FOR A FEW weeks in the depths of last winter, the rhythms and patterns of life that had sustained Darren Hughes and generations of his family, were ripped away.
His entire dairy herd had contracted Bovine TB.
In mid-November he suspected it and did some testing. The news wasn’t good.
“I had 160 head of cattle. 104 cows and whatever number of heifers, one or two year old, coming in behind. I imagine it was badgers that spread it here. My case was extreme. 80% was affected.”
Some farmers are remarkably unmoved about their livestock, but for Hughes it was, ‘devastating at the time, emotionally.’
From a business point of view, it is enough to put the lights out on some farms. The Department of Agriculture will reimburse you, but only enough to get you back on your feet.
And naturally your income is wiped out until you can produce two clear tests, six weeks apart.
On a wet Monday morning, 2 December, three double-decker lorries came to take every single cow away to be destroyed.
The fields were empty. The calf houses empty. The robot-operated milking parlour lay silent. Nothing left and nothing to do, only tidy up fences and hedges.
“There was an eerie feeling about the place. Your routine, your way of life was all knocked out of synch,” said Hughes.
Before the situation arose, he was one of a trio of Monaghan players that were in their late 30’s, along with Conor McManus and Karl O’Connell, all deliberating over their inter-county future.
Now, unable to buy any stock until April, he was left idle. A day or two later, he called up Monaghan manager Gabriel Bannigan and said he would be report back to Monaghan training from New Year’s Day. He would play another year.
That’s if he was wanted.
*****
And oh, how they wanted and needed him.
His first senior game for Monaghan was as low-key as you could get. A Tommy Murphy Cup loss to Louth in Dundalk on a Friday night back in 2006.
All in, it was 20 seasons devoted to the cause. As per Colm Shalvey, GAA journalist with The Northern Standard, he served under five managers and played every line from goalkeeper to full-forward.
It’s difficult to see anyone getting close to his 206 appearances. His scoring tally finished at 13-77.
One of our county's greatest servants, featured in 19 seasons at senior level under five managers and in every line from goals to FF. Played 206 times (possibly a Monaghan record), scoring 13-77. Glad he made it back for one more year after his injury v Cavan in '24. https://t.co/ahhEe4QpiA
He won the Ulster senior championship twice under Malachy O’Rourke and while Scotstown went 20 years without a Monaghan title before 2013, he now has nine of them. He has captained Ulster to a Railway Cup title and been part of three tours of Australia with the International Rules side.
When Hughes first came into the Monaghan side, he morphed quickly from a round-faced UUJ student to an almost gaunt presence as he stuck to the ‘caveman diet’ as favoured by Martin McElkennon – Monaghan coach under Seamus ‘Banty’ McEnaney, that insisted on no sauce, sugar and precious little carbohydrates in the diet.
In 2010, he was at the centre of an audacious move when met Armagh in Casement Park. Regular goalkeeper Shane Duffy was injured, and Hughes stood between the sticks for a few drills at training.
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It wasn’t completely new to him; he had been the county minor goalkeeper in 2005 and had played some junior soccer with local outfits Glaslough Villa and Killylough in Tydavnet.
When the Friday night training session ended, assistant manager Paul Grimley whispered to Hughes that Banty would be calling him the following day to tell him he would be between the sticks.
Hughes went into McDermotts Sports in Monaghan Town to buy gloves. A quizzical look from a shop assistant was met with a blurted-out bluff yarn about a birthday present for a cousin.
Despite landing to the venue just 25 minutes before throw-in, Monaghan walloped Armagh. Hughes kept a clean sheet. At the final whistle he went to gather his stuff in the net and a battalion of The Farney Army were chanting ‘Hughesy! Hughesy! Hughesy!’ behind his goal.
In goals against Armagh. William Cherry
William Cherry
He stayed in that position for the semi-final win over Fermanagh, before an ankle injury to Vinny Corey meant a defensive reshuffle for the final against Tyrone.
Hughes went to centre-back, JP Mone moved to full-back and an injured Duffy had to play goal anyway.
Barely a year went by without Hughes being in some odd scenario, or injury through bravery. Under Eamonn McEneaney he picked up three bangs right in the same spot for three consecutive games.
What was initially thought of as a dead leg became worse as the blood remained and there were fears the bone could become calcified. McEneaney knew the Republic of Ireland soccer team doctor, Dr Alan Byrne, who sorted it out, though not before a needle went four inches inside Hughes to drain the blood.
