Darren Hughes greets his son Cillian and daughter Ava after hitting the winning penalty against Newbridge. Andrew Paton/INPHO
Stony grey soil
Hewn from the mountains and bog, Scotstown ache for this Ulster final
For a club with a rich tradition of winning Ulster club titles, this present generation have none, apart from three final defeats. And still they come.
YOU COULDN’T WRITE the coincidence of Scotstown running out this Saturday to face Kilcoo in the Ulster club final, on the very day of Tommy Moyna’s three-year anniversary.
Let us take you back 80 years to a tale that says a lot about Scotstown, opportunism, and just grabbing what you want with both hands, because sure as shit, ain’t nobody gonna hand you it.
Tommy and his twin brother Michael, known as Mackie to all, were just 15 when Scotstown decided to start fielding with the name of the town, rather than playing for Knockatallen or Tydavnet.
In the town, the Moynas were known. Their parents had returned home from America in the 1930s and their mother had purchased a business in the square. It’s still there today as a pub, the name above the door and the Scotstown crest painted six feet tall.
They played well enough that the county minor manager Pat McGrane wanted both of them. But this was the time of the emergency.
Tommy was a boarder in the local St Macartan’s in Monaghan town while Mackie was over in Dundalk with the Marists in St Mary’s, this anomaly explainable because he was a frail child and his mother felt he might be beefed up better over in Louth.
Therefore, Mackie played for Louth in that years Leinster minor competition while Tommy togged for Monaghan, who won the Ulster title.
On the day they beat Down in the final, Tommy got to Clones early. This being the time of The Emergency, kids hadn’t developed much of a taste for luxury. He passed the Venice Café that advertised ice cream on sale.
He had one and thought it the nicest thing he ever had. So he had another. And another. And one for the road. He scored a goal in the opening play of the game, but spewed his guts up on the trot back to his position, barely touching leather thereafter.
Having won Ulster, the county board brought the kids off for two weeks of collective training before the semi-final. Mackie was also given an invitation to join in, but wasn’t part of the official panel.
Long story short, they were playing Leitrim who may have had a few, let’s say, ‘hairy minors’ in the All-Ireland semi-final.
Near half-time, Tommy got a boot to his hand that broke his wrist. Tommy would have to go to hospital. It was another Scotstown man in Mick Duffy, father of former GAA Director General, Páraic, who took the jersey off him. And they put it onto Mackie, to play for his second team in that year’s minor championship!
This year, 80 years on, Tommy’s son Niall assisted Ger Brennan in winning the Leinster senior football championship, for Mackie’s temporarily adopted Louth.
***
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Try as she might, Gráinne McElwain just could not convince her husband, Gearóid MacDonnacha, to come live in Scotstown, and so they make do in the Connemara Gaeltacht.
Grainne McElwain. James Crombie / INPHO
James Crombie / INPHO / INPHO
She’s covered the biggest GAA days as a match day host, but she will be there with her father Seamus on Saturday night, just like old times when she grew up on a diet of success; in the blue and white of Scotstown and the white and blue of Monaghan.
“My father used to be chairman and would have been chairman in the ‘80s and then we did the new pitch in 1990/91 and he was chairman then as well,” she explains.
“So I was always with Daddy at these games, you were surrounded by these wonderful players at club and county level and took it as a tradition of success.
“You don’t realise that it doesn’t last forever and things can change very quickly too.”
Under their own steam, they landed their first Monaghan title in 1960 but Castleblayney Faughs was a juggernaut that could barely be slowed down.
From ’77 to ’85, the cup came home to Scotstown all but once. They added more here and there but after 1993, it was 20 years before they could win another one.
By then, they had a thicket of Monaghan stars in Rory Beggan, Darren and Kieran Hughes and Shane Carey. More stellar talents would arrive but this year they made it ten titles (the cup now being named after their own Mick Duffy) in 13 seasons.
They have lost three Ulster club finals in the same period to Crossmaglen (2015) and Gaoth Dobhair (2018) both in extra-time, while Glen squeezed them out by two points two years ago. The generations before them won it four times. And still they persevere.
The Scotstown parish is a big chunk of real estate. But much of it is starkly barren and elevated, such as Bragan Bog and Knockatallen. There are pretty villages of Tydavnet and Ballinode. Scotstown itself is a classic market town with the echoes of livestock traders barks still bouncing around the walls.
