ON 12 MAY, the Louth players thought they had tucked themselves away nicely for the day in The Village Saloon in Dromin.
Off the beaten track and out of the way, the thinking might have been that they could get an hour or two to gather themselves and put the previous 24 hours into context.
But word gets out. It was hardly a guarded secret anyway. Before they knew it, estimates had it that there was around 1,000 people milling around the small village.
Louth’s Leinster title did many things on a macro and micro scale.
For Louth football fans, it was the sweetest of days. Those that had been there 68 years before when they beat Dublin in the 1957 Leinster final had a lifetime’s suffering in between.
In a flash, it restored the credibility of a Leinster football championship that had, for over a decade, became one of the worst competitions in Gaelic games.
It turned a summer Monday into an unofficial Bank Holiday with thousands scrubbing themselves up and heading out on the beer for a day.
Conor Grimes and daughter Izzy, celebrate with Ciaran Byrne.
*****
The job was finished by the players. Unquestionably.
Consider the context.
Ten days after his 18 years in charge of Tyrone were over in November 2020, Mickey Harte was unveiled as the new manager of Louth.
It was a shock then. It still surprises to think of it now. Harte had been operating at the sharp end of Gaelic football management, competing for and winning Ulster and All-Ireland titles.
But Louth?
They were set to start the 2021 league in Division 4 North, following the league restructuring for Covid times.
Each season brought an incremental improvement. Promotion in that first league campaign, but then walloped in the Leinster first round after extra-time.
If ever foundations were being laid however, this was a prime example.
When Harte, and his assistant Gavin Devlin came in, they set up an office in the Darver training complex. Call them fussy, but they found things could be done better. Differently, let’s say.
They knew intimately what the Garvaghey centre gave Tyrone, and took that blueprint. Walls were decorated with imagery of great Louth players, past and present. Walls were knocked in and dressing rooms became bigger. The canteen was made bigger too so that players could eat their post-training meals in more convivial surroundings.
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In 2022, they romped their way to the Division 2 title, beating Limerick in Croke Park in a final 1-14 to 0-12.
They hammered Carlow in a Leinster championship game and were soon taught a hard lesson in the quarter-final against Kildare, before bowing out in the qualifiers against Cork.
The following year, they missed out on promotion to the top flight by two points. Only Derry and Dublin finished ahead of them. And they reached a Leinster final.
Alright. Alright. They lost that decider by 21 points to Dublin. And gravity ensued in a brutal group stages when they were beaten by Kerry, Cork and Mayo. But nobody could deny the progress made when you consider they ran Cork to two points and Mayo to a single point.
And then it happened. Harte left them, once Derry made an approach.
“I suppose when Harte came in, it really opened their eyes to a lot of things, but especially proper training and proper professionalism. Placing demands on players,” says Dan Bannon, local journalist and host of the ‘Louth and Proud’ podcast.
“We had been kidding ourselves for years, believing that we were training hard, as hard as anyone else. But Mickey and Gavin showed them that training had to be ferocious.
Mickey Harte when in charge of Louth. Lorraine O’Sullivan / INPHO
Lorraine O’Sullivan / INPHO / INPHO
“You had a couple of players there that were waiting for this, that were coming to the peak of their powers at their late 20s and we also had Sam Mulroy too who built a game around his freetaking. So, everything was magnified; our gameplan and our playing resources.
“And the county board did all they could to get us on to the levels we were targeting and reaching.”
Naturally, it couldn’t go without mentioning that Harte’s relationship with then county chairman Peter Fitzpatrick was critical to securing his services.
Fitzpatrick was raw and as stung as everyone else when Harte left. It was a strange time for Louth, as such a move is rare in the GAA.
It was devastating.
“That’s exactly how it felt, that was the way it was done as well. Left us for Derry, having said he was going to stay on,” says Bannon.
“I think as a county, we all felt he was bringing this whole thing along. He was getting us to a certain level. And the question was if Mickey goes, were we going to just fall back down again?”
It was noticeable however, that the player interviews contained no trace of self-pity.
“The players thought different. It absolutely galvanised the players. You would hear them say it,” Bannon insists.
“The players won it this year. Whatever about Ger Brennan, the players won the Leinster title for themselves.”
