attention of Ben O’Connor and the Cork U20 selectors. The result was a Munster title when Clare were beaten, and then an All-Ireland title against Offaly. These were the first intercounty hurling medals to be brought to the Ballinacarriga club and Daly was rightly feted among his own as the hurling followers of Carbery enjoyed his rise to fame. We await his development with interest.

7 – Maybe the ultimate prize eluded them again, for the fourth time in five years, but this again was a clear case of enjoying the chase rather than the last catch. Goleen footballers live a precarious sporting life in the far reaches of the Mizen but their spirit and determination to overcome the odds has endeared them to football followers far and wide. Their history is full of heartbreak stories and 2023 certainly added to them. First, they lost a county junior B confined semi-final to Plunkett’s, a game they should have won, and Plunkett’s went on to win the final. Then they reached the final of the open junior B county championship and, after dominating much of the game, lost to a late Douglas rally. Heartbreak again for the fourth time in a county final but the highlight of the season will live long in the memory. Trailing Plunkett’s in the South West final in Bantry by five points with five minutes to go, the Mayo curse seemed to have reached the Mizen, but in an amazing finish, they kicked two goals to win the game. How they celebrated that one and understandably so. 2024 beckons and Goleen will be ready to roll, again. 

8 – If ever there was a trajectory to the top it is surely the Castlehaven ladies football team over the past five years. The newly-formed team won its first county title at junior D level in 2017, then junior D in 2019 and it has been an incredible county title every year since as they climbed up through the grades. This year it was into senior ranks for the first time and even though senior A proved a step too far, for the time being, they were on the trail of silverware again in senior B. Having beaten arch-rivals, Clonakilty in the semi-final, it was a clash with last year’s finalists, Fermoy, in the final. Down five points, the Haven spirit was clear to see as they were level by half time and powered to a battling single-point win, 4-5 to 1-13, in a thrill-a-minute second half. A title every season, who would bet against them winning the senior A in 2024? 

9 – Media awards in the GAA are hard won, and the famed national MacNamee Awards are treasured accomplishments. Since he arrived as sports editor with The Southern Star a dozen years ago, Kerryman Kieran McCarthy has transformed the sports section of the newspaper, raising sports in West Cork to a new level. Already the recipient of a national award from the Camogie Association for his coverage of that sport, as well as a previous LGFA Journalist of the Year, and a nominee for sports book of the year for his inside story on Skibbereen’s successful rowers, he was the recipient of the prestigious MacNamee Award this year for his coverage of GAA games in this newspaper; with his 2021 interview with Bantry great Damian O’Neill wowing the judges. That award was not presented until this October for various reasons and it crowned a special week in the life of West Cork’s best-known Kerryman as he was married to his long-time partner, Eilish Dineen, to put the icing on the cake. While we deeply mourn the sad passing of his great friend and fellow-Kerryman, Paudie Palmer, in January, we celebrate the success of a Kerryman who has changed the face of sport in West Cork. 

10 – She, or he, is one of our own, how we love to make that claim in the case of successful sportspeople. Well, when the Cork camogie team blitzed their way to a wonderful All-Ireland title win over Waterford, having gained sweet revenge over Kilkenny in the semi-final, we could rightly claim that one of the All-Stars who emerged from that team is one of our own. All the way from Kealkil, we have sung the praises and admired the deeds of Libby Coppinger for a number of years on both the hurling and football fields but her displays at full back with the camogie team were simply outstanding, making her a worthy recipient of her second All-Star award. Long may she continue to grace both teams. We must add in here two other All-Stars, Méabh Cahalane, and Saoirse McCarthy. They may not play their club hurling in Carbery but they have strong West Cork connections and would not mind if we claim them as our own, too. West Cork rejoiced in their great achievements.