And then there was the ludicrous event in the 2015 All-Ireland quarter-final. Type ‘Rufflegate’ into Google now and it will bring you to the moment that Hughes gently tousled the hair of Tyrone’s Tiernan McCann and he promptly hit the deck, simulating injury, leading to a red card for Hughes.
Two Ulster titles in 2013 and 2015 was scant enough reward for his daring.
Beyond the figures, there was a certain old-school quality to Hughes that people admired. The Monaghan teams he played on had no end of popular and cult figures such as Rory Woods, Dessie Mone, Conor McManus, Dick Clerkin, Vinny Corey, Karl O’Connell, Tommy Freeman, Paul Finley, and Drew Wylie. They were as personable a group as you’d get.
Stylistically, when Hughes got the ball, he invariably headed towards the opposition goal, trusting his control, power and daring to make something happen. Not for him, the lateral handpass and a point of the finger into faraway spaces.
*****
What will he miss, now that it’s gone?
“Ah, just the craic, I suppose,” he says.
“I loved coming in from the farm, I could be wrecked, but as soon as I came through the door and got my bag I was bouncing out to training, no matter what the workload had been like the rest of the day.
“Everything about it. I was there from 2006 and knew nothing different. I have no regrets whatsoever. If someone said to me in 2006 that this is the career you will have, how much you will win, the people you meet and the friends you have, the craic you will have…
“I will be playing club football for as long as I can. But it’s a different environment. Different buzz. Big games, All-Ireland games.”
The rest of the country looks at Monaghan and marvels at what a small county can do. The 2022 Census props up the argument, showing us that only Fermanagh, Carlow, Longford and Leitrim have smaller populations.
“There was a lot of stuff said about the size of the county, and we always punched above our weight. But, like, we had damn good players playing for us. That was the bottom line,” says Hughes.
“No matter about population size, and you can put credit on the coaching structures from the clubs through to the county board, our development squads would have been starting to come to fruition from 2003 or ‘04 or ‘05, whenever they started, like it was probably a culture shift in mentality in Monaghan’s football.
Winning the Ulster title, 2013. Presseye / William Cherry/INPHO
Presseye / William Cherry/INPHO / William Cherry/INPHO
“Banty took over in 2005, like, Monaghan wasn’t going well. There was a complete culture shift in Monaghan in how they trained and performed. The boys got to Croke Park twice that year, and for me, as a supporter at the time, it was unbelievable.
“That was the shift, and started to work their way up through the league ranks then. And for as long as I’ve been playing, like you were in or around the top table.”
Married to Orlagh, he might be doing a bit more with Ava (7) and Cillian (4) as she gets to indulge her passion for horse riding.
There is a growing unease among some inter-county players right now about the amount of time spent in the team bubble.
John McVitty / INPHO
John McVitty / INPHO / INPHO
That’s not across the board. Apparently All-Ireland hurling champions Tipperary had just two overnight stays this season. But other high profile county teams are have long gone past the point of hotel fatigue with one in particular having over a dozen overnight stays in the 2025 season.
If Monaghan were like that, it would have ruled Hughes out.
“I told Orlagh that she knew what she was getting into when she married me, but she might not have known how long it would last,” says Hughes.
“For the farm, I can manage around it now. I’m grateful to have Dad here that I can leave on a Saturday morning and the thing is sort of set up and he can look after the thing for a day or two.
“But if it was going to be every weekend and you were leaving the farm or leaving the kids and depending on somebody else to run the show, like it just would take its toll eventually. You could do it for a certain amount of time, but you couldn’t do it for a prolonged period.”
He recalls a league game away to Kerry on a Sunday afternoon a few seasons ago. Problem was he had cows calving. He stayed on the farm until Saturday evening before getting a lift down in a car.
You can be flippant and say that Jim Gavin never had to deal with that shit, but as the GAA wrestles with its’ sham label of amateurism with managers demanding more and more, it’s obvious to see that the likes of Hughes are on the verge of extinction.
In April last year, he was involved in a collision against Cavan in the preliminary round of the Ulster championship that ruptured a posterior cruciate ligament and fractured his tibia.
At 37, it should have been a career-ender.
It would have been, only for the situation on the farm.
“That was probably the main factor in me going back this year. Probably got into better shape than I anticipated or expected and I was delighted with the role I was going to play coming on in certain games if needed,” he said.
“I just told Gabriel he could do whatever he wanted with me. At my time of day, I wasn’t going to be pushing to start, or playing here or there.”
Against Clare, he came on for the injured Gary Mohan, ten minutes into the second half. The rest of the games he was barely getting ten-minute spells.
