THOSE WHO TOIL in among the stony grey soil tend to take a look at the eye-watering figures of city clubs with huge envy.
Na Fianna, the Dublin ‘Superclub’ (is there any other type of club in Dublin?), have somewhere just a few short of 4,000 members.
The vast majority will be making the short skite down the road to Croke Park on Saturday to see their senior hurlers take the field there for the first time against O’Loughlin Gaels of Kilkenny in the Leinster hurling final.
Around 10% of that figure are adults who play the sports. Somewhere in the region of 1,000 children are scampering about in the blue and gold.
But some threads run through GAA clubs no matter what the numbers or difficulties.
GAA clubs aren’t really ‘clubs’. They are groups of families.
Take the Feeneys. Pat Feeney was a founding member. He hailed from Derrynane Parade, close to the Mater Hospital.
If he walked out his back door, he could see Croke Park. He was a player for CJ Kickhams.
They were predominantly geared towards football and drew most of their players from those who worked as drapers in the city centre for the likes of Cleary’s, Dwyer’s and Arnotts.
They were a big outfit. But not big enough that they could absorb the loss of 201 members to a new club being formed, calling themselves Na Fianna, who had identified a ski slope on the Mobhi Road to play their games.
The founding itself had a fair bit of controversy about it. On the 60th anniversary, a club newsletter commemorating a three-day long celebration of their establishment made mention that; ‘The founder members had shown tremendous enterprise in the establishment of our great club sixty years ago.
‘Not for them the soft option of staying put, tolerating mediocrity and not doing anything to rock the boat. These were men of enterprise, initiative, ambition, vision and drive.
‘They were prepared to make sacrifices and were imbued with a steely determination to succeed.’
Who better to bring us in deeper than Pat’s son, Declan, a man who has coached all of the present seniors on their way to, and including senior hurling?
“It was predominantly over Juveniles and how they were going to manage Juveniles,” he begins.
“The rest of the players that were left, the club just sort of ended up and some of the players would have ended up playing with Ballymun Kickhams. A lot of them were probably living up here. I am actually living on a Ballymun Kickhams road.”
His own father, Pat, was on that 1954 minor team. He won All Ireland minor titles that year in both football and hurling and his club was listed as CJ Kickhams. The following year, he stepped onto the pitch as a Na Fianna player. Influenced by his older brothers, of course, but significant nonetheless.
His best friend in those days and then forever, was Noel Clerkin. He came from ten doors up on the same row of houses and when it came to growing up and finding a job, they joined the Gardai together.
Noel’s grandson is Diarmuid Clerkin, corner-back on this team. Pat has two; midfielder Peter and panel member Oisin; Declan’s sons.
Declan himself rolled off the assembly plant of some of their successful minor teams of the early ‘80s. And then after 1985, there was nothing for 15 years. Some years, they had to amalgamate with another local club, Setanta, to get hurling at that age.
And then in 2000, a crop of minors landed out of the blue, including the present current manager, Niall Ó Ceallachain.
Na Fianna were up and running and Feeney spent several years coaching in and out of the club, including a spell as a mentor of the Dublin Colleges team that won the 2006 All-Ireland and Dublin minors.
They have piled generation upon generation to create something out of very little, making the last three finals and finally reversing the two defeats to Kilmacud Crokes by beating Ballyboden in the decider.
By and large, hurling had become a south Dublin preserve. Not since Craobh Chiaráin’s win in 2006 has the trophy wintered north of the Liffey.
“We have Brian Ryan and (Liam, formerly of St Pat’s Palmerstown) Rushy, but the other 37 are all Na Fianna. I have Oisin and Peter. I am lucky,” says Feeney.
“But there are so many who have put some effort into this. It is not a quick fix.
“We are getting to enjoy the benefits and the fruit of it, because it is a winning senior team. But watching a winning underage team to me is just as important, because that’s where the next ones are going to come from.”
Then, you have the Cooper family. The most famous of that Clann is undoubtedly Jonny, who wrote his name into history as a Dublin senior footballer.
His own grandfather, Brendan Deignan was a Cavan footballer who played in the 1955 All-Ireland semi-final and became a Na Fianna founder member the same year.
His brothers are heavily invested in the club. Niall Cooper is the Coaching Officer, and Mark Cooper is the club’s Games Promotion Officer who travels around coaching in the local schools.
“Na Fianna is part of our blood,” says Niall.
“Our grandfather was a founding member, our parents would have met in Na Fianna.
“When you look at it like that, it’s probably the same small core of people involved, and then we have some brilliant mentors and parents and people like that who bring the kids through juvenile.
“Those core hurling people have been around for years and years. There’s not a huge number of those.
“We had never won a hurling championship so this is all new ground to us. When the club were successful back around the ‘99 – 2001 from a football point of view it was a massive boon to the nursery, let’s say, to football and hurling.
“So this would be my hope, that the young kids would look up to the players and aspire to play hurling, but also play football as well and give the club a bit of a boost.”
The walk down along Botanic Avenue and through Drumcondra will be a satisfying one for Declan Feeney.
“It was never a drag,” he says of all the years spent toiling on the pitches.
“It was something that gave me great drive to keep me going. We knew we were doing things right at underage and that it would come right.
“And to be fair, not too many teams go to three county finals in a row. Not too many manage to come back after getting beaten the second time, it’s a testament to what the young lads and the management have to offer.
“This year has been a dream, in that when they got the fellas back during the summer, they have got better throughout the year.”
There’s a finality to it. His father started the club. For most of his life he has strapped the yoke to his back and ploughed his way to this stage, sending two sons along to Croke Park.
“It’s hugely satisfying and I am hugely proud to have been a small part of it. “I trained a lot of them. And I always told them they would play in Croke Park wearing the senior jersey. And it has come true.”
– Updated 6 December: An earlier version of this article incorrectly stated that prior to 2023, no northside club had won the Dublin SHC since 2002; Craobh Ciaráin were the last northside club to win in 2006.