The parish swoops down right to the fringes of Monaghan town. They have their own premises at Páirc Mhuire, and a quite incredible separate training complex out by Ballinode. From one club has sprung a GAA President in Sean McCague, and Director-General Páraic Duffy.
Sean McCague and Páraic Duffy, two Scotstown men who ran the GAA. INPHO
INPHO
And just on that point, has any club produced such an administrative combo, not even counting Duffy’s aforementioned father Mick?
“I think it’s mainly in the ‘can-do’ attitude,” is McElwain’s assessment. “There’s no inferiority complex or a feeling that they can’t do this. I think that has always been the case with Scotstown, ‘why can’t we be Ulster or All-Ireland champions?’ “But there’s a mentorship and guardianship there too.”
Even the education system in Scotstown has been shaped by the club elders. Just down the road from the club grounds is Urbleshanny National School, where Sean McCague quickly became Principal early on in his teaching career.
When he left for another school in Monaghan town, his brother Gerard got the post. Today, Sean’s daughter Nuala is the Principal. His son David is the Scotstown manager, and Principal of St Macartan’s College.
And everywhere you look, there’s business going on. Stuck up at the very north nose of the Free State, cut off from their natural hinterlands of Armagh, Fermanagh and Tyrone by partition, this place could have been left to ruin rather than the thriving, industrious part of the world it is.
“I think it might be a border thing,” says McElwain. “You just realised you had to be self-sustainable. There was so much hardship going on that people realised they needed their own business because nobody was coming to help.
“I think there’s a spirit of helping yourself in Monaghan and being entrepreneurial. You see that in any recession, Monaghan people still do well.
“There was so many turkey factories, mushroom factories, people aren’t afraid of hard work in Monaghan. If you employ people from Monaghan, then you were getting a good, hard worker.
“And I think that was it. That spirit to make things happen, not to rely on other people.”
It wasn’t always so. In the ‘50s, the towns and townlands emptied many young men of 20 to England. What changed was the furniture plant opened by three Sherry brothers, Eddie, Pat and Jimmy.
If you could shoot a point accurately, then the employers would forgive a nail driven in half straight. Holding on to their youth brought the first championship in 1960 with five Sherrys on the team. As much as their population is mushrooming, the heart of Scotstown has always been a group of strong families.
It’s in the DNA, to be part of that tradition. It’s a cultural thing,” says McElwain.
“You are seeing kids like Tommy Mallon now, he is a nephew of Colm Morgan. His father Sean was a player.
“When Scotstown won a county title in 1993, it was another 20 years before they won the next one, which was unheard of in Scotstown. To go 20 years without a county was unbelievable. But then look at how successful in Monaghan they have been since 2013.
“And you have Shane Carey, his father was a player, Jack McCarron, Ray was involved, Kieran and Darren Hughes have been there for such a long time and their parents weren’t involved in football but they are now. Rory Beggan’s father Ben was involved…
Ray McCarron, Monaghan All-Star, Scotstown man, father of Jack. James Meehan / INPHO
James Meehan / INPHO / INPHO
“Miceál McCarville, son of Gerry, it’s kind of passed down from one generation to another and we are so blessed that they have so many great footballers.”
The team that got to the Ulster final 10 years ago has evolved, but still retains Beggan, Hughes x 2, Shane Carey, Damian McArdle and Conor McCarthy.
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A thing about them too is their sheer likeability as a team. Two days after winning his All-Star in 2018, Rory Beggan became the first goalkeeper of note to score from play when they met Burren in this competition.
You have the sheer grace and balance of Conor McCarthy and Jack McCarron. And Kieran Hughes whose unpredictability, and insistence on lathering sauce onto his passes and shots are often enough to justify the entrance price.
How about his brother Darren? You could easily picture this man hanging with one hand clamped around the skid pad of the last chopper leaving Saigon as the bullets fly.
Naturally, the shoot-out semi-final win over Newbridge and the manner of the game is still coursing through them.
That it was Darren Hughes at 39 who top-cornered his winning penalty flavours this tilt at the Ulster club with a Quixotic quality.
Yeah, sure, it’s Kilcoo in the final. And when these two met last year, the perennial Down champions hit four goals in eight minutes either side of the half-time break to burn off Scotstown. It’s easily forgotten how Kieran Hughes’ spectacular ‘mark’ point and Rory Beggan’s last-minute free that took them past Kilcoo in Newry the year before.
Scotstown are as seasoned as it gets. They are also ravenous. On Saturday evening, Grainne McElwain will be wrapping up daughter Eábha and sons Ferdia and Eoghan up against the Armagh cold.