“It would have been a struggle to play a half of a county game. But I was delighted to play my part.”
And at the very end, he did it his way. No Instagram post or social media like-hunting.
He just called up Gabriel Bannigan, and told him he was done. He was getting fed up of having to divert conversations or even lie to people about his future plans.
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Injuries, age, losing a full herd of cattle: How Monaghan star Hughes gave it one final year
FOR A FEW weeks in the depths of last winter, the rhythms and patterns of life that had sustained Darren Hughes and generations of his family, were ripped away.
His entire dairy herd had contracted Bovine TB.
In mid-November he suspected it and did some testing. The news wasn’t good.
“I had 160 head of cattle. 104 cows and whatever number of heifers, one or two year old, coming in behind. I imagine it was badgers that spread it here. My case was extreme. 80% was affected.”
Some farmers are remarkably unmoved about their livestock, but for Hughes it was, ‘devastating at the time, emotionally.’
From a business point of view, it is enough to put the lights out on some farms. The Department of Agriculture will reimburse you, but only enough to get you back on your feet.
And naturally your income is wiped out until you can produce two clear tests, six weeks apart.
On a wet Monday morning, 2 December, three double-decker lorries came to take every single cow away to be destroyed.
The fields were empty. The calf houses empty. The robot-operated milking parlour lay silent. Nothing left and nothing to do, only tidy up fences and hedges.
“There was an eerie feeling about the place. Your routine, your way of life was all knocked out of synch,” said Hughes.
Before the situation arose, he was one of a trio of Monaghan players that were in their late 30’s, along with Conor McManus and Karl O’Connell, all deliberating over their inter-county future.
Now, unable to buy any stock until April, he was left idle. A day or two later, he called up Monaghan manager Gabriel Bannigan and said he would be report back to Monaghan training from New Year’s Day. He would play another year.
That’s if he was wanted.
*****
And oh, how they wanted and needed him.
His first senior game for Monaghan was as low-key as you could get. A Tommy Murphy Cup loss to Louth in Dundalk on a Friday night back in 2006.
All in, it was 20 seasons devoted to the cause. As per Colm Shalvey, GAA journalist with The Northern Standard, he served under five managers and played every line from goalkeeper to full-forward.
It’s difficult to see anyone getting close to his 206 appearances. His scoring tally finished at 13-77.
He won the Ulster senior championship twice under Malachy O’Rourke and while Scotstown went 20 years without a Monaghan title before 2013, he now has nine of them. He has captained Ulster to a Railway Cup title and been part of three tours of Australia with the International Rules side.
When Hughes first came into the Monaghan side, he morphed quickly from a round-faced UUJ student to an almost gaunt presence as he stuck to the ‘caveman diet’ as favoured by Martin McElkennon – Monaghan coach under Seamus ‘Banty’ McEnaney, that insisted on no sauce, sugar and precious little carbohydrates in the diet.
In 2010, he was at the centre of an audacious move when met Armagh in Casement Park. Regular goalkeeper Shane Duffy was injured, and Hughes stood between the sticks for a few drills at training.
It wasn’t completely new to him; he had been the county minor goalkeeper in 2005 and had played some junior soccer with local outfits Glaslough Villa and Killylough in Tydavnet.
When the Friday night training session ended, assistant manager Paul Grimley whispered to Hughes that Banty would be calling him the following day to tell him he would be between the sticks.
Despite landing to the venue just 25 minutes before throw-in, Monaghan walloped Armagh. Hughes kept a clean sheet. At the final whistle he went to gather his stuff in the net and a battalion of The Farney Army were chanting ‘Hughesy! Hughesy! Hughesy!’ behind his goal.
He stayed in that position for the semi-final win over Fermanagh, before an ankle injury to Vinny Corey meant a defensive reshuffle for the final against Tyrone.
Hughes went to centre-back, JP Mone moved to full-back and an injured Duffy had to play goal anyway.
Barely a year went by without Hughes being in some odd scenario, or injury through bravery. Under Eamonn McEneaney he picked up three bangs right in the same spot for three consecutive games.
What was initially thought of as a dead leg became worse as the blood remained and there were fears the bone could become calcified. McEneaney knew the Republic of Ireland soccer team doctor, Dr Alan Byrne, who sorted it out, though not before a needle went four inches inside Hughes to drain the blood.
