THIS IS A very Irish love story.
At the heart of it is GAA, music and two childhood sweethearts. Emigration and a new life together in Hull forms the latest chapter.
There is also a German Shepherd, Polly, who lies fast asleep on the sitting room floor after a long walk in the east Yorkshire countryside when The42 dials in for a video call.
But before talk of Premier League hopes, Ireland ambitions and a new football education, there is only one place to start.
The beginning.
Sean McLoughlin and Aoife Piggott lived just down the road from each other in Cobh. Their fathers had been in the same class in school, forming a friendship that led to them playing together in numerous bands.
They’re still going strong today, just don’t ask McLoughlin for the name of the latest instalment. “Jeez, there have been so many,” he laughs.
They also also had a different kind of partnership with Cobh GAA. Des McLoughlin is the bassist who played centre back, Peter Piggott the drummer at centre forward.
As their families grew, Sean and Aoife soon arrived.
Sean’s mother, Mary, and older brother, Conor, also ensured music was a constant in the house. As the McLoughlin and Piggott families intertwined, bonds were strengthened.
Sean McLoughlin remembers picking up a guitar properly at the age of 10, setting up a band with Conor soon after and listening to Red Hot Chili Peppers on a loop for three years.
“Nothing but Red Hot Chili Peppers,” he adds for emphasis.
Music and GAA were constants, and so was Aoife.
By 16 McLoughlin was in a band with her brother, Peter Jnr. The Burma – named after the Burma Steps in Cobh – took inspiration from the likes of
The Smiths and The Strokes and last year they released their debut album.
McLoughlin had to give up on being part of that dream to follow another.
“Ah, I could have been a rockstar instead,” he laughs.
Other than football music is the biggest thing in my life. I still play every day. I always remember being surrounded by music growing up, it was always in the house.
“There was a stage around 17 and 18 when music was level with football so it could have gone a different way. But after Cork City gave me a chance football was the only winner.”
Not that it was a straightforward rise to England from the League of Ireland after his time at University College Cork (UCC). “I was that player in training who would lose the ball all of the time. I lacked confidence then.”
That soon changed, the left-sided centre back emerging as one of the brightest prospects in the country.
He signed for Hull in 2019 at the age of 22, with a loan spell at St Mirren preparing him further for the rigours of what was to come. Aoife, with her own career in law, moved over too.
“She has her own life, her own ambitions. Sometimes with a footballer it can become all about them,” McLoughlin adds.
Weeks like this, with a game against Cardiff City, and coming up against Ireland forward Callum Robinson, also helps sharpen the focus.
“Aoife will always say ‘Oh, you’re playing against this Irish player’, or after a game she will point it out, especially when we’ve won. It does add something, they are playing at the level that you want to get to, so you want to learn more from it.
“What they have achieved, it’s what I want to do too but you can’t stay up all night thinking about if that [Ireland] call will come. All I can control is what I am doing and my own form.”
McLoughlin takes “mental notes” from opponents’ play during games, adding them to the plethora of analysis that is prepared for him by the club. “Everyone will make a mistake, I don’t want to make the same one twice,” he reasons.
He has become central figure for a Hull side revitalised by new manager Liam Rosenior. Confidence is high that they are primed for a run during the second half of the season to get into the play-off places.
They’re 15th ahead of today’s game with Cardiff but just six points off sixth place.
“We all want to show that we deserve to be at that level,” McLoughlin says of his Premier League ambitions. “The manager makes us all believe we are good enough to get promoted.
“The lads have bought into what he has done, making us a much more possession-based side, because we can see we are on to something here. The motivation is to get to the Premier League and show that you belong at that level.”
The career trajectory of John Egan, who made his senior Ireland debut at 24 and now wears the armband for his country, is “an example I look up to” for his fellow Corkman.
But it’s Rosenior, in his first managerial role at the age of 38, who has already had a major impact on McLoughlin during the three months they have worked together.
“He’s not telling you to do something, he’s explaining why you should do something. When he breaks it down and makes sense of it, you see that he doesn’t want you to do something just because he has told you, it’s because it will affect something else in the game.
I’ve not had it before with a manager where it’s like that. Usually they tell you to be here and go there, but when it is broken down and you realise why we are doing things, it makes you understand more about the game.”
Rosenior also seems to have the personal touch, and the hope is that the loan signing of Ireland international Aaron Connolly, whom he worked with as a youngster at Brighton, can be a catalyst for further progression up the table.
“From the first conversation we had I felt he would do well for us,” McLoughlin adds of the striker who scored twice last weekend.
“He was very honest, he wasn’t one of those blaming other people. He felt he hadn’t been good enough in Italy [a loan deal with Venezia in Serie B was cut short] and fair play, he wants to get things back on the road with us here.
“It’s always good to have another Irish lad around. Cyrus [Christie] is another one. We have to look after each other . . . so if he (Aaron) wants to he knows he can always come here and stay with us.”
Not that McLoughlin will be getting the guitar out.
“Nah, nah. I’m not one of those lads who brings it everywhere. Lads would get sick s**t of me if I did that.”