*****
That it was Meath in the final, added a layer of sauce to Louth’s meal. Memories of the 2010 injustice, with referee Martin Sludden allowing Joe Sheridan’s throw to the net to stand, have never sank beneath the surface in Louth.
And with Meath having taken Dublin out of the picture, the path was clear.
Brennan had come in and after a period of assessment, decided he wouldn’t be tinkering much. In the league, they started by running Armagh to a point away from home. They beat Cork, Fermanagh and Kildare, yet only stayed up by a point.
The Leinster run was aided by the benefit of experience. Laois and Kildare were beaten in the sort of tough games Louth were renowned for losing. Facing Meath in a decider was one thing, but they already had gotten the reps in of having been to a Leinster final day. The mystique was long gone.
They won by two points. Nobody could believe it.
As the team made their way back up the road to Drogheda, there was an accident on the M1. Travellers eased their nerves by replaying the win and listening to the fall-out on Louth-Meath FM.
James Crombie / INPHO
James Crombie / INPHO / INPHO
Those that got the train disembarked at Drogheda and ran towards the Gaelic Grounds.
Ardee was the next stop and the obligatory appearance on the back of a lorry. The last stop was Dundalk.
“People were everywhere walking up to the square but they looked like they could not believe it,” recalls Bannon.
“Like zombies. All in red, men, women, kids, young ones spilling out of the pubs, all in a trance, all heading up to the square.”
The night’s celebrations led to a week-long festival.
The players had reached their summit.
The county went ballistic. Bannon managed to get goalkeeper Niall McDonald to record a podcast with him on the Monday morning, bleary-eyed in the Market Bar in Drogheda at half nine.
The rest of the season was neither here nor there for them. They lost to Monaghan in Newbridge. Lost by a point to Down. A three-point win over Clare was enough to grant them a preliminary quarter-final against Donegal in Ballybofey.
A daunting day at the best of times. Not helped when, after you stayed the night in Enniskillen in Fermanagh, and headed in the direction of Sligo, adding 50 miles to the journey and leaving you horrendously unprepared.
But look, none of it matters.
What mattered was that for one day, the underdog got their name on the cup. They breathed life into a competition. They had their day in the sun.
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'It absolutely galvanised the players' - A day in the Leinster football sun
ON 12 MAY, the Louth players thought they had tucked themselves away nicely for the day in The Village Saloon in Dromin.
Off the beaten track and out of the way, the thinking might have been that they could get an hour or two to gather themselves and put the previous 24 hours into context.
But word gets out. It was hardly a guarded secret anyway. Before they knew it, estimates had it that there was around 1,000 people milling around the small village.
Louth’s Leinster title did many things on a macro and micro scale.
For Louth football fans, it was the sweetest of days. Those that had been there 68 years before when they beat Dublin in the 1957 Leinster final had a lifetime’s suffering in between.
In a flash, it restored the credibility of a Leinster football championship that had, for over a decade, became one of the worst competitions in Gaelic games.
It turned a summer Monday into an unofficial Bank Holiday with thousands scrubbing themselves up and heading out on the beer for a day.
*****
The job was finished by the players. Unquestionably.
Consider the context.
Ten days after his 18 years in charge of Tyrone were over in November 2020, Mickey Harte was unveiled as the new manager of Louth.
It was a shock then. It still surprises to think of it now. Harte had been operating at the sharp end of Gaelic football management, competing for and winning Ulster and All-Ireland titles.
But Louth?
They were set to start the 2021 league in Division 4 North, following the league restructuring for Covid times.
Each season brought an incremental improvement. Promotion in that first league campaign, but then walloped in the Leinster first round after extra-time.
If ever foundations were being laid however, this was a prime example.
When Harte, and his assistant Gavin Devlin came in, they set up an office in the Darver training complex. Call them fussy, but they found things could be done better. Differently, let’s say.
They knew intimately what the Garvaghey centre gave Tyrone, and took that blueprint. Walls were decorated with imagery of great Louth players, past and present. Walls were knocked in and dressing rooms became bigger. The canteen was made bigger too so that players could eat their post-training meals in more convivial surroundings.