And then there was the ludicrous event in the 2015 All-Ireland quarter-final. Type ‘Rufflegate’ into Google now and it will bring you to the moment that Hughes gently tousled the hair of Tyrone’s Tiernan McCann and he promptly hit the deck, simulating injury, leading to a red card for Hughes.
Two Ulster titles in 2013 and 2015 was scant enough reward for his daring.
Beyond the figures, there was a certain old-school quality to Hughes that people admired. The Monaghan teams he played on had no end of popular and cult figures such as Rory Woods, Dessie Mone, Conor McManus, Dick Clerkin, Vinny Corey, Karl O’Connell, Tommy Freeman, Paul Finley, and Drew Wylie. They were as personable a group as you’d get.
Stylistically, when Hughes got the ball, he invariably headed towards the opposition goal, trusting his control, power and daring to make something happen. Not for him, the lateral handpass and a point of the finger into faraway spaces.
*****
What will he miss, now that it’s gone?
“Ah, just the craic, I suppose,” he says.
“Everything about it. I was there from 2006 and knew nothing different. I have no regrets whatsoever. If someone said to me in 2006 that this is the career you will have, how much you will win, the people you meet and the friends you have, the craic you will have…
“I will be playing club football for as long as I can. But it’s a different environment. Different buzz. Big games, All-Ireland games.”
The rest of the country looks at Monaghan and marvels at what a small county can do. The 2022 Census props up the argument, showing us that only Fermanagh, Carlow, Longford and Leitrim have smaller populations.
“There was a lot of stuff said about the size of the county, and we always punched above our weight. But, like, we had damn good players playing for us. That was the bottom line,” says Hughes.
“No matter about population size, and you can put credit on the coaching structures from the clubs through to the county board, our development squads would have been starting to come to fruition from 2003 or ‘04 or ‘05, whenever they started, like it was probably a culture shift in mentality in Monaghan’s football.
“Banty took over in 2005, like, Monaghan wasn’t going well. There was a complete culture shift in Monaghan in how they trained and performed. The boys got to Croke Park twice that year, and for me, as a supporter at the time, it was unbelievable.
“That was the shift, and started to work their way up through the league ranks then. And for as long as I’ve been playing, like you were in or around the top table.”
Married to Orlagh, he might be doing a bit more with Ava (7) and Cillian (4) as she gets to indulge her passion for horse riding.
There is a growing unease among some inter-county players right now about the amount of time spent in the team bubble.
That’s not across the board. Apparently All-Ireland hurling champions Tipperary had just two overnight stays this season. But other high profile county teams are have long gone past the point of hotel fatigue with one in particular having over a dozen overnight stays in the 2025 season.
If Monaghan were like that, it would have ruled Hughes out.
“I told Orlagh that she knew what she was getting into when she married me, but she might not have known how long it would last,” says Hughes.
“For the farm, I can manage around it now. I’m grateful to have Dad here that I can leave on a Saturday morning and the thing is sort of set up and he can look after the thing for a day or two.
“But if it was going to be every weekend and you were leaving the farm or leaving the kids and depending on somebody else to run the show, like it just would take its toll eventually. You could do it for a certain amount of time, but you couldn’t do it for a prolonged period.”
He recalls a league game away to Kerry on a Sunday afternoon a few seasons ago. Problem was he had cows calving. He stayed on the farm until Saturday evening before getting a lift down in a car.
You can be flippant and say that Jim Gavin never had to deal with that shit, but as the GAA wrestles with its’ sham label of amateurism with managers demanding more and more, it’s obvious to see that the likes of Hughes are on the verge of extinction.
*****
In April last year, he was involved in a collision against Cavan in the preliminary round of the Ulster championship that ruptured a posterior cruciate ligament and fractured his tibia.
At 37, it should have been a career-ender.
It would have been, only for the situation on the farm.
“That was probably the main factor in me going back this year. Probably got into better shape than I anticipated or expected and I was delighted with the role I was going to play coming on in certain games if needed,” he said.
“I just told Gabriel he could do whatever he wanted with me. At my time of day, I wasn’t going to be pushing to start, or playing here or there.”
Against Clare, he came on for the injured Gary Mohan, ten minutes into the second half. The rest of the games he was barely getting ten-minute spells.
“It would have been a struggle to play a half of a county game. But I was delighted to play my part.”
And at the very end, he did it his way. No Instagram post or social media like-hunting.
He just called up Gabriel Bannigan, and told him he was done. He was getting fed up of having to divert conversations or even lie to people about his future plans.
Old school. To the end.
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Darren Hughes GAA Monaghan GAA old school the farming footballer