SOMETIMES IT DOESN’T matter a damn how you get there, as long as you get there.
For Mungret St Paul’s in Limerick, nobody was too interested in going over the fine details of their 0-12 to 1-5 win over Newcastle West in the county senior football final of 9 November.
Newcastle West were challenging for their fifth title in seven years.
Mungret hadn’t been in a final since 2001. In fact that was their only-ever final appearance, one they were wiped off the pitch by a Dromcollogher-Broadford side that was on the cusp of domestic domination.
So this was the first.
98 years in the making in some ways, and they celebrated accordingly.
WATCH: The @mungretgaa team being presented the Irish Wire Limerick Senior Football crown following their win over @NCWGAA in the final.
The thing about them is, the more you dig, the more impressive it gets.
When Mungret was formed in 1927, they were in rural Limerick. Now, they are just outside the urban sprawl with the city of Limerick gradually eating up land, planting the University Hospital of Limerick in Mungret heartland in 1955.
And for years, they tipped away at a certain level. Hurling mainly, with a smattering of football that they fulfilled because it was there.
That was until 1976 and a group arrived that were good enough to take the Premier minor football championship. All of a sudden, they were now a dual club. No messin’.
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Two years later they bought a parcel of land off the nearby Irish Cement company. 26 acres was a right stretch.
Some years later when the had club expanded with proper camogie and ladies football wings, they went looking for more. Land was there, but they hadn’t the bidding power to stave off property developers.
As is the way of these things, the property crash came. The developers went out of business and the land was taken over by NAMA. After ‘around 25’ meetings with Limerick County Council according to former chairman Donal Fitzgibbon, they got it for a song.
Put it this way, few counties have anything like what Mungret will have, with a rough final estimate cost of €2 million.
So, how is that kind of financial outlay met?
“We went to all the businesses in the area and came up with 55 businesses. We invited each one of the businesses to come on board with a corporate commitment of €5,000 for five years. Depending on their size it could also be €2,500 or €1,000,” explains Fitzgibbon with the experience of a man who has rehearsed the pitch a thousand times.
That pitch, and many more like it. He was the county board chairman from 1998 to 2003, and the chairman of Feile na nÓg for another stretch. His wife, she keeps telling him, would be well-entitled to the Single Parent Payment.
“With that scheme, we were taking in around €550,000.
“We had ten major sponsors. We asked members to give us €25 a month, no strings attached. And out of that, we got about 280 members signed up with that.”
As well as that, they hit upon another way of generating cash, by hosting the ‘Ireland’s Fittest Family’ TV brainchild of Davy Fitzgerald.
“A very easy man to work with,” says Fitzgibbon. It brings in €60,000 per annum.
All the facilities are grand, but they haven’t taken their eye off the ball on the pitch at the same time.
Two years ago, they won the two county junior championships, two at U21 Premier level, and the intermediate football title.
Their hurling team has inched up through the ranks and will be playing in section 1 of senior hurling next year.
And of course their ladies have achieved outrageous success, when they won the All-Ireland ladies junior championship last year.
On Saturday at 1pm, their camogie side face Brian Borus in the Munster junior championship. They’re everywhere.
“We also have the One Club model. We have a chairperson for each element of the club, and Bord na nÓg,” says Fitzgibbon.
“In my time as chairman, we had 20 sub-committees. Each sub-committee runs its’ own area and the chair of each sub-committee sits on the main committee. The only thing they cannot do is spend money. That has to be passed at an Executive meeting.”
Every Saturday morning, they have a group of people who come along to the club facilities and provide an hour’s entertainment for the children in the area with special needs, their ‘Réaltaí’ club.
Two years ago, the senior hurlers had a serious win in the championship on a Friday night against Adare. The following morning, eight of the team were on duty, having the craic with all the Réaltaí.
The win against Newcastle West in the county senior football final has been celebrated.
As is the way of these things, they were captained by a Mayo man; John Hutton of Claremorris who had a spin in the Mayo senior team a decade ago.
Mungret captain John Hutton, back in his Mayo days. James Crombie / INPHO
James Crombie / INPHO / INPHO
Others to show up prominently was county star Killian Ryan.
They now face Kerry’s representatives Dingle in Austin Stack Park, Tralee, on Sunday in the Munster club semi-final (throw in 1pm, coverage on Clubber).
There is something of a Kerry flavour to Mungret.
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Man-of-the-match in the county final was Darragh O’Sullivan. His cousin Siofra O’Shea is the free-scoring Kerry ladies forward who recently won an All-Star.
His father was Frank O’Sullivan, who grew up in south Kerry and represented the region in two U21 county titles in 1987 and ’88.
He was, as he says, “in good company,” on those teams. Alongside him was Peter Keane and Maurice Fitzgerald. There was another promising player called Dermot Clifford who later went on to have two sons called Paudie and David.
When Frank joined the Gardai, he was stationed in Dublin and linked up with Erin’s Isle, losing two county finals alongside Charlie Redmond and the Barr brothers. He left the season they won the Dublin title.
His run of luck continued when he hooked up with Mungret. They got to the county final in 2001 and by then he was still holding down his place as one of the key figures.
“We landed into a final, it was new ground for Mungret at the time, even though I had lost two county finals in Dublin up above,” he says.
“On the day, it didn’t go our way. We were beaten by Drom-Broadford and they were really the standard bearers at that time. They had a good run at it after that. They would have won seven or eight, a Munster title and so on.”
To be able to watch Darragh turn on the style in the Limerick decider, was something else. And now, something else again to see him play against Kerry’s more decorated footballers in Dingle.
“They have serious players,” he cautions, “Paul Geaney, Tom O’Sullivan, they are on the road a long time, longer than Mungret.”
