ALL AROUND HIM, kids in Derry jerseys were flooding the pitch but Monaghan manager Gabriel Bannigan only had eyes for referee Noel Mooney.
He knew his side had a dead ball situation before the full-time hooter blew with Derry two points to the good.
He had spoken to the linesman and gotten no reaction. He started marching onto the pitch when the fourth official came across his path, asking him to stay back and not confront Mooney.
Just at that point, the Derry manager Ciaran Meenagh shook his hand and said, ‘Hard luck, Gabriel.’
“I said, ‘Thanks for that Ciaran, but this game is not over yet.’”
With some fairly robust advice from goalkeeper Rory Beggan, and some more cautious advice from the rules-familiar David Garland, you can see the moment in the footage when it dawns on Mooney that he has erred.
Rory Beggan after his extra-time winner. Tom O’Hanlon / INPHO
Tom O’Hanlon / INPHO / INPHO
His eyes go wide, his mouth opens and he rushes the whistle to his mouth, puts two hands in the air and directs everyone towards where Jack McCarron was patiently waiting.
“The next thought going through my head was, ‘Jesus Jack, it’s gonna be three or four minutes before it was kicked. That it was only going to increase the pressure on the kicker,” Bannigan tells The 42.
“But there was nothing I could do at that stage other than hope.”
In the past, Beggan has been the go-to man in those situations. He would ultimately seal the winner with a two-point free in the last play of extra-time. So was Bannigan not surprised that it was Jack McCarron and not Beggan taking the sideline?
“With so little room to make the kick, it was probably a left footer was the only one to kick that,” he says.
“Really, a left footer hitting it off the outside (of the boot), trying to draw it in was the only option. Rory wouldn’t have had enough room on the sideline.
“If you look at where Rory started when he took the kick to win it, he wouldn’t have had half the room on the sideline to kick it. It was a kick for the ages, a lovely kick for Jack.”
For McCarron, for Monaghan, it was the latest roar of defiance from a sports team that treat their following to an abundance of heart-stopping dramas. Monaghan football is a living soap opera; the much-loved characters change after long stints of service, but the colour and cliff-hangers remain.
It wasn’t scripted that they would reach this Ulster final. At the Ulster championship launch, reporters circled around Derry players and fluffed up their chances of making the final, peppering questions with knowing looks about ‘the weaker side of the draw’.
And sure, yeah, you wouldn’t want to be ruling out Monaghan, only a fool would do that. Those and other clichés were sent out but nobody’s heart was in it.
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This was a Monaghan side that had been shorn Kieran Duffy, Darren Hughes, Karl O’Connell and the stellar Conor McManus in recent times.
They started the league campaign with a 12-point loss to Armagh at home. Nobody leaving Clones that day was expecting the same two to meet in a mid-May Ulster final.
They lost to Roscommon by six. Dublin by four. Mayo by, gulp, 19 points in Clones. Kerry walloped them by 14. Galway by eight. Donegal by five.
But Bannigan kept it light. Hammering players week on week in those situations was going to achieve nothing but resentment and desperation.
They talked up their injury list. It took a while for the Scotstown contingent to re-integrate after their All-Ireland club semi-final defeat to St Brigid’s.
“You have to be totally honest with the players about where you are at. The challenges we were faced with,” Bannigan says.
“My messages were around what we were building, the opportunities for other fellas and we would keep focusing on improving.”
Bannigan goes through the touchline agonies. Tom O’Hanlon / INPHO
Tom O’Hanlon / INPHO / INPHO
He was careful with the examples he used, and he used selective editing.
They played Dublin off the park and left four goal chances behind. Against Galway, they only produced for a half. But what a half!
Their loss to Donegal they could chalk down to an uncharacteristic error from Beggan.
Most importantly, they went down to Kerry and only seven of the panel of 26 had played for Monaghan in 2025. And after 57 minutes, there was just three points in it.
“My message was to keep morale high, keep the hard work going in, that we were improving the depth of the squad for the championship,” he says.
****
When Championship came, so too did a flood of talent. Seven players they didn’t have in the league were fit and ready to go by the time they had Cavan in the quarter-final. Three of them started and four were put on the bench.
For the Derry game, they welcomed back Conor McCarthy and Killian Lavelle. The team stank the place out in the first half. But Bannigan gathered his players around him before they went down the tunnel for half-time.
The message was remarkably simple: we’ve been in bother before. We will find a way.
Finding a way has been Bannigan’s way.
At 56, he is at an age when a lot of intercounty managers and coaches are coming towards the end of their cycle. He was married young to Emer and they had their first-born, David, when he was just 21. They have daughters Cara and Aoibhinn, and no less than four grandchildren.
