THE Kilmacabea GAA complex is situated close to the boundary of east and west Carbery, where Chieftain O’Donovan famously escaped British forces following the Battle of Kinsale, spurring his horse across the chasm of the Poll Mór.

The local GAA club has made major strides in 2025, culminating in being crowned Club of the Year at the 2025 West Cork Sports Star Awards banquet at the Celtic Ross Hotel in Rosscarbery last weekend.

Strikingly, it wasn’t just Kilmacabea’s historic success in capturing their first-ever Cork Junior A Football Championship title – defeating Donoughmore at Páirc Uí Chaoimh in late November – that proved decisive, as club chairperson Barry Glavin explained.

‘In 2022, we set up an LGFA club as part of a one-club structure – Kilmacabea GAA and LGFA together as one,’ Glavin said.

‘We wanted to bring in the other part of our community, the female element, because we weren’t one club until everybody came on board.

‘Since then, the success that the underage girls have brought to the club has been fantastic and it has embraced the whole community.

‘We brought in so many people who just weren’t part of what the original GAA club was and it formed a really strong bond within the club.

‘We won a championship in the first year we formed the LGFA side, but we knew we needed more because our facilities weren’t right – they weren’t big enough. We had only one pitch and needed something else, like an astro pitch.

‘So we formed an astro pitch committee and set about fundraising. We had Leap Sync1, which was a huge success. That was followed by Leap Sync2, Leap Dyno and then Leap in Bloom.’

Kilmacabea's William Williamson and Barry Glavin with the Club of the Year award. (Photo: Martin Walsh)

Things certainly blossomed. With the funds raised, the club constructed an astro pitch and, such was the success of the fundraising, there was enough money left over to facilitate the installation of floodlighting on the main pitch.

‘We now have a facility that is a massive success,’ Glavin added.

As a result, the club has grown exponentially to around 400 members. This month, the ‘Mothers and Others’ group has been encouraging people to walk around the fully lit complex on Tuesday and Friday nights – further strengthening the sense of community and belonging, not to mention the positive health benefits.

Kilmacabea have also entered the Irish Life GAA Healthy Clubs Steps Challenge and are committed to climbing the leaderboard.

Club secretary Narelle Jennings, who is very much at the heartbeat of Kilmacabea – not least with her son Ian captaining the team to championship success – had no difficulty pinpointing the start of their upward curve.

Captains (extreme left and right), club secretaries and club chairpersons (centre) of the Club of the Year (Kilmacabea) and Team of the Year (Kilbrittain) enjoying the awards; from left, Kilmacabea's Ian Jennings, Narelle Jennings and Barry Glavin with Kilbrittain's Dermot Hayes, Marion Twohig and Philip Wall. (Photo: Martin Walsh)

‘Since the girls joined the club, we’ve had so many new families coming on board and they’re all very driven,’ she explained.

‘Anyone you ask to do anything, the answer is yes, and that makes it much easier.

‘With the lads winning, the bond in the community and the outpouring of joy and support from the whole parish just makes everything worthwhile.’

A first county junior A final appearance since the agonising loss to Dromtarriffe in 2018 underlines the fickle nature of sport and how nothing should ever be taken for granted. However, the desire to keep moving onwards and upwards is now firmly embedded.

On the club’s increasing membership, Glavin remarked: ‘People are more comfortable getting involved in a GAA club now because there isn’t an exclusivity to it. There’s a more open, welcoming factor – and that’s one of the great strengths of the GAA and the LGFA. The LGFA has really brought that open-arms policy to the club.’

He added: ‘This year, for the first time ever, Kilmacabea are going to form an adult ladies football team. It’s a massive undertaking for the club. We have many adult players who have never played for Kilmacabea and we want to put that right.’

That ambition, combined with competing in the premier junior county series – where Donie O’Donovan is once again their chieftain – means there is plenty to leap about in Kilmacabea.