For an hour, they will be as Scotstown as the Penal Cross on Bragan. There’s a hunger for this title.
“I think they need to win an Ulster title now,” she says. “For the older cohort of players, it is coming to the end for them and it’s crazy to believe that it’s 1989 since we last won an Ulster title and crazy to think of all the talent, all the intercounty players, since.
“So I hope they will seize the moment, that luck will go their way.”
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Hewn from the mountains and bog, Scotstown ache for this Ulster final
YOU COULDN’T WRITE the coincidence of Scotstown running out this Saturday to face Kilcoo in the Ulster club final, on the very day of Tommy Moyna’s three-year anniversary.
Let us take you back 80 years to a tale that says a lot about Scotstown, opportunism, and just grabbing what you want with both hands, because sure as shit, ain’t nobody gonna hand you it.
Tommy and his twin brother Michael, known as Mackie to all, were just 15 when Scotstown decided to start fielding with the name of the town, rather than playing for Knockatallen or Tydavnet.
In the town, the Moynas were known. Their parents had returned home from America in the 1930s and their mother had purchased a business in the square. It’s still there today as a pub, the name above the door and the Scotstown crest painted six feet tall.
They played well enough that the county minor manager Pat McGrane wanted both of them. But this was the time of the emergency.
Tommy was a boarder in the local St Macartan’s in Monaghan town while Mackie was over in Dundalk with the Marists in St Mary’s, this anomaly explainable because he was a frail child and his mother felt he might be beefed up better over in Louth.
Therefore, Mackie played for Louth in that years Leinster minor competition while Tommy togged for Monaghan, who won the Ulster title.
He had one and thought it the nicest thing he ever had. So he had another. And another. And one for the road. He scored a goal in the opening play of the game, but spewed his guts up on the trot back to his position, barely touching leather thereafter.
Having won Ulster, the county board brought the kids off for two weeks of collective training before the semi-final. Mackie was also given an invitation to join in, but wasn’t part of the official panel.
Long story short, they were playing Leitrim who may have had a few, let’s say, ‘hairy minors’ in the All-Ireland semi-final.
Near half-time, Tommy got a boot to his hand that broke his wrist. Tommy would have to go to hospital. It was another Scotstown man in Mick Duffy, father of former GAA Director General, Páraic, who took the jersey off him. And they put it onto Mackie, to play for his second team in that year’s minor championship!
This year, 80 years on, Tommy’s son Niall assisted Ger Brennan in winning the Leinster senior football championship, for Mackie’s temporarily adopted Louth.
***
Try as she might, Gráinne McElwain just could not convince her husband, Gearóid MacDonnacha, to come live in Scotstown, and so they make do in the Connemara Gaeltacht.
She’s covered the biggest GAA days as a match day host, but she will be there with her father Seamus on Saturday night, just like old times when she grew up on a diet of success; in the blue and white of Scotstown and the white and blue of Monaghan.
“My father used to be chairman and would have been chairman in the ‘80s and then we did the new pitch in 1990/91 and he was chairman then as well,” she explains.
“So I was always with Daddy at these games, you were surrounded by these wonderful players at club and county level and took it as a tradition of success.
“You don’t realise that it doesn’t last forever and things can change very quickly too.”
Under their own steam, they landed their first Monaghan title in 1960 but Castleblayney Faughs was a juggernaut that could barely be slowed down.
From ’77 to ’85, the cup came home to Scotstown all but once. They added more here and there but after 1993, it was 20 years before they could win another one.
By then, they had a thicket of Monaghan stars in Rory Beggan, Darren and Kieran Hughes and Shane Carey. More stellar talents would arrive but this year they made it ten titles (the cup now being named after their own Mick Duffy) in 13 seasons.
They have lost three Ulster club finals in the same period to Crossmaglen (2015) and Gaoth Dobhair (2018) both in extra-time, while Glen squeezed them out by two points two years ago. The generations before them won it four times. And still they persevere.
The Scotstown parish is a big chunk of real estate. But much of it is starkly barren and elevated, such as Bragan Bog and Knockatallen. There are pretty villages of Tydavnet and Ballinode. Scotstown itself is a classic market town with the echoes of livestock traders barks still bouncing around the walls.
The parish swoops down right to the fringes of Monaghan town. They have their own premises at Páirc Mhuire, and a quite incredible separate training complex out by Ballinode. From one club has sprung a GAA President in Sean McCague, and Director-General Páraic Duffy.