He’s somewhat of an accidental manager. Circumstances dictated that his life did not have the spare time necessary to do such a role.
Prior to 2018 he was a manager in Bank of Ireland’s head office on Baggot Street, Dublin. He rose early every morning and the clock would tick beyond 7pm most evenings before he would exit the building.
His passion for football found a way to adapt, at a level suitable. When he managed Kilmacud Crokes, he could leave the bank at 7pm and be on the training field 15 minutes later.
At Crokes, he inherited a side battling age, retirements and emigration. Across two seasons, he gave debuts to 21 players. They finished top of the league in all three seasons. He also assembled a serious backroom team with Robbie Brennan as selector.
Greeting an old friend in Meath manager Robbie Brennan. James Lawlor / INPHO
James Lawlor / INPHO / INPHO
That kind of work didn’t go unnoticed.
“I did have several approaches over the years, to get involved in different management teams. I could never… It was flattering to get the phone calls but I could never consider them seriously because of the job I was doing,” he says.
“That all changed in 2018 when I changed my career.” He became the sales and marketing director with Klass Oil.
“At 48 years of age, I decided to do something different and had an opportunity to take a package from Bank of Ireland and go to do something else when I was still young enough to do it.”
There were things he would not miss about working in finance.
The real stress, he insists on getting across, was experienced by people who suffered the brunt of the worldwide recession in 2008, who suddenly found themselves in negative equity or losing their jobs.
“Working in the bank nearly became a dirty word,” he says.
“The career change in 2018 wasn’t so much about the recession, it was far more a case of how banking had changed.
“It had been a people’s business to being a business that was heading on the trajectory of being faceless.
“My whole career was built on people, on building relationships and in management teams, building teams, motivating people, getting the best out of people. That was my skillset and what I was good at. The bank was heading in a different direction. They weren’t valuing it as much, it was more about online and centralisation.”
Once he got to grips with his new role, Aughnamullen came calling. His old club had been relegated to junior status.
He had been exceptionally close to his late brother Owen. The two followed Jack’s Army to Lansdowne Road and beyond. Owen would bring his children down to Dublin to watch Gabriel in charge of St Sylvester’s and Crokes.
He always ended up needling him to come back up the road and take his own.
“It was something I wanted to do. It was important for me to do that because of my legacy with the club and my love for the club. And also, it was something Owen always wanted me to do,” he says.
He had three good years, by the end of which he had restored them as a senior club. That kind of transformation doesn’t go unnoticed and then Monaghan manager Vinny Corey gave him a call to ask if he might come in and help out his county as a selector. He took just seconds to consider.
“I do have a good faith. I do believe that things happen for a reason,” he says.
“The sequence of events, if I hadn’t gone back up and managed Aughnamullen, I would never have asked to go in and manage with Vinny and I would never have gotten the opportunity to do what is an absolute honour for me.”
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With Vinny Corey when Bannigan was Monaghan selector. James Crombie / INPHO
James Crombie / INPHO / INPHO
Bringing Monaghan to an Ulster final brings back memories.
The greatest day he ever had following football was the 2013 Ulster final, along with Owen and their families.
The routine hardly changed. Gabriel’s wife Emer’s home place was on the Roslea Road out of Clones so everyone would gather there for the parking, sandwiches and letting the anticipation build before heading into the carnival.
Sometimes he wishes he could have done it for himself.
He played minor and made it onto the senior county panel in 1994. It was a one-year-only arrangement and while he is under no illusions why he didn’t make it, it still lingers.
“I could not describe myself as a former county player. I did play, but was only there for a short time. It was probably a regret of mine that I didn’t,” he says.
“I probably could have but it was nobody’s fault but my own. I was married young and my first child was born when I was 21.
“I suppose I was focussed on that, and that was 1990. I was on the panel in 1994. I was career-driven. I loved my football and focussed on it, but maybe if I had put more time into my football, I would have gone on to play longer.
“No doubt that is a regret. One thing I learned through work, when you end up in a leadership role, when you manage people, you get an awful lot more out of delivering results through a team, than you ever did as an individual. Maybe that’s just the way I am wired.”
On Sunday, he will be in the thick of it in those cramped dressing rooms with the muffled sounds from outside coming in through the windows.
Ulster final day. Clones. With Monaghan marching behind the band and thoughts of Owen never far away.
“I can’t wait. I really can’t wait. This is why you do this job,” he says.
“It is a complete privilege for me to lead the Monaghan team out on an Ulster final day.
“All I will be hoping to do is to get the players to get that game, looking forward to it. Relishing it.
