FOR YEARS AND years, Domhnall Nugent allowed his mind to drift in the quiet moments. The ones when his addictions weren’t strangling him and the internal chatter was quiet.
What would it be like to win an Antrim championship with St John’s?
Amazing, for sure. And inevitably, it would have meant getting on the beer, and whiskey, which in turn would have led to a bag of cocaine.
His thoughts would be further muddled by the odd fact that he already had an Antrim championship. Won at the expense of St John’s.
In 2017, he had transferred and was playing for Lamh Dhearg, the club of his mother’s people. They reached the county football final.
His boyhood club St John’s were the opposition. His brother Padraig was the Johnnies goalkeeper. His father Paddy, the Johnnies manager.
Late in the game, with Lamh Dhearg two points up, Domhnall felt the strangest urge. Padraig was about to take a kickout and Domhnall ran 30 yards to boot the ball off the tee.
Padraig struck out. Hit his brother. And got a red card.
Lamh Dhearg won. Domhnall was a winner. The drinks flowed. Cocaine followed. Pictures of him and Padraig arm in arm were put up online. All was well in love and war.
Or so it seemed.
“Even though afterwards we were celebrating and drinking and everything looked great, mentally that had a massive, massive impact on me,” said Nugent years later.
“’What have I just done?’ Because I grew up dreaming of winning a championship with St John’s, especially with my brother, and I still do. I still probably won’t forgive myself until I win a championship with St John’s, something I think about every day still.”
A few weeks ago, he got there when St John’s beat Loughgiel in the county hurling final. Their first since 1973.
“We must accept finite disappointment, but never lose infinite hope.”
In 2019, Nugent went into 12 weeks of treatment in the Cuan Mhuire Addiction Centre in Newry.
When he came out, he transferred back to St John’s and found himself again as a hurler. In 2020, he dislocated his elbow in a county semi-final against Loughgiel, but played on one-handed, scoring 3-3.
Later that year, he won the Joe McDonagh Cup with Antrim. At the final whistle, manager Darren Gleeson and Nugent hunted each other out and fell into a delirious heap on the ground.
Nugent keeps the picture of them as a reminder of the Tipperary man who gave him a chance when he had torched too many bridges.
With Darren Gleeson after the 2020 Joe McDonagh Cup final. Morgan Treacy / INPHO
Morgan Treacy / INPHO / INPHO
When it seemed like he was set for a long, fruitful playing career, injuries entered the picture. His weight went up. But somehow, he made it back to the county final, this time in the blue and white of St John’s after they beat Ruairí Óg Cushendall in the semi-final.
That evening, he and his partner, the Down camogie player Aimee McAleenan, talked about his predicament.
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“It’s something that you always dream of, winning a championship. It was always in the back of my mind that if ever there was a trap, that was it. It was a double-edged sword,” he explains.
St John’s won, beating Loughgiel in the final at Ballycastle. He enjoyed the bus ride home with all the lads. He even went into the clubhouse and stayed for an hour.
And then he and Aimee left. They picked up a pizza on their way home to Liatroim, Co Down. They had a 7am flight booked for a 10-day Spanish holiday.
No drink. No drugs.
It was nothing like he’d imagined.
It was better than he could have imagined.
***
As a teenager, he was the big man on campus. His ‘A’ Level results produced two ‘A’s and one ‘B’. He was the Head Boy of De La Salle College. He was accepted into St Mary’s College to train as a teacher.
While still in upper sixth form, he hurled for Antrim seniors in the pivotal position of centre-back against London. That summer, he played in the Ulster football championship against Donegal.
Nugent, in yellow, playing football for Antrim in 2014. Matt Mackey / Presseye.com
Matt Mackey / Presseye.com / Presseye.com
He went into student accommodation in the Holylands party zone of Belfast and enthusiastically bought into an extreme version of the lifestyle.