And just on that point, has any club produced such an administrative combo, not even counting Duffy’s aforementioned father Mick?
“I think it’s mainly in the ‘can-do’ attitude,” is McElwain’s assessment. “There’s no inferiority complex or a feeling that they can’t do this. I think that has always been the case with Scotstown, ‘why can’t we be Ulster or All-Ireland champions?’ “But there’s a mentorship and guardianship there too.”
Even the education system in Scotstown has been shaped by the club elders. Just down the road from the club grounds is Urbleshanny National School, where Sean McCague quickly became Principal early on in his teaching career.
When he left for another school in Monaghan town, his brother Gerard got the post. Today, Sean’s daughter Nuala is the Principal. His son David is the Scotstown manager, and Principal of St Macartan’s College.
And everywhere you look, there’s business going on. Stuck up at the very north nose of the Free State, cut off from their natural hinterlands of Armagh, Fermanagh and Tyrone by partition, this place could have been left to ruin rather than the thriving, industrious part of the world it is.
“I think it might be a border thing,” says McElwain. “You just realised you had to be self-sustainable. There was so much hardship going on that people realised they needed their own business because nobody was coming to help.
“I think there’s a spirit of helping yourself in Monaghan and being entrepreneurial. You see that in any recession, Monaghan people still do well.
“There was so many turkey factories, mushroom factories, people aren’t afraid of hard work in Monaghan. If you employ people from Monaghan, then you were getting a good, hard worker.
“And I think that was it. That spirit to make things happen, not to rely on other people.”
It wasn’t always so. In the ‘50s, the towns and townlands emptied many young men of 20 to England. What changed was the furniture plant opened by three Sherry brothers, Eddie, Pat and Jimmy.
If you could shoot a point accurately, then the employers would forgive a nail driven in half straight. Holding on to their youth brought the first championship in 1960 with five Sherrys on the team. As much as their population is mushrooming, the heart of Scotstown has always been a group of strong families.
“You are seeing kids like Tommy Mallon now, he is a nephew of Colm Morgan. His father Sean was a player.
“When Scotstown won a county title in 1993, it was another 20 years before they won the next one, which was unheard of in Scotstown. To go 20 years without a county was unbelievable. But then look at how successful in Monaghan they have been since 2013.
“And you have Shane Carey, his father was a player, Jack McCarron, Ray was involved, Kieran and Darren Hughes have been there for such a long time and their parents weren’t involved in football but they are now. Rory Beggan’s father Ben was involved…
“Miceál McCarville, son of Gerry, it’s kind of passed down from one generation to another and we are so blessed that they have so many great footballers.”
The team that got to the Ulster final 10 years ago has evolved, but still retains Beggan, Hughes x 2, Shane Carey, Damian McArdle and Conor McCarthy.
A thing about them too is their sheer likeability as a team. Two days after winning his All-Star in 2018, Rory Beggan became the first goalkeeper of note to score from play when they met Burren in this competition.
You have the sheer grace and balance of Conor McCarthy and Jack McCarron. And Kieran Hughes whose unpredictability, and insistence on lathering sauce onto his passes and shots are often enough to justify the entrance price.
Naturally, the shoot-out semi-final win over Newbridge and the manner of the game is still coursing through them.
That it was Darren Hughes at 39 who top-cornered his winning penalty flavours this tilt at the Ulster club with a Quixotic quality.
Yeah, sure, it’s Kilcoo in the final. And when these two met last year, the perennial Down champions hit four goals in eight minutes either side of the half-time break to burn off Scotstown. It’s easily forgotten how Kieran Hughes’ spectacular ‘mark’ point and Rory Beggan’s last-minute free that took them past Kilcoo in Newry the year before.
Scotstown are as seasoned as it gets. They are also ravenous. On Saturday evening, Grainne McElwain will be wrapping up daughter Eábha and sons Ferdia and Eoghan up against the Armagh cold.
For an hour, they will be as Scotstown as the Penal Cross on Bragan. There’s a hunger for this title.
“I think they need to win an Ulster title now,” she says. “For the older cohort of players, it is coming to the end for them and it’s crazy to believe that it’s 1989 since we last won an Ulster title and crazy to think of all the talent, all the intercounty players, since.
“So I hope they will seize the moment, that luck will go their way.”
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Club GAA GAA Gaelic Football Kilcoo Scotstown Stony grey soil Ulster Final