And then, he finishes with a typical Kerry flourish, “But sure look, we will go down there anyway. We will turn up and see what the story is.”
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Limerick's new champions Mungret gear up for glamour football fixture with Dingle
SOMETIMES IT DOESN’T matter a damn how you get there, as long as you get there.
For Mungret St Paul’s in Limerick, nobody was too interested in going over the fine details of their 0-12 to 1-5 win over Newcastle West in the county senior football final of 9 November.
Newcastle West were challenging for their fifth title in seven years.
Mungret hadn’t been in a final since 2001. In fact that was their only-ever final appearance, one they were wiped off the pitch by a Dromcollogher-Broadford side that was on the cusp of domestic domination.
So this was the first.
98 years in the making in some ways, and they celebrated accordingly.
The thing about them is, the more you dig, the more impressive it gets.
When Mungret was formed in 1927, they were in rural Limerick. Now, they are just outside the urban sprawl with the city of Limerick gradually eating up land, planting the University Hospital of Limerick in Mungret heartland in 1955.
And for years, they tipped away at a certain level. Hurling mainly, with a smattering of football that they fulfilled because it was there.
That was until 1976 and a group arrived that were good enough to take the Premier minor football championship. All of a sudden, they were now a dual club. No messin’.
Two years later they bought a parcel of land off the nearby Irish Cement company. 26 acres was a right stretch.
Some years later when the had club expanded with proper camogie and ladies football wings, they went looking for more. Land was there, but they hadn’t the bidding power to stave off property developers.
As is the way of these things, the property crash came. The developers went out of business and the land was taken over by NAMA. After ‘around 25’ meetings with Limerick County Council according to former chairman Donal Fitzgibbon, they got it for a song.
What you should do here now, is go onto the club website’s homepage and gasp in awe at the architect’s drawing of what the club facilities will resemble when completed.
Put it this way, few counties have anything like what Mungret will have, with a rough final estimate cost of €2 million.
So, how is that kind of financial outlay met?
“We went to all the businesses in the area and came up with 55 businesses. We invited each one of the businesses to come on board with a corporate commitment of €5,000 for five years. Depending on their size it could also be €2,500 or €1,000,” explains Fitzgibbon with the experience of a man who has rehearsed the pitch a thousand times.
That pitch, and many more like it. He was the county board chairman from 1998 to 2003, and the chairman of Feile na nÓg for another stretch. His wife, she keeps telling him, would be well-entitled to the Single Parent Payment.
“With that scheme, we were taking in around €550,000.
“We had ten major sponsors. We asked members to give us €25 a month, no strings attached. And out of that, we got about 280 members signed up with that.”
As well as that, they hit upon another way of generating cash, by hosting the ‘Ireland’s Fittest Family’ TV brainchild of Davy Fitzgerald.
“A very easy man to work with,” says Fitzgibbon. It brings in €60,000 per annum.
All the facilities are grand, but they haven’t taken their eye off the ball on the pitch at the same time.
Two years ago, they won the two county junior championships, two at U21 Premier level, and the intermediate football title.
Their hurling team has inched up through the ranks and will be playing in section 1 of senior hurling next year.
And of course their ladies have achieved outrageous success, when they won the All-Ireland ladies junior championship last year.
On Saturday at 1pm, their camogie side face Brian Borus in the Munster junior championship. They’re everywhere.
“We also have the One Club model. We have a chairperson for each element of the club, and Bord na nÓg,” says Fitzgibbon.
Every Saturday morning, they have a group of people who come along to the club facilities and provide an hour’s entertainment for the children in the area with special needs, their ‘Réaltaí’ club.
Two years ago, the senior hurlers had a serious win in the championship on a Friday night against Adare. The following morning, eight of the team were on duty, having the craic with all the Réaltaí.
The win against Newcastle West in the county senior football final has been celebrated.
As is the way of these things, they were captained by a Mayo man; John Hutton of Claremorris who had a spin in the Mayo senior team a decade ago.
Others to show up prominently was county star Killian Ryan.
They now face Kerry’s representatives Dingle in Austin Stack Park, Tralee, on Sunday in the Munster club semi-final (throw in 1pm, coverage on Clubber).
There is something of a Kerry flavour to Mungret.
Man-of-the-match in the county final was Darragh O’Sullivan. His cousin Siofra O’Shea is the free-scoring Kerry ladies forward who recently won an All-Star.
His father was Frank O’Sullivan, who grew up in south Kerry and represented the region in two U21 county titles in 1987 and ’88.
He was, as he says, “in good company,” on those teams. Alongside him was Peter Keane and Maurice Fitzgerald. There was another promising player called Dermot Clifford who later went on to have two sons called Paudie and David.
When Frank joined the Gardai, he was stationed in Dublin and linked up with Erin’s Isle, losing two county finals alongside Charlie Redmond and the Barr brothers. He left the season they won the Dublin title.
His run of luck continued when he hooked up with Mungret. They got to the county final in 2001 and by then he was still holding down his place as one of the key figures.
“We landed into a final, it was new ground for Mungret at the time, even though I had lost two county finals in Dublin up above,” he says.
“On the day, it didn’t go our way. We were beaten by Drom-Broadford and they were really the standard bearers at that time. They had a good run at it after that. They would have won seven or eight, a Munster title and so on.”
To be able to watch Darragh turn on the style in the Limerick decider, was something else. And now, something else again to see him play against Kerry’s more decorated footballers in Dingle.
“They have serious players,” he cautions, “Paul Geaney, Tom O’Sullivan, they are on the road a long time, longer than Mungret.”
And then, he finishes with a typical Kerry flourish, “But sure look, we will go down there anyway. We will turn up and see what the story is.”
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GAA Gaelic Football Limerick mungret Munster Club