Drink was everywhere. One morning, he got up and was presented with a dinner plate with lines of coke as thick as poodle legs. His appetite couldn’t be sated.
With ambition dulled, he drifted along. At just 22, he left for Warwickshire with the intention of play hurling, working hard and saving. He came back with £18,000. It would make a deposit on a house, he decided, before he went out to mark his triumphant return.
He never stopped until one evening the ATM told him he had insufficient funds for a withdrawal. Everything unravelled at a speed that surprised him.
He found himself walking ‘home’ one night after training. A teammate stopped and asked if he wanted a lift. He politely declined. And then the sinking realisation came.
He had no home. No direction home.
Homeless.
***
Addictions never leave you. Sometimes they can morph into other things.
Nugent got into recovery. He emerged and he told his story. Then he told a bit more. He started a podcast to get the message out there that there is nothing like Doing The Work.
He gave talks and he attended clubs and helped everyone he could.
The Joe McDonagh Cup came in 2020. More positivity.
And then the challenges. Injuries arrived. An ankle reconstruction followed by two cruciate injuries butchered the next four years.
It’s funny. I am not comparing the two things, but someone said to me in recovery, that one of the good things is you get your feelings back. I felt everything then, because I couldn’t drink and run away from it,” he says.
“In the past, if you picked up and injury you would go let loose for a few days then straighten yourself out.
“But during the injuries, that was a tough time and it’s only in the last year that I am feeling a bit better about myself in all aspects.
“This has been a four-year period, and I wouldn’t be great with my weight. I would have found myself comfort-eating a lot. Thinking I would have something to eat, because everybody else was out on the gargle.
“I found comfort in eating and it’s something I have. It’s a constant cycle.
“But I can emotionally detach myself from the past. Whatever situations I went through before, I treat the new challenge for what it is.
“Whenever I couldn’t play, I dug my heels into coaching and that helped me too.”
Nowadays, Nugent lives a different life in Liatroim with Aimee.
Aimee McAleenan playing for Down. Leah Scholes / INPHO
Leah Scholes / INPHO / INPHO
He loves west Belfast and where he’s from, but every street was rammed with triggers. Now, he has the Mourne mountains, fresh air and the good life.
A while back, he switched his jobs. He had been an addiction counsellor, but after three and a half years the work was wearing him down.
“It is heavy. I still feel like I have a duty to give back because so many people gave to me. If I do one or two days a week, or an evening going to a club, I am happy.”
This year, he coached the Down camogie team. Aimee convinced him. How could he refuse?
“I’m big on purpose. If you have a purpose and it doesn’t involve alcohol or drugs or chasing that, then that’s great. Especially being from west Belfast where there are so many distractions,” he says.
The weight gain, along with the horrendous injury history made his own hurling that bit more difficult. He was being put on in games with 20 minutes left but struggled with mobility.
During the league, their regular goalkeeper Simon Doherty injured his finger. The manager Gerard Cunningham auditioned a few for the role.
Nugent stated his case. He could catch a high ball. His distribution would be a strength. He’d learn the rest as he went along.
When he went in, St John’s were on top of the league. After five games, they finished third, but he still felt he was performing and getting better.
“It came to a stage at the end of the league when Simon was coming back and we thought we would compete and see where we were at.
“The conversations were with the backdrop that I thought I would be outfield for the championship, but it didn’t work out that way. I was doing alright in nets.”
Doherty has been a St John’s stalwart, and the Armagh goalkeeper for many years. Nugent rates him as one of the best goalkeepers in Ulster. He drove him on and improved him, taught him about shot-stopping.
In the county final against Loughgiel, he got down low to keep out a James McNaughton effort that was heading straight for the bottom corner. He credited Doherty in all the interviews afterwards.
“You got down well, big man.” Said Jerome Quinn in his post-match interview.
- “Took me a while getting back up, Jerome,” Nugent deadpanned in response.
'Brilliantly saved!'