In 2022, they romped their way to the Division 2 title, beating Limerick in Croke Park in a final 1-14 to 0-12.
They hammered Carlow in a Leinster championship game and were soon taught a hard lesson in the quarter-final against Kildare, before bowing out in the qualifiers against Cork.
The following year, they missed out on promotion to the top flight by two points. Only Derry and Dublin finished ahead of them. And they reached a Leinster final.
Alright. Alright. They lost that decider by 21 points to Dublin. And gravity ensued in a brutal group stages when they were beaten by Kerry, Cork and Mayo. But nobody could deny the progress made when you consider they ran Cork to two points and Mayo to a single point.
And then it happened. Harte left them, once Derry made an approach.
“I suppose when Harte came in, it really opened their eyes to a lot of things, but especially proper training and proper professionalism. Placing demands on players,” says Dan Bannon, local journalist and host of the ‘Louth and Proud’ podcast.
“We had been kidding ourselves for years, believing that we were training hard, as hard as anyone else. But Mickey and Gavin showed them that training had to be ferocious.
“You had a couple of players there that were waiting for this, that were coming to the peak of their powers at their late 20s and we also had Sam Mulroy too who built a game around his freetaking. So, everything was magnified; our gameplan and our playing resources.
“And the county board did all they could to get us on to the levels we were targeting and reaching.”
Naturally, it couldn’t go without mentioning that Harte’s relationship with then county chairman Peter Fitzpatrick was critical to securing his services.
Fitzpatrick was raw and as stung as everyone else when Harte left. It was a strange time for Louth, as such a move is rare in the GAA.
It was devastating.
“That’s exactly how it felt, that was the way it was done as well. Left us for Derry, having said he was going to stay on,” says Bannon.
“I think as a county, we all felt he was bringing this whole thing along. He was getting us to a certain level. And the question was if Mickey goes, were we going to just fall back down again?”
It was noticeable however, that the player interviews contained no trace of self-pity.
“The players thought different. It absolutely galvanised the players. You would hear them say it,” Bannon insists.
*****
That it was Meath in the final, added a layer of sauce to Louth’s meal. Memories of the 2010 injustice, with referee Martin Sludden allowing Joe Sheridan’s throw to the net to stand, have never sank beneath the surface in Louth.
And with Meath having taken Dublin out of the picture, the path was clear.
Brennan had come in and after a period of assessment, decided he wouldn’t be tinkering much. In the league, they started by running Armagh to a point away from home. They beat Cork, Fermanagh and Kildare, yet only stayed up by a point.
The Leinster run was aided by the benefit of experience. Laois and Kildare were beaten in the sort of tough games Louth were renowned for losing. Facing Meath in a decider was one thing, but they already had gotten the reps in of having been to a Leinster final day. The mystique was long gone.
They won by two points. Nobody could believe it.
As the team made their way back up the road to Drogheda, there was an accident on the M1. Travellers eased their nerves by replaying the win and listening to the fall-out on Louth-Meath FM.
Those that got the train disembarked at Drogheda and ran towards the Gaelic Grounds.
Ardee was the next stop and the obligatory appearance on the back of a lorry. The last stop was Dundalk.
“People were everywhere walking up to the square but they looked like they could not believe it,” recalls Bannon.
“Like zombies. All in red, men, women, kids, young ones spilling out of the pubs, all in a trance, all heading up to the square.”
The night’s celebrations led to a week-long festival.
The players had reached their summit.
The county went ballistic. Bannon managed to get goalkeeper Niall McDonald to record a podcast with him on the Monday morning, bleary-eyed in the Market Bar in Drogheda at half nine.
The rest of the season was neither here nor there for them. They lost to Monaghan in Newbridge. Lost by a point to Down. A three-point win over Clare was enough to grant them a preliminary quarter-final against Donegal in Ballybofey.
A daunting day at the best of times. Not helped when, after you stayed the night in Enniskillen in Fermanagh, and headed in the direction of Sligo, adding 50 miles to the journey and leaving you horrendously unprepared.
But look, none of it matters.
What mattered was that for one day, the underdog got their name on the cup. They breathed life into a competition. They had their day in the sun.
And nobody can take it away.
*****
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