ON THE FACE of it, a club from a small town of 1,600 people in South Armagh had no right to dominate club football like they did.
Crossmaglen Rangers were a tight knit group when they rose up in the late 1990s, going on to win six All-Irelands in the space of an incredible 16 years. The GAA had been a pillar in the local community for decades as they stood defiantly against the British Army during the Troubles.
Despite the harassment from the British troops over the years, the club continued to field teams at all levels. That defiance solidified Crossmaglen’s resolve and helped breed a whole generation of winners.
As Oisin McConville put it in the BBC documentary True North: Crossmaglen: “Wasn’t it great to stick the two fingers up to them and say regardless what you do, you can land your helicopters on our pitch, you can build your barracks on top of us, you can throw our clothes and our bags out on the street when you search our cars on the way to training.
“Wasn’t it great to say to them, ‘But fuck youse, we’re gonna win an All-Ireland anyway.’”
For youngsters and supporters, the GAA was at the epicentre of the community and it became an symbol of normality during the tough times.
These days Robert Emmet’s Slaughtneil are the dominant force in Ulster, not alone in football but in hurling and camogie too. Beat Cavan Gaels in Sunday’s Ulster football final and they’ll complete a rare ‘triple-double’ – winning back to back provincial titles in all three codes.
Just like Crossmaglen, there’s a whole lot more to Slaughtneil than the teams they send out on Sunday.
“I don’t care what anybody says, if you don’t have a strong culture in a team or a community, you’re going nowhere,” says Chrissy McKaigue.
“That’s one thing Slaughtneil doesn’t lack. If you go to Slaughtneil, there’s so many different schemes and projects going on for the last number of decades. We’ve really honed in on the area of promoting Irish culture, Irish language.
“We’ve our own Irish primary school, there’s an Irish secondary school just formed about five or six miles up the road. So all them things have really helped because one there’s jobs which means people aren’t emigrating.
“We’re hanging on to all our players and we don’t have any other sports to actually compete with. You would see that in our young people nowadays. They’re just driven to play Gaelic Games, they’re very aware of their heritage, they’re very aware of what Slaughtneil represents and when you have that, you can create a good culture.”
The south Derry club derive their playing population from 300 houses or so and each team is extremely well-supported. The footballers drew a sizable crowds on their trips to All-Ireland finals in 2015 and 2017, while the club’s camogie side lifted the All-Ireland title in front of the highest ever attendance at the club camogie finals last March.
“Slaughtneil was formed in 1953 and for a lot of years, there wasn’t any success but our games were always well attended – hurling, football and camogie,” he says. “There was always the support for them whether they were a successful team or an unsuccessful team.
“That’s the barometer. There’s no point just going out to support teams if they’re winning. That’s not what we’re about as a club or as a community. We’re about hanging in and supporting each other.
“It just so happens that we have a group of players in all three codes that are pretty talented and pretty committed and success has followed them so far.”
McKaigue spent time on the books of AFL club Sydney Swams, so he can appreciate the uniqueness of the GAA.
“It’s a completely different landscape. The GAA it’s probably when you experience another sport or go to another country and experience another culture that you realise so many of the positive traits that we have as GAA people.
“I know a lot of the clubs in the AFL do make a conscious effort to outreach and try and help their supporters and help their community. But it’s just not the same. We as GAA people can never get away from it. We’re living next door to our manager or we’re living next door to one of our supporters.
“You’re just always in that public eye as such and it’s very different. It can be very demanding at times because there’s no getting away from it but on the big days and particularly at club level, it’s very special because you know everybody there. It just makes it that bit more special.”
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