See Domhnall Nugent's crucial first-half save from James McNaughton in the @Bathshack Antrim SHC Final.
The @naomheoinclg goalkeeper also pays tribute to 'senior' member of the squad Simon Doherty.
It’s been an interesting and rewarding experience.
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Not for the first time, he found his purpose.
“I went down a rabbit hole,” he says.
“I have an addictive personality so I could be sitting at 3 in the morning, watching Eoin Murphy and different goalkeepers, asking where his feet are and the trajectory of his puckouts.
“I have a book and I’m writing different puckouts and scenarios.”
In the meantime, he got a call from an unexpected source one day when Davy Fitzgerald called and asked if he fancied coming into the Antrim panel as a goalkeeper.
All of that is on hold for now, with St John’s in the Ulster club semi-final against Donegal’s Setanta (Saturday, Owenbeg, 6pm).
He’s being harsh but also honest with himself when he says, “I know I am going into Antrim as a third goalkeeper.
“Ryan Elliott is an unbelievable keeper. He has been doing nets for Antrim as long as I was there. Cormac McFadden, he’s done his service and is next in line. And I am going in as the third.
“I want the opportunity. I just want to help Antrim hurling, I might be living in Down and taking Down camogs and all these things, but I am a proud Antrim man and never thought I would get a chance to represent my county again.”
He’s lived a few lives by now, but then he points out, “I am only 28! To be honest, I feel like I am 18 and starting over again.”
***
During the dark days, when he was trying to find the ground beneath his feet, the outstanding individuals showed up for him.
Throughout the Covid Lockdowns, he was living with Antrim hurler Neil McManus and his wife Aileen.
He used to joke and tease McManus how he was spoiled. That with his food was prepared and shirts ironed, all he needed was to get up in the morning and turn on that dazzling smile.
Now, with Aimee, he has that same thing that seemed so unattainable.
“All of those things are so important. Aimee plays for Down as well and she is an intercounty camog. She has lived the lifestyle,” he says.
“We are like a team within a team now. She’s helping me and structurally, I am in a good place to go back into the Antrim environment and see where it takes me, rather than living on my own.
“It’s more just contentment. I was still chasing things, even during the Joe McDonagh. I spent a lot of time doing my podcast, I was nearly like a poster boy for people in addiction. And I am so happy, because those messages saved people’s lives.
“But now, I just need to do things for me. I just can sit with myself now and be in a good place.”
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'If ever there was a trap, that was it': How Domhnall Nugent conquered his addictions
FOR YEARS AND years, Domhnall Nugent allowed his mind to drift in the quiet moments. The ones when his addictions weren’t strangling him and the internal chatter was quiet.
What would it be like to win an Antrim championship with St John’s?
Amazing, for sure. And inevitably, it would have meant getting on the beer, and whiskey, which in turn would have led to a bag of cocaine.
His thoughts would be further muddled by the odd fact that he already had an Antrim championship. Won at the expense of St John’s.
In 2017, he had transferred and was playing for Lamh Dhearg, the club of his mother’s people. They reached the county football final.
His boyhood club St John’s were the opposition. His brother Padraig was the Johnnies goalkeeper. His father Paddy, the Johnnies manager.
Late in the game, with Lamh Dhearg two points up, Domhnall felt the strangest urge. Padraig was about to take a kickout and Domhnall ran 30 yards to boot the ball off the tee.
Padraig struck out. Hit his brother. And got a red card.
Lamh Dhearg won. Domhnall was a winner. The drinks flowed. Cocaine followed. Pictures of him and Padraig arm in arm were put up online. All was well in love and war.
Or so it seemed.
“Even though afterwards we were celebrating and drinking and everything looked great, mentally that had a massive, massive impact on me,” said Nugent years later.
“’What have I just done?’ Because I grew up dreaming of winning a championship with St John’s, especially with my brother, and I still do. I still probably won’t forgive myself until I win a championship with St John’s, something I think about every day still.”