“Yes, they will have nerves. But to really focus on what a privilege to be going out on Ulster final day to represent Monaghan and to focus on playing well and doing their best and everything else will look after itself.”
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'It is a complete privilege for me' - Gabriel Bannigan, the unlikely Monaghan manager
ALL AROUND HIM, kids in Derry jerseys were flooding the pitch but Monaghan manager Gabriel Bannigan only had eyes for referee Noel Mooney.
He knew his side had a dead ball situation before the full-time hooter blew with Derry two points to the good.
He had spoken to the linesman and gotten no reaction. He started marching onto the pitch when the fourth official came across his path, asking him to stay back and not confront Mooney.
Just at that point, the Derry manager Ciaran Meenagh shook his hand and said, ‘Hard luck, Gabriel.’
“I said, ‘Thanks for that Ciaran, but this game is not over yet.’”
With some fairly robust advice from goalkeeper Rory Beggan, and some more cautious advice from the rules-familiar David Garland, you can see the moment in the footage when it dawns on Mooney that he has erred.
His eyes go wide, his mouth opens and he rushes the whistle to his mouth, puts two hands in the air and directs everyone towards where Jack McCarron was patiently waiting.
“The next thought going through my head was, ‘Jesus Jack, it’s gonna be three or four minutes before it was kicked. That it was only going to increase the pressure on the kicker,” Bannigan tells The 42.
“But there was nothing I could do at that stage other than hope.”
McCarron nailed it.
In the past, Beggan has been the go-to man in those situations. He would ultimately seal the winner with a two-point free in the last play of extra-time. So was Bannigan not surprised that it was Jack McCarron and not Beggan taking the sideline?
“With so little room to make the kick, it was probably a left footer was the only one to kick that,” he says.
“Really, a left footer hitting it off the outside (of the boot), trying to draw it in was the only option. Rory wouldn’t have had enough room on the sideline.
“If you look at where Rory started when he took the kick to win it, he wouldn’t have had half the room on the sideline to kick it. It was a kick for the ages, a lovely kick for Jack.”
For McCarron, for Monaghan, it was the latest roar of defiance from a sports team that treat their following to an abundance of heart-stopping dramas. Monaghan football is a living soap opera; the much-loved characters change after long stints of service, but the colour and cliff-hangers remain.
It wasn’t scripted that they would reach this Ulster final. At the Ulster championship launch, reporters circled around Derry players and fluffed up their chances of making the final, peppering questions with knowing looks about ‘the weaker side of the draw’.
And sure, yeah, you wouldn’t want to be ruling out Monaghan, only a fool would do that. Those and other clichés were sent out but nobody’s heart was in it.
This was a Monaghan side that had been shorn Kieran Duffy, Darren Hughes, Karl O’Connell and the stellar Conor McManus in recent times.
They started the league campaign with a 12-point loss to Armagh at home. Nobody leaving Clones that day was expecting the same two to meet in a mid-May Ulster final.
They lost to Roscommon by six. Dublin by four. Mayo by, gulp, 19 points in Clones. Kerry walloped them by 14. Galway by eight. Donegal by five.
But Bannigan kept it light. Hammering players week on week in those situations was going to achieve nothing but resentment and desperation.
They talked up their injury list. It took a while for the Scotstown contingent to re-integrate after their All-Ireland club semi-final defeat to St Brigid’s.
“You have to be totally honest with the players about where you are at. The challenges we were faced with,” Bannigan says.
“My messages were around what we were building, the opportunities for other fellas and we would keep focusing on improving.”
He was careful with the examples he used, and he used selective editing.
They played Dublin off the park and left four goal chances behind. Against Galway, they only produced for a half. But what a half!
Their loss to Donegal they could chalk down to an uncharacteristic error from Beggan.
Most importantly, they went down to Kerry and only seven of the panel of 26 had played for Monaghan in 2025. And after 57 minutes, there was just three points in it.
“My message was to keep morale high, keep the hard work going in, that we were improving the depth of the squad for the championship,” he says.
****
When Championship came, so too did a flood of talent. Seven players they didn’t have in the league were fit and ready to go by the time they had Cavan in the quarter-final. Three of them started and four were put on the bench.
For the Derry game, they welcomed back Conor McCarthy and Killian Lavelle. The team stank the place out in the first half. But Bannigan gathered his players around him before they went down the tunnel for half-time.
The message was remarkably simple: we’ve been in bother before. We will find a way.
Finding a way has been Bannigan’s way.
At 56, he is at an age when a lot of intercounty managers and coaches are coming towards the end of their cycle. He was married young to Emer and they had their first-born, David, when he was just 21. They have daughters Cara and Aoibhinn, and no less than four grandchildren.
