SEAN Hurley doesn’t sugarcoat it: at the end of 2023, Glengarriff GAA was on the brink.
‘It was looking like the club was going to fold at that time,’ he admits, as they struggled to get enough players to field a team.
‘We were down to the bare bones.’
It took blasts from the past to put the Beara club on a sound footing again, and now there’s a more optimistic feeling about its future. On Sunday, Glengarriff will take on Garnish in the Beara junior B football final in Castletownbere (2pm throw-in), hoping to go a step further than last season when they lost the final.
Looking at the bigger picture, Glengarriff has made important strides in these past two seasons.
‘I was the original chairman, and Terence O’Shea was the original secretary,’ Hurley explains, in reference to when the club was founded in 1981, ‘and we had to come back in 2024 after our retirements. Terence is the chairman, and I look after the team. We just had to build the club up bit by bit, and make it enjoyable. It's working. I shouldn’t be doing this at this hour of my life, but I’m enjoying it. There’s been a great reaction from the lads, they are willing to put in the work and it's rewarding.’
The proof is in the results: Glengarriff have beaten both Adrigole (1-10 to 0-7) and Castletownbere (1-13 to 0-13) to reach the Beara final. Earlier in the summer, Glengarriff qualified for the quarter-finals of the county confined junior B championship. These are all steps in the right direction.
Glengarriff manager Sean Hurley.
‘When we started last year we had only 13 players when we played the first round of the junior B confined county championship. We had to get fellas to stand in just to make up the numbers,’ Hurley says. ‘Against Adrigole in the recent Beara semi-final we had 21 players togged out.’
The work started in 2024 has continued into this season, and Hurley feels the players are reaping the rewards for the hard work they’re putting in.
‘We have six lads who are U21 who should be featuring on the Beara U21 team – and that’s encouraging for the future,’ says Hurley, who was the man in charge when Glengarriff won the Beara junior A title in 2009. ‘We've got fellas back now that have drifted away, like Shane Healy who had been away. We have two fellas who have played soccer, Brian and Darragh O’Connell-Sullivan, and they are making a massive difference, to have players like that involved. We have one lad who is 37 years old, Paul O’Sullivan who is the fittest man we have. Our full back Denis McCarthy, who is also our trainer, is in his early 30s. You have the lads in their mid-20s, and then the six U21s. We were stuck for numbers last year, but we are in better shape now. We're not saying we're going to beat Garnish in the final, but we're happy with where the club is right now.’
Look at Ciarán McElhinney – brother of Irish athlete Darragh – who jets in and out of London for Glengarriff games. ‘It’s fair commitment to do that, and that sets a standard when other fellas see Ciarán do that,’ Hurley says, noting that Callum McElhinney, another brother, is a serious footballer as well. They are all putting their shoulders to the wheel, and Glengarriff is moving in the right direction.
‘Playing in a Beara final is a big thing,’ Hurley notes. ‘If we won it would give the area a big lift. The whole community is pulling together, and it’s great to see.’
The Glengarriff manager expects a huge challenge from a Garnish side that beat Urhan by 3-15 to 0-8 in the other semi-final, with second-half goals from Brian Terry O’Sullivan, Sean Terry O’Sullivan and Shane Moran. But considering where Glengarriff football was two years ago, there are genuine reasons to be positive now.