A few weeks ago, he got there when St John’s beat Loughgiel in the county hurling final. Their first since 1973.
***
In 2019, Nugent went into 12 weeks of treatment in the Cuan Mhuire Addiction Centre in Newry.
When he came out, he transferred back to St John’s and found himself again as a hurler. In 2020, he dislocated his elbow in a county semi-final against Loughgiel, but played on one-handed, scoring 3-3.
Later that year, he won the Joe McDonagh Cup with Antrim. At the final whistle, manager Darren Gleeson and Nugent hunted each other out and fell into a delirious heap on the ground.
Nugent keeps the picture of them as a reminder of the Tipperary man who gave him a chance when he had torched too many bridges.
When it seemed like he was set for a long, fruitful playing career, injuries entered the picture. His weight went up. But somehow, he made it back to the county final, this time in the blue and white of St John’s after they beat Ruairí Óg Cushendall in the semi-final.
That evening, he and his partner, the Down camogie player Aimee McAleenan, talked about his predicament.
“It’s something that you always dream of, winning a championship. It was always in the back of my mind that if ever there was a trap, that was it. It was a double-edged sword,” he explains.
St John’s won, beating Loughgiel in the final at Ballycastle. He enjoyed the bus ride home with all the lads. He even went into the clubhouse and stayed for an hour.
And then he and Aimee left. They picked up a pizza on their way home to Liatroim, Co Down. They had a 7am flight booked for a 10-day Spanish holiday.
No drink. No drugs.
It was nothing like he’d imagined.
It was better than he could have imagined.
***
As a teenager, he was the big man on campus. His ‘A’ Level results produced two ‘A’s and one ‘B’. He was the Head Boy of De La Salle College. He was accepted into St Mary’s College to train as a teacher.
While still in upper sixth form, he hurled for Antrim seniors in the pivotal position of centre-back against London. That summer, he played in the Ulster football championship against Donegal.
He went into student accommodation in the Holylands party zone of Belfast and enthusiastically bought into an extreme version of the lifestyle.
Drink was everywhere. One morning, he got up and was presented with a dinner plate with lines of coke as thick as poodle legs. His appetite couldn’t be sated.
With ambition dulled, he drifted along. At just 22, he left for Warwickshire with the intention of play hurling, working hard and saving. He came back with £18,000. It would make a deposit on a house, he decided, before he went out to mark his triumphant return.
He never stopped until one evening the ATM told him he had insufficient funds for a withdrawal. Everything unravelled at a speed that surprised him.
He found himself walking ‘home’ one night after training. A teammate stopped and asked if he wanted a lift. He politely declined. And then the sinking realisation came.
He had no home. No direction home.
Homeless.
***
Addictions never leave you. Sometimes they can morph into other things.
Nugent got into recovery. He emerged and he told his story. Then he told a bit more. He started a podcast to get the message out there that there is nothing like Doing The Work.
He gave talks and he attended clubs and helped everyone he could.
The Joe McDonagh Cup came in 2020. More positivity.
And then the challenges. Injuries arrived. An ankle reconstruction followed by two cruciate injuries butchered the next four years.
“In the past, if you picked up and injury you would go let loose for a few days then straighten yourself out.
“But during the injuries, that was a tough time and it’s only in the last year that I am feeling a bit better about myself in all aspects.
“This has been a four-year period, and I wouldn’t be great with my weight. I would have found myself comfort-eating a lot. Thinking I would have something to eat, because everybody else was out on the gargle.
“I found comfort in eating and it’s something I have. It’s a constant cycle.
“But I can emotionally detach myself from the past. Whatever situations I went through before, I treat the new challenge for what it is.
“Whenever I couldn’t play, I dug my heels into coaching and that helped me too.”
Nowadays, Nugent lives a different life in Liatroim with Aimee.
He loves west Belfast and where he’s from, but every street was rammed with triggers. Now, he has the Mourne mountains, fresh air and the good life.
