CALLUM McElhinney jokes that he now owns a medal his older brother, Irish athletics star Darragh, doesn’t.

‘He might pull some U12 medal out of the bag, but I’m not taking that!’ Callum laughs – and he’s already plotting a festive-season power move: placing his freshly-minted Beara junior B football medal on full display.

It means a lot to him. Callum (20) and his older brother Ciarán were both starters on the Glengarriff team that reclaimed top spot in Beara with a 1-9 to 1-8 win against Garnish in a final replay in October.

In his third season with Glengarriff, Callum finally has something tangible to show for his efforts. He also has the man-of-the-match trophy – another accolade Darragh can’t claim, he jokes. The brotherly rivalry is alive and well in the McElhinney household, which is no surprise given there are five brothers in total: Ciarán (31), Eoghan (28), Darragh (25), Callum (20) and Iarla (12).

Callum can pull one more trump card, too: he kicked the late, late winning point that clinched the Beara junior B title.

‘If I missed it, I would never show my face again!’ he laughs.

‘It was on the 20-yard line, straight in front of the posts! Not a lot could go wrong, but you still have to compose yourself, stick to your routine, tap it over and get ready for the kick-out.’

He did just that. Moments later, Glengarriff – managed by his uncle, Sean Hurley – were champions again, retaking the throne for the first time since 2020.

‘It was an unbelievable feeling, the buzz around the village afterwards,’ Callum says.

‘For three weeks after, everyone in the village was talking about it.’

That context matters, and it’s the backstory that provides the reason for the celebrations.

Beara final man of the match Callum McElhinney.

‘It was looking like the club was going to fold,’ Sean Hurley told the Star previously. Callum saw it himself.

‘In 2024, before we played Muintir Bháire in Kealkil in the county confined championship, we had just 14 players,’ he explains.

‘Ahead of the game, we were naming out people to see if they were around so we could make up the 15. Denis and Finbarr McCarthy’s older brother, Donie, stood in at corner forward.

‘It didn’t feel like it was going anywhere. We probably felt this was on the brink of folding. Going into games, it wasn’t the nicest feeling because you didn’t really know if we would have a team or not.’

But Glengarriff dug in. Football means too much to this community.

‘We all pulled together. Glengarriff is a small parish and the GAA means so much to us. We knew we couldn’t let the club fold,’ Callum says.

‘We got it together for the (2024) Beara championship, got 20 players for the Castletown game, and we won after extra-time. We lost to a stronger Adrigole team in the final, but we felt if we improve we could reach that level – and maybe go a step further, which we did.’

Numbers started to grow.

‘Aidan Healy, from Leitrim but living in Bantry, joined us. Brian and Darragh O’Sullivan O’Connell are two massive additions,’ Callum says. The management pushed hard, too. And look at the commitment of his older brother, Ciarán, who flies home from England for games.

‘As players, we knew that from where we were, the only way to go is up,’ Callum says. The hope now is that the 2025 success becomes a platform to build on in 2026.

‘The one thing about Beara football is you can’t take it for granted. This is a stepping stone, we hope, but we know how important it is to win in Beara. After you win Beara you can start to dream.’

They nearly made an even bigger breakthrough this past season.

‘We came close against Carrigaline in the county semi-final, losing by a point without bringing our A game,’ Callum says.

‘We can look back on this positively – we were so close to getting to a county final without being at our best.’

Now the plan is simple: go again in 2026. And with the McElhinneys driving the standards, Glengarriff will keep moving forward, and fast.