He’s somewhat of an accidental manager. Circumstances dictated that his life did not have the spare time necessary to do such a role.
Prior to 2018 he was a manager in Bank of Ireland’s head office on Baggot Street, Dublin. He rose early every morning and the clock would tick beyond 7pm most evenings before he would exit the building.
His passion for football found a way to adapt, at a level suitable. When he managed Kilmacud Crokes, he could leave the bank at 7pm and be on the training field 15 minutes later.
At Crokes, he inherited a side battling age, retirements and emigration. Across two seasons, he gave debuts to 21 players. They finished top of the league in all three seasons. He also assembled a serious backroom team with Robbie Brennan as selector.
That kind of work didn’t go unnoticed.
“I did have several approaches over the years, to get involved in different management teams. I could never… It was flattering to get the phone calls but I could never consider them seriously because of the job I was doing,” he says.
“That all changed in 2018 when I changed my career.” He became the sales and marketing director with Klass Oil.
“At 48 years of age, I decided to do something different and had an opportunity to take a package from Bank of Ireland and go to do something else when I was still young enough to do it.”
There were things he would not miss about working in finance.
The real stress, he insists on getting across, was experienced by people who suffered the brunt of the worldwide recession in 2008, who suddenly found themselves in negative equity or losing their jobs.
“Working in the bank nearly became a dirty word,” he says.
“The career change in 2018 wasn’t so much about the recession, it was far more a case of how banking had changed.
“It had been a people’s business to being a business that was heading on the trajectory of being faceless.
“My whole career was built on people, on building relationships and in management teams, building teams, motivating people, getting the best out of people. That was my skillset and what I was good at. The bank was heading in a different direction. They weren’t valuing it as much, it was more about online and centralisation.”
Once he got to grips with his new role, Aughnamullen came calling. His old club had been relegated to junior status.
He had been exceptionally close to his late brother Owen. The two followed Jack’s Army to Lansdowne Road and beyond. Owen would bring his children down to Dublin to watch Gabriel in charge of St Sylvester’s and Crokes.
He always ended up needling him to come back up the road and take his own.
“It was something I wanted to do. It was important for me to do that because of my legacy with the club and my love for the club. And also, it was something Owen always wanted me to do,” he says.
He had three good years, by the end of which he had restored them as a senior club. That kind of transformation doesn’t go unnoticed and then Monaghan manager Vinny Corey gave him a call to ask if he might come in and help out his county as a selector. He took just seconds to consider.
“I do have a good faith. I do believe that things happen for a reason,” he says.
“The sequence of events, if I hadn’t gone back up and managed Aughnamullen, I would never have asked to go in and manage with Vinny and I would never have gotten the opportunity to do what is an absolute honour for me.”
Bringing Monaghan to an Ulster final brings back memories.
The greatest day he ever had following football was the 2013 Ulster final, along with Owen and their families.
The routine hardly changed. Gabriel’s wife Emer’s home place was on the Roslea Road out of Clones so everyone would gather there for the parking, sandwiches and letting the anticipation build before heading into the carnival.
Sometimes he wishes he could have done it for himself.
He played minor and made it onto the senior county panel in 1994. It was a one-year-only arrangement and while he is under no illusions why he didn’t make it, it still lingers.
“I could not describe myself as a former county player. I did play, but was only there for a short time. It was probably a regret of mine that I didn’t,” he says.
“I probably could have but it was nobody’s fault but my own. I was married young and my first child was born when I was 21.
“I suppose I was focussed on that, and that was 1990. I was on the panel in 1994. I was career-driven. I loved my football and focussed on it, but maybe if I had put more time into my football, I would have gone on to play longer.
“No doubt that is a regret. One thing I learned through work, when you end up in a leadership role, when you manage people, you get an awful lot more out of delivering results through a team, than you ever did as an individual. Maybe that’s just the way I am wired.”
On Sunday, he will be in the thick of it in those cramped dressing rooms with the muffled sounds from outside coming in through the windows.
Ulster final day. Clones. With Monaghan marching behind the band and thoughts of Owen never far away.
“I can’t wait. I really can’t wait. This is why you do this job,” he says.
“It is a complete privilege for me to lead the Monaghan team out on an Ulster final day.
“All I will be hoping to do is to get the players to get that game, looking forward to it. Relishing it.
“Yes, they will have nerves. But to really focus on what a privilege to be going out on Ulster final day to represent Monaghan and to focus on playing well and doing their best and everything else will look after itself.”
It has so far.
****
Check out the latest episode of The42′s GAA Weekly podcast here
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Bannigan Family GAA Interview Monaghan Ulster Final