A while back, he switched his jobs. He had been an addiction counsellor, but after three and a half years the work was wearing him down.
“It is heavy. I still feel like I have a duty to give back because so many people gave to me. If I do one or two days a week, or an evening going to a club, I am happy.”
This year, he coached the Down camogie team. Aimee convinced him. How could he refuse?
“I’m big on purpose. If you have a purpose and it doesn’t involve alcohol or drugs or chasing that, then that’s great. Especially being from west Belfast where there are so many distractions,” he says.
The weight gain, along with the horrendous injury history made his own hurling that bit more difficult. He was being put on in games with 20 minutes left but struggled with mobility.
During the league, their regular goalkeeper Simon Doherty injured his finger. The manager Gerard Cunningham auditioned a few for the role.
Nugent stated his case. He could catch a high ball. His distribution would be a strength. He’d learn the rest as he went along.
When he went in, St John’s were on top of the league. After five games, they finished third, but he still felt he was performing and getting better.
“It came to a stage at the end of the league when Simon was coming back and we thought we would compete and see where we were at.
“The conversations were with the backdrop that I thought I would be outfield for the championship, but it didn’t work out that way. I was doing alright in nets.”
Doherty has been a St John’s stalwart, and the Armagh goalkeeper for many years. Nugent rates him as one of the best goalkeepers in Ulster. He drove him on and improved him, taught him about shot-stopping.
In the county final against Loughgiel, he got down low to keep out a James McNaughton effort that was heading straight for the bottom corner. He credited Doherty in all the interviews afterwards.
“You got down well, big man.” Said Jerome Quinn in his post-match interview.
- “Took me a while getting back up, Jerome,” Nugent deadpanned in response.
It’s been an interesting and rewarding experience.
Not for the first time, he found his purpose.
“I went down a rabbit hole,” he says.
“I have an addictive personality so I could be sitting at 3 in the morning, watching Eoin Murphy and different goalkeepers, asking where his feet are and the trajectory of his puckouts.
“I have a book and I’m writing different puckouts and scenarios.”
In the meantime, he got a call from an unexpected source one day when Davy Fitzgerald called and asked if he fancied coming into the Antrim panel as a goalkeeper.
All of that is on hold for now, with St John’s in the Ulster club semi-final against Donegal’s Setanta (Saturday, Owenbeg, 6pm).
He’s being harsh but also honest with himself when he says, “I know I am going into Antrim as a third goalkeeper.
“Ryan Elliott is an unbelievable keeper. He has been doing nets for Antrim as long as I was there. Cormac McFadden, he’s done his service and is next in line. And I am going in as the third.
“I want the opportunity. I just want to help Antrim hurling, I might be living in Down and taking Down camogs and all these things, but I am a proud Antrim man and never thought I would get a chance to represent my county again.”
He’s lived a few lives by now, but then he points out, “I am only 28! To be honest, I feel like I am 18 and starting over again.”
***
During the dark days, when he was trying to find the ground beneath his feet, the outstanding individuals showed up for him.
Throughout the Covid Lockdowns, he was living with Antrim hurler Neil McManus and his wife Aileen.
He used to joke and tease McManus how he was spoiled. That with his food was prepared and shirts ironed, all he needed was to get up in the morning and turn on that dazzling smile.
Now, with Aimee, he has that same thing that seemed so unattainable.
“All of those things are so important. Aimee plays for Down as well and she is an intercounty camog. She has lived the lifestyle,” he says.
“We are like a team within a team now. She’s helping me and structurally, I am in a good place to go back into the Antrim environment and see where it takes me, rather than living on my own.
“It’s more just contentment. I was still chasing things, even during the Joe McDonagh. I spent a lot of time doing my podcast, I was nearly like a poster boy for people in addiction. And I am so happy, because those messages saved people’s lives.
“But now, I just need to do things for me. I just can sit with myself now and be